I'm beginning to believe that 1992 could be the nadir of British television. We seemed to have been bombarded with a whole heap of leaden paced anti-establishment "drama" and Civvies is possibly the worst.
There's terrible over-acting from all concerned. Jason Issacs looks more like Prince Barin in "Flash Gordon" and Peter O'Toole isn't an East End gangster. O'Toole is a brilliant actor, the best of his generation and cruelly denied an Oscar but he's no cockney gangster. No one comes across as convincing in any way, and the "action" and fight scenes are so poorly done. Is this from the same country that gave us "The Sweeny", "The Professionals" and "Target"? La Plante's script will have you believe that all ex-army soldiers are psychopathic time bombs waiting to go off in civilian life. The cop show "Between the Lines" stuck the knife in to the police and "Civvies" tries to do the same for the army. TV producers and networks back then just seemed to hate any government organisation and so gave us these shows. Have they forgotten that these people are responsible for saving lives and protecting their safety?
