I've called it a historic drama because from the perspective of the 2020s, that's how it looks; it is not a criticism. It is set in the Seventies and early Eighties and social attitudes and living conditions were very different then, and so was Britain's political situation. But it is engaging and realistic, well worth watching by a current audience and it's a pity it seems to have been forgotten.
It is very realistic and tells the story very much from the soldiers' point of view. The first series in particular shows them 'peacekeeping' in Northern Ireland in a political situation they didn't fully understand and where keeping the peace was next to impossible. The second series has 6 Platoon doing a tour of duty near the East German border during the Cold War. The third series shows the British army having to do a thankless policing role in Hong Kong, Of course, Britain's relationship to all three places has changed considerably since the late Seventies. In all three series the stories show how the demands of their work affect the soldiers' personal and family lives: some families eventually resent being forced to move with their fathers/husbands every time they get posted somewhere new; there are misunderstandings between the soldiers and civilian friends who don't appreciate the nature of military work; one soldier takes to beating his wife and thinks the nature of his army job is what has brought out a violent streak in him, and ultimately has to decide between his family and staying in the army. These various sources of conflict and how the characters - or the army - resolves them make for an excellent drama. It is very character driven, and in spite of a few of them having unsympathetic traits, I found myself rooting for them through their various difficulties. The acting is good, with the exception of one or two minor characters and Lorna Heilbron, in series three,who simply isn't convincing as Lt. Pickering's femme fatale girlfriend.
Series one is probably the best of the three for being the only one with a continuous theme: In it, Colour Sergeant Jackson is given command of B Platoon, although the senior officers have doubts that a non-commissioned officer is capable of leadership and they disapprove of his appointment and expect - or hope - he will fail. Meanwhile his success as a leader is constantly under threat by issues that arise within his platoon - men going AWOL, having personal and family issues that undermine their efficiency and army discipline. In series two, Colour Sergeant Jackson has moved on, and is replaced by an upper class Lieutenant Pickering, straight out of Sandhurst with no practical military experience. The platoon he is given to command, on the other hand, have done tours of duty in Northern Ireland and on the East German border and have been under fire several times. The platoon sergeant and sergeant major agree that they will need to "show him the ropes", but subsequently little is made of this initial premise, that the platoon might have an incompetent commanding officer. The rest of the episodes in series two are stand alone stories. Lt Pickering causes trouble only once, when he breaks East German law and in doing so tests the loyalty of his men. Similarly, series three consists mostly of stand alone stories. In this the soldiers are in Hong Kong, at a time when Britain still 'owned', or at least, administered it and was responsible for its security. For the soldiers, this means they are employed on night work patrolling the swamps round the border, finding and arresting illegal immigrants who try to cross into Hong Kong from China, in the hope of finding work and better money. It is thankless, dirty work (often literally so since the soldiers regularly have to wade through swamp mud to arrest people), more a policing than a military job. But the soldiers are in potential danger from the people smuggling gangs who run a lucrative business taking money from the illegals to get them into Hong Kong, a business they are prepared to defend with murder and blackmail.
I'm one of the reviewers who is old enough to have seen this when it was first broadcast and, I wouldn't call it a nostalgia trip, but for me it is an interesting reminder of what the Seventies were like: flared trousers, wind-up alarm clocks, dinky television sets with no such thing as a remote control, static telephones, computerless offices. And male chauvinism and casual racism. The last two things don't date the series much because they are in the context of their time, and I didn't find them uncomfortable. But some people might. In particular, there are two scenes in which characters use the N word and I can't see those scenes being broadcast on a mainstream platform now without them being edited or over-dubbed. The word is just too offensive.
To answer comments by a few other reviewers, all three series have been issued on DVD, apparently around 2007-2008, but they don't seem to have been reissued since then and it is getting difficult to get new copies. I got a new DVD for series 3 but had to wait to get used copies of series 1 and 2. A few people who left reviews on the website of a certain well-known online retailer of books and DVDs, complained about the picture quality. It's true the DVDs don't look like they were remastered, they have the picture quality typical of Seventies/early Eighties broadcasts, the picture isn't perfectly sharp and some of the outdoor scenes are a bit dark. But since I was brought up when all television was in black and white, and can remember home viewing on VHS tapes, I'm not too fussy about picture quality as long as I can see what I'm looking at. The DVDs of the series are perfectly watchable.
By the way, Spearhead bears no comparison with Soldier, Soldier. Soldier, Soldier is bland. This is not.
