Guerrilla

After half an hour of the first episode I decided to Google reviews of this show and I wasn't completely surprised to find that there were quite a few negative reviews of 'Guerilla' and most of them came from the UK.

I'm going to add to them. It's terrible: imagine a Quentin Tarantino directed version of 'Love Thy Neighbour' or 'Till Death Us Do Part' and you aren't far off. Clichés abound, historical accuracy is irrelevant, all of the characters are stereotypes and it was so dire that I think even one star is doing it a favour.

Britain in the early 1970s wasn't perfect, but 'Guerilla' is terrible and could only be improved with a laughter track. Utter, utter nonsense. Avoid.

The erasure of a BW is more than enough for 1 stars. So disappointed that they didn't think it was important to use a black women as the main character and the director thought it was no big deal because he is married to an Indian. So glad that this film series is not succeeding the way it should be and I really hope that it stays that way. Will not be supporting this utter trash.

I wanted to like this. I don't get Sky Atlantic so bought the DVD for 10 pounds. I was 11 in 1971 so know to some extent what things looked and sounded like then.

The whole tone of the thing is false.

Britain was a racist society then (still is to some extent?) but I don't believe news reports would sound like they were National Front members. I used to watch a British TV show called Special Branch (ITV),it was set in London in the 1970s and it got the jargon and the look right. More recently the BBC did a drama called THE YEAR London BLEW UP,it was great,captured the era perfectly.

I was not surprised when I found out the writer is American,he has obviously done some research but he could have done with some local input. I will stick with it,I am half way through it,it might work as a drama but I wish it was more realistic.

How interesting that UK-based reviewers see this show as rubbish and USA reviewers see it as some brilliant piece of true drama. I think the latter haven't got a clue what they are talking about in the same way as the writer, director and producers haven't. Believe me and the others above who have said that 1972 was the height of working-class struggle in the UK when workers were more militant than ever, including on the question of racism and internationalism. The National Front (a UK neo-Nazi small organisation) was not really going then so why depict it as if it was? White anti-racists including skinheads were active with their ethnic minority neighbours and workmates throughout the 1970s but are not shown here. USA viewers and readers need to understand that though still to this day things need improving the UK is nowhere near as racist to its core as the USA is. There is nothing like the same racial ghettoisation of neighbourhoods, towns and cities as there is in the USA, no organisation as horrific as the KKK, and so on. Apart from that clanger there are so many anachronisms that I don't know where to begin, as well as good actors like Rory Kinnear giving terrible performances. At best this is a perverse comedy, causing me to howl with laughter. At worst it will give any USA viewer and younger UK viewers a completely false idea of the very real issues this confection attempts to address. After the dodgy story behind 12 Years A Slave this writer is definitely one to avoid in future.

The strength of the names in front of camera and behind it was what brought me to watch this series, despite not knowing much about the story. Our focus is a group of young people who break a political prisoner out of jail, forming a terrorist cell, and fighting directly against the Government and Police's attempts to quash any black power uprising in the UK in the 1970s. As a world it sounds interesting, and it is all delivered with high production values and a sense of time. However it doesn't hang together tonally or in terms of content – and I'm not sure why.

We jump around with characters and tones for the whole 6 hours. At times it is almost playful, others tragic; it focuses on messy romantic relationship and affairs; but it doesn't manage to produce a sense of things building as a whole – but rather it remains fragmented across characters, situations, and tone. It does do enough to be engaging, but it is never really compelling or gripping, and I think this is down to its construction as a drama. As I say, cast and production values are all good and plenty to comment on, but they are mostly well served in the moment rather than the sweep.

That said, for all its faults, it is too well made to be bad; I enjoyed it while also wanting more from it – and the conclusion felt like a cop-out to get a second season, while also getting rid of its biggest scheduling challenge if it did go ahead.