Suvudu Universe

Jean (Julie Graham), Susan (Anna Maxwell Martin), Lucy (Sophie Rundle), and Millie (Rachael Stirling), the Bletchley Circle.

I recently stumbled across The Bletchley Circle on Netflix and I thoroughly enjoyed this show.  It is an interesting amalgam of a period piece set in 1950s England combined with statistical and analytic sensibilities that are more common in today’s modern society. The show centers around Susan and her three friends, Jean, Lucy and Millie who worked together in a secret government code breaking bureau during World War II. These friends have largely lost touch in the post-war years but Susan’s interest in a string of murders that the press is publicizing and that the police are saying are connected gets her active mind trying to solve the case. When her first attempt to find a pattern and find another victim fails, she recruits her friends to help her out.

PBS’s Description:

With an extraordinary flair for code breaking and razor-sharp intelligence skills, four seemingly ordinary women become the unlikely investigators of a string of grisly murders in this original thriller, set against the backdrop of post-war London.

It’s 1951 and Susan, played by two-time BAFTA award-winner Anna Maxwell Martin, Millie (Rachael Stirling, Women in Love), Lucy (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art graduate Sophie Rundle) and Jean (Julie Graham, William & Mary, Survivors) have returned to post-war domesticity, modestly setting aside the part they played in the Allied victory. Their brilliant work at top security HQ Bletchley Park helped crack the codes used by the German military, producing crucial intelligence that shortened the war.

 

Susan’s conventionality masks a sharp, inquisitive mind. She may appear every inch the typical 1950s wife and mother, but when she hears about a string of unsolved murders in London, Susan’s old Bletchley spirit is ignited. With her handwritten charts of numbers, dates and times, and lines of wool connecting the dots on her wall map, Susan has spotted a pattern of behaviour in the killer that no one else sees. Unaware of her background, the police dismiss Susan’s theories causing her to realise that the only way she can solve the murders is with the help of her friends.

Secretly, Susan reconvenes the formidable foursome – bohemian and streetwise Millie; Lucy, with her brilliant photographic memory and Jean, the methodical no-nonsense organiser. A race against the clock ensues as the women work to outwit the culprit. Can they rekindle their singular expertise and discover the killer’s next move – before he strikes again?

It is interesting to see these four women in stereotypical roles when we meet them, Susan is a homemaker to a successful and rising government employee, Millie is a waitress, Lucy is a homemaker to a real jerk of a husband, and Jean is a librarian. While there is nothing wrong with being a homemaker, a waitress or a librarian, it is clear that there is something missing in these women’s lives and that they are not using their skills and talents. How do you go from cracking Nazi codes to solving puzzle books and crossword puzzles?

As we meet and learn more about these four women, we learn that as much as they need the intellectual stimulation of their new investigation they also need the relationship that they had with each other.

The content of the show is a bit mature given the nature of crimes they are investigating, so this isn’t one I would suggest watching with children.

If you enjoy mystery stories then I highly suggest this gem of a show, all three episodes of season one are now available on Netflix.