Critic Reviews
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The wildly incongruous but perfectly chosen rock soundtrack, the cool freeze-frames, the fist fights, the banter and of course the battle scenes are all unashamedly exciting – and the Sicily landing, with Mayne’s men dodging Italian bullets under powdery grey moonlight, is as cool as hell. It’s a thrill to watch O’Connell and his boys charge on.
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Several of his new recruits are compelling in a brutal kind of way, with Mark Rowley a hilariously unhinged Jock McDiarmid, and Theo Barklem-Biggs’s Reg Seekings getting a particularly disturbing storyline later on. But it’s the contrast between Mayne and his new superior, Gwilym Lee’s suave Bill Stirling (brother of the SAS “midwife” David, now languishing in a prison with a beard), that distinguishes the early episodes.
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The SAS Rogue Heroes may not yet have reached the same height of popularity as the Peaky Blinders, and maybe they never will. But if this season is anything to go by, they will give it a damn good shot.
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The series picks up around midway through when Stirling comes back into the picture – both Bill (Swindells) and his brother David (Lee), who is set up as the stuffed shirt trying to rein in the vagabonds, but who ends up in some of the best two-handers with O’Connell. Theo Barklem-Briggs’s Reg Seekings gets a well-earned storyline to himself, as does newcomer Jack Barton.
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Beyond the rock video dynamics, it’s a heartfelt show about combat, courage and the psychological havoc wreaked on even the bravest of souls.
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SAS Rogue Heroes is, frankly, subtle in the way an earthquake is subtle, but then that’s rather the point. War is loud, and war is hell. It is also, from the perspective of this series opener, an absolute hoot. It looks like it’s going to be a bumpy ride, chaps. Strap in.