I watched the whole series of The Guardians through the day. It's a 1971 British TV show about Britain being under totalitarian rule. It's slightly in the future, the 80s, so it's slightly science fiction. It's created by Rex Firkin and Vincent Tilsley. Vincent wrote the first episode and Hugh Whitemore, John Bowen, Monty Poole, Arden Winch and Jonathan Hales wrote the rest. Directing is by Robert Tronson, James Goddard, Tony Wharmby, Mike Newell, Brian Parker, Derek Bailey and Moira Armstrong. The only one out of all of those people was Mike Newell.
England has had a bit of a financial and political collapse, the General has taken over. He runs things through his own people, he rarely appears in public. The Guardians are British version of Gestapo. Their main enemy in the country are the communists, they get a lot of blame for just about anything bad that happens. News is restricted, people are arrested for speaking out, some disappear, never to be seen again. The Queen and family have left the country and they refuse to return until democracy is restored.
We follow various people around, the Prime Minster and his son, a Captain in The Guardians and his wife, a psychiatrist and his wife, there's a lot of character development in just those 6 people. Of course they affect dozens of characters. Some get killed. There's a resistance in the Quarmby's, they don't know who any of the other cells are, they act alone and more people die.
I knew some of the cast. Gwyneth Powell plays the wife of the Guardians' captain. I most recently saw her in Man Down, playing Greg Davies's mum. She was pretty funny and she's OK in The Guardians. It was only her second TV role, she would have plenty more.
Cyril Luckham plays the Prime Minister. He's been in all sorts of TV programs, I've seen him in Doctor Who playing a character called The Guardian and the White Guardian. He was in a couple of episodes of The Famous Five series from 1978.
That's Graham Crowden from the episode The Dirtiest Man In The World. He is pretty dirty and smelly. Graham has been in all sorts of TV over his 58 year career. That's a Quamby lying there with an umbrella stuck through him. That's Graham's work. The Quamby deserved it, he was going to have Graham killed after he had gotten what he wanted out of him. John Rhys-Davies plays a Guardian soldier.
All in all The Guardians was kind of interesting but why too talky. It's got 13 episodes of about 50 mins each and they're packed with dialog. In the 2nd last episode Gwyneth and the psychiatrist's wife have a conversation for half the show. Everyone discusses everything but much of the conversation doesn't amount to much. I would have preferred a shorter series with a bit more action. The other issue hangs on the lack of a second series. The show ends unresolved. I would have liked it better if it had been a complete story. Glad to have seen it and it seems kind of pertinent now.
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