A quick word on this British wartime soap-opera

*** Spoiler ahead ***

I watched some of that show because it featured John Nettles, but it's rather dated and gets tedious, despite some good acting performances. It also doesn't help that out of the fifty-two episodes that were produced, eight of them are in black and white (eight, ha-ha, right in your face, viewers !). The story is set in Liverpool (a big nest of spooks).

A young John Nettles (who really looks like the peerage boy he actually is) is cast as Doctor Ian Mackenzie, who later becomes Freda Ashton's husband. For the actor, "Family at War" was a springboard to bigger series such as "Bergerac" and "Midsomer Murders".

What a pity that the best-looking actress in the series, Liza Ross (as Mary Ramsden, the doctor's ex-wife) appears in just one episode ! (Season 03, Episode 08 "Take it on trust").

Some of the dialogues are "enlightening". For example in Season 03, episode 14 ("The Sensible Thing"), there are a couple of quick lines exchanged between Sefton Briggs (played by John McKelvey) and businessman & fraudster Trevor Howells (played by Leonard Sachs) :

"My theory is that Hitler isn't dead at all, he escaped to South America."

"Yes, it wouldn't surprise me a bit."

And how about this one, bitterly delivered by Freda (Season 03, Episode 19) :

"A woman's place isn't in a home anymore, you know. It's in the factories, and the fields, and the schools, and anywhere else where there's bob to be earned...we've been emancipated by the war you know ; it's all part of the masterplan to exterminate the race."

Little nuggets of truth coming out of the serial lying mouths, in the form of inside jokes... Not to mention the agents who pretend to be from the lower classes. Just the usual tricks, I suppose.