Steven Knight recently admitted that his new series, the somewhat awkwardly titled SAS Rogue Heroes, shares "sort of a theme" with his most famous work, Peaky Blinders.
In truth, it's not just a theme that SAS shares with Peaky: it's a tone, a sensibility, and a style. This series may take place thousands of miles away from Tommy Shelby's Birmingham hometown, but in many ways the two series are two sides of the same coin.
This is by no means a criticism - Peaky Blinders went from a relatively minor BBC Two gem to a worldwide sensation for a reason and therefore any comparison between the two shows is to the strength of SAS. It's safe to say that fans of Knight's previous work will not be disappointed.
Stars: Connor Swindells, Jack O'Connell, Alfie Allen
SAS Rogue Heroes takes place in 1941 and traces the incredible true story of the creation of the Special Air Service, a parachute regiment born from the unlikely combination of a disinformation campaign and the whims of Lieutenant David Stirling.
It's a much more plot-focused series than Peaky, which naturally comes with a firmer ground in reality. Where that series used a real-life gang to explore the inner turmoil of a fictional character, this is a much more traditional historical drama, adding tonal and textural flourishes to real-life events.
This series is not that. At its heart, it's an exciting old-fashioned game, one that doesn't avoid the horrors of war but instead skirts around it. The series acknowledges the terror that these men went through, but it's not front and center. This is entertainment with a capital E, full of gunfights, parachute jumps, espionage and high-stakes missions. Oh, and lots of explosions.
To emphasize this, the series resorts to the hackneyed trick of modernizing the aesthetics and characters to the brink of credulity. For every wartime ditty played through a gramophone, the series' soundtrack blasts a series of rock and heavy metal tunes, while the on-screen titles scream at the audience in a graffiti-style font.
Meanwhile, Stirling wanders the sands of North Africa in American-style aviator sunglasses, pouting and talking to his superiors. In general, the dialogue is cheerfully anachronistic and playful.
For some, this may clash with the historical context, but Knight and his team know his audience. War stories have been told on the big and small screen time and time again, and to stand out they have chosen to focus on how it speaks to our current times.
The Rogue Heroes title does a lot of heavy lifting, as Knight once again examines the men (and they are actually almost entirely men) who achieve greatness through inexplicable means, on the fringes of society - a story as old as time and that will surely still remain. speak to modern audiences. The setting also helps the series stand out, with the North African backdrop and desert imagery actually appearing on screen.
Stirling is played by Sex Education's Connor Swindells, and to be clear, this series wouldn't work as well as it does without his hugely charismatic, sometimes charming, sometimes bristling performance.
Stirling is a significantly less tortured protagonist than Peaky's Tommy Shelby, but he's still a richly drawn protagonist and every time he appears on screen, the drama is appropriately elevated. He's still a messy, complex individual who is ultimately easy to root for, exactly the type Knight loves to unpack.
Watch SAS Rogue Heroes 2022 Review
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