Churchill's Secret Agents: The New Recruits | |
---|---|
Genre | Reality |
Narrated by | Douglas Henshall |
Country of origin | United Kingdom United States |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 1 |
No. of episodes | 5 |
Production | |
Executive producers | Dan Gold Cate Hall |
Camera setup | Multi-camera set-up |
Running time | 45-48 minutes |
Production company | Wall to Wall Media |
Original release | |
Network | BBC Netflix |
Release | 9 April – 8 May 2018 |
Churchill's Secret Agents: The New Recruits, [1] originally released as Secret Agent Selection: WW2 in the UK, is a BBC television programme produced by Wall to Wall in association with Netflix. The five-part series was originally broadcast from Monday 29 June to Tuesday 8 May 2018. [2]
This "living history" series reconstructs the training programme of one of the Second World War's most covert organizations. Fourteen modern day recruits undertake the same rigorous physical and psychological assessments as the 1940s candidates for the Special Operations Executive. The programme follows their progress to determine if they have what it takes to be an agent of SOE and fight the Nazis in occupied Europe. [3]
The SOE was a civilian part of wartime British intelligence, responsible for sabotage and espionage. The organization recruited ordinary citizens from all backgrounds and walks of life, and put them through gruelling training to extract the traits necessary to be an SOE agent deep in enemy territory.
Filming occurred in Scotland on the Alvie and Dalraddy Estates in the Cairngorms area, and Forglen House and estate in Aberdeenshire. [4]
The Trainers:
The Recruits:
In the first episode of the series, the 14 prospective recruits were put through an initial four-day selection process, to determine which candidates would proceed to training. As per the 1940s, the recruits were graded according to a colour code scheme, which was displayed on a blackboard using poker chips. The board made only fleeting appearances on screen and in the later stages looked like this:
Recruits | Observational | Mechanical | Morse | Obstacle | Verbal | Blocks | Matrices | Psychology | Groupstacle | Pond Test |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ali | ? | |||||||||
Bajaj | ? | |||||||||
Barris | ? | |||||||||
Beauclerk | ? | |||||||||
Beresford-Davies | ||||||||||
Camara | ||||||||||
Clitheroe | ||||||||||
Copsey | ||||||||||
Dewhirst | ||||||||||
Jeffreys | ||||||||||
Stanley | ||||||||||
Stone | ||||||||||
Thomas | ||||||||||
Wright |
No. overall | No. in season | Title | Original air date | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | "Selection" | April 9, 2018 (UK) / June 29, 2018 (US) | |
The series opens by charting the beginnings of SOE. The students face the Student Assessment Board - an intense 4-day course to discover who has the raw talent to progress to the full training. DAY 1
DAY 2
DAY 3
DAY 4
After deliberation, the training officers decided which four recruits would not move forward to training. The eliminated recruits were Charlotte Beauclerk, Maria Ceebe Camara, Paul Stone, and Vicki Wright. The remaining Recruits were loaded into a truck and taken to their first day of training. Note: Some or all of the recruits also took part in a Verbal Skills test, a Kohs block design test, Raven's Progressive Matrices, a Psychological evaluation, and a "Groupstacle" test. However, these tests were aired only briefly or not at all during the episode. | ||||
2 | 2 | "Training" | April 16, 2018 (UK) / June 29, 2018 (US) | |
The students training begins as they learn how to use guns, explosives and silent killing techniques. We learn how these skills all came together and helped SOE pull off one of the most audacious assassinations of WWII. | ||||
3 | 3 | "Survival" | April 23, 2018 (UK) / June 29, 2018 (US) | |
The students go to the remote Scottish Highlands where they learn the survival skills required for life in the field. They are schooled in some of the same techniques which prepared a group of agents to halt Hitler's atomic ambitions. | ||||
4 | 4 | "Finishing School" | April 30, 2018 (UK) / June 29, 2018 (US) | |
The students attend the SOE "finishing school" where they will learn the skills needed to operate undercover inside enemy territory such as lock-picking and sending coded messages. They then face a mock interrogation. | ||||
5 | 5 | "The Final Scheme" | May 8, 2018 (UK) / June 29, 2018 (US) | |
As the immersive history series draws to a close, eight of the original students have fallen by the wayside. The six remaining recruits undertake a 24 hour practice realistic mission that will test all the skills they have learned. |
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Peter Morland Churchill, Croix de Guerre was a British Special Operations Executive (SOE) officer in France during the Second World War. His wartime operations, which resulted in his capture and imprisonment in German concentration camps and his subsequent marriage to fellow SOE officer Odette Sansom, received considerable attention after the war, including a 1950 film.
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