There's plenty to appreciate here: spectacular locations and flying sequences; period costumes, props and sets; and competent writing and acting. However, to enjoy a drama, we need at least one principal who exhibits some qualities that we can like or admire. In this bunch of catty snobs, we found only one character who is at all likable — a hapless enlisted man in a fleeting peripheral role as their helpless victim. From the reviews here, it is clear that we are completely out of step, but we did not find their malicious-schoolgirl behavior amusing or entertaining. Even the dog is detestable. We threw in the towel after two of the six episodes, so you should discount these observations accordingly, but what I could find written about this mini-series gave us no cause to expect character transformation or redemption.

Watching this television mini-series for the second time, I am enjoying Piece of Cake very much. Yes, the aircraft are not Hurricanes as they should be, possibly because they were unavailable. Maybe the production people used Spitfires because they were the only things on the shelf. I was relieved to find that after several minutes this technical defect did not detract from the film. It helps that the Spitfire is such a beautiful aeroplane (and I love the Hurricane) and is arguably as photogenic as Lana Turner. As mentioned elsewhere, the characters have their foibles, which make them that much more impressive to the audience. While Flying Officer Cattermole is given to deliberate cruelty, Pilot Officer Hart is no less (albeit unintentionally)so with his ill-advised intercourse with the enlisted person. Having been there myself, it is quite unpleasant. I had my druthers about the inclusion of an American in the story (many a good British film lost something by including an American not originally part of the book), but this one works. It does this by allowing Officer Hart to behave socially on a par with his Empire flying mates, although he botches it badly in the aforementioned incident. Yes, we Americans are naive. While it takes me awhile to warm to Officer Cattermole, he is easily the most reliable combat flier of the squadron. He seems to unreservedly accept the American (on equal terms) more than he does his peers. Not having read the book, I can only leave the detractors of this work to their own devices, but I will continue to enjoy this entertaining piece of cinematic work.

I attended a symposium, dinner, and talk-- in Alexandria, Virginia, in October, 1990, sponsored by Virginia Bader, cousin to the legless RAF ace, Douglas Bader. She had invited General Adolf Galland and Air Vice Marshall Johnnie Johnson and their wives as guests of honor. I was too shy and in awe of General Galland, so I never actually met him (something I shall always regret), but I did meet AVM Johnson. I said, "I am honored, sir," and I meant it. At the talk that followed the symposium, someone in the audience asked Johnnie Johnson what he thought of "Piece of Cake" (which I had seen). He said, "It was bullshit!" Whereupon General Galland and the whole audience simply cracked up. He was there, so I guess he should know--

"Piece is Cake" is defeatist, revisionist history of the worst kind, whose only point is to unfairly savage the reputation of the (admittedly fictional) pilots it portrays. It left a remarkably bad taste in my mouth.In the March 1989 "Aeroplane Monthly", Roland Beamont wrote a stinging condemnation of the way that RAF Fighter Command was portrayed in the TV mini-series. A few of his comments are worth repeating:"There was no sense of defeatism at any time in any of the squadrons that I saw in action, and a total absence of the loutishness portrayed in 'Piece of Cake'. It would not have been tolerated for a moment... ...The prevailing atmosphere was more akin to that in a good rugby club, though with more discipline. Nor was there any sense of 'death or glory'. RAF training had insisted that we were there to defend this country, and now we were required to do it - no more and no less."There was no discussion of 'bravery' or 'cowardice'. People either had guts or they did not - but mostly they did. But we knew fear, recognised it in ourselves and in each other, did our damnedness to control it, and then got on with the job..."...I could feel no 'glory', but there was a sense of greatness, and none of this bore the slightest resemblance to 'Piece of Cake'."Beamont was, in his own words, "a fighter pilot who, unlike the author and producer of the recent TV series, was there at the time". Beamont served with 87 Squadron both in France and the BoB, before going on to become one of the premier exponents of both the Typhoon and Tempest, and a post-war test pilot."Piece of Cake" is an absolute, total misrepresentation of the way pilots in Fighter Command acted at the time. It is nothing less than a complete and utter disgrace...