Short, sweet and to the point, this series was GREAT. My wife and I loved it. It had something for both sexes and was thoroughly entertaining. The actress who played Alison Laithwaite is called Jessica Raine and she was absolutely fantastic in her role, as was all the other actors really. To sum up I would beg the producers for a new series, this one was spot on.

Enough comments have been posted on the historical and military inadequecies of this soap opera by people who were actually posted there in the 60s. And seeing how I know very little of either, I'll bow to superior knowledge. However, I was a young girl in those days, and I know this much: the fashion in this series is all wrong. Someone said that the women look straight out of a 60s catalogue. Why? Because they wear form-fitted dresses with above-the-knee hemlines? So do women these days, as anyone who pays attention will tell you. The hair is all wrong. Almost all women wore their hair teased into the (in)famous "beehives," even the updos. The makeup is deadly wrong. Women wore cat-eye liner and light, often frosted, lipstick.It always surprises me how the film industry, which reproduces pretty much all period pieces flawlessly, invariably bungles the 60s. What? The 60s look is too unflattering for modern actresses? - and yes, I said 'actresses;' that may not be the politically correct term, but it is the grammatically correct one; so the Political Correctness Gestapo will simply have to put up and shut up - I thought they would do anything for their art.However, I concurr with those who scoff at the part where a western woman, unescorted and dressed in tight pants and a, ah, revealing shirt, would be able to safely drink with the locals in a bar. When I visited Cairo, a more cosmopolitan place than an outpost, I was told not to wear tight-fitting pants. And that was in the late 80s.I would call this a soap opera set in a military outpost. Nothing more.

I had hopes this would be a good period piece concerning Great Britain and the middle east in the 60s. Instead what I got was a soap opera. While there were many problems with colonial power and the role Great Britain played depicted here is decadence and arrogance. The writers demonstrated their disdain for the British soldiers of the time. We are expected to believe the SAS was anything but capable, that British soldiers in general are mean crass creatures devoid of character and that wives stationed with their spouses are weak drunkards hoping from bed to bed. They natives are depicted as freedom fighters doing what they must to secure their freedom.Rubbish. Very little factual history is shown. And, though I thing Essie Davis is a fine actress her role as an independent American reporter is not only unbelievable in the extreme as a period character but her "American accent" has to be the worst lo have encountered in a long time. Really, really glaringly bad. I have the is a 4 but honestly could have gone lower. I have no fondness for the entertainment industry penchant for rewriting history.

Fine acting. But the story could have shown a better light on RMP. The movie depicted them as lacking in military discipline and full of incompetence. I watched it all the way through hoping for some redemption. I hope this was just a fictional depiction of a tragic love story.