The Sandbaggers was a television series produced and aired by the ITV network in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was rebroadcast once in the 1980s, and also shown in Canada by the CBC and in the United States by PBS. The series consisted of twenty 50-minute episodes, produced and aired in two sets.
The Sandbaggers followed the field exploits of an elite group of British secret agents, operating in Europe during the (then-ongoing) Cold War. Individual agents came and went during the course of the series, with Willie Caine (played by Ray Lonnen) appearing the most often. The series' real central character, however, was Neil Burnside--the Director of Operations for the Secret Intelligence Service and thus commander of the Sandbaggers. Burnside, as played by Roy Marsden, was a spy in the tradition of John LeCarre's George Smiley: a man at war with his own superiors as much as with the enemy. A typical episode of the series intercut scenes of Burnside's bureaucratic maneuvering (usually in support of his agents) with scenes of the agents themselves in the field.
Though not popular with viewers during its initial run, The Sandbaggerswas notable for its gritty treatment of the intelligence business and its jaded view of bureaucratic infighting.
