Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

Don't listen to the negative reviews

What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

The first season and the first two episodes of the second season were great. Such potential on par with Endeavor. The last two episodes of the second season were not. It's like it was a different show.

"The Bletchley Circle" from 2012 is about women who worked on cracking German military codes during the World War II. They are described as "Alan's girls," meaning Alan Turing, whose tragic life will be the subject of a film starring Benedict Cumberbatch later this year. After the war, though they were all very smart, they settled in everyday life that sometimes was less than satisfying.When young women start disappearing and wind up dead in 1952, one of the code-breakers, Susan (Anna Maxwell Martin) becomes interested in the case, sees a pattern emerging, and asks her husband to use a connection to get her in to see the Deputy Commissioner. Unfortunately, her idea -- the location of the currently missing girl's body -- is incorrect.Discouraged, Susan is sure that she and her old code-breaker friends can find the killer using their code-breaking skills. She gets the old group together: Jean (Julie Graham), Millie (Rachel Stirling), and Lucy (Sophie Rundle) who are resistant at first, then agree. It means using information supplied by other code-breakers. It also means putting themselves in danger.I thought this was a suspenseful, intriguing, and interesting story, with the '50s atmosphere, clothing, and hairstyles intact, with strong acting from the actresses. Because it's a feminist story, meant to show that post-World War II, England didn't need its women any longer, the men in it are annoyed, angry, suspicious, and in one case, violent. I would say the Deputy Commissioner, despite finding Susan a bit of a nuisance, does follow up on what she says, knowing the job she had during the war and her intelligence; and Susan's husband, though not particularly happy, knows she's a good woman and in the end, has patience with her long hours away from the house.My only question is, where is season 2? Can't wait.

Although much of the visual period detail is authentic, the background has been very poorly researched and the viewer is treated as a simpleton.Specifically: it is implied that a 17-year-old would be liable to be hanged-in 1953??!!!! Also, there is reference to trial of a civilian by a secret military court. Civilians would only have been tried by military court had martial law been declared. What I presume the writer meant was trial in camera: a very different procedure, the verdict of which would have been public. There are other similar flaws.Also, the protagonists often reach conclusions without it being clear to the viewer how they have done so, and there are gaps in the logic of the plot.Another sorry example of how mainstream British drama has been dumbed down.

(Reviewing Season 1) I like British detective stories, I'm interested in problem solving, code breaking, crypts and logic reasoning. I'm interested in ww2 and post-ww2. Still wasn't too excited about this.Why not then? There is very little of the actual code breaking, reasoning etc. They kind of jump to conclusions when it comes to viewer. They talk about code breaking, but there's never a real moment you'd feel like you/they actually figured out something relevant. It felt kind of dumbed down. The story in general is quite interesting, but the script around it is quite yawning.The cast.. well the leading lady in my opinion wasn't very likable. She was OK, but the same thing with Gillian Anderson in the recent "The Fall", as a character I felt she was quite uninteresting. The youngest of the circle had a more solid background written in the script, but I'm not sure if I could even distinguish the two remaining women from each other, they were bystanders at best.And even tho one of the ladies had a more solid background written in the script, I'm not sure if it was relevant really. It was kind of a sub plot without a proper conclusion. Maybe flesh for the second season.So. Not crap, but nothing special either.