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The Sandbaggers

Season 1 1978

  • 1978-09-18T20:00:00Z on ITV
  • 50m
  • 7h (7 episodes)
  • United Kingdom
  • English
  • Drama
"The Sandbaggers" was a taut British spy series comprising twenty 50-minute episodes produced by Yorkshire Television. The stories centered on the elite covert operations section of British Intelligence, nicknamed the Sandbaggers, and their boss, Neil Burnside (Roy Marsden), himself a former Sandbagger, but now having to battle more with British bureaucracy than enemy agents. It was set contemporaneously with its original broadcast in the late '70s and early '80s when the Cold War still dominated the Western intelligence agenda. Burnside's main operative is Willie Caine, his most experienced agent. Burnside's main opponents in the series are not his KGB adversaries but the bureaucrats and functionaries of his own government, often his own superiors. He he is constatly at odds his his Deputy Chief and occasinally with the head of the Secret Service codenamed "C".

7 episodes

Series Premiere

1978-09-18T20:00:00Z

1x01 First Principles

Series Premiere

1x01 First Principles

  • 1978-09-18T20:00:00Z1h

Neil Burnside, the Director of Operations for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, objects to sending his best agents, the Sandbaggers, on a mission into Russia for Norway's Secret Service.

The Sandbaggers may be sent to Vienna to keep tabs on a possible defector, while Burnside tries to get official approval to assassinate an African dictator.

Alan Denson threatens to quit the Sandbaggers after a rough, unauthorized mission near the Soviet border, so Burnside applies pressure to Denson's fiancee

1978-10-09T20:00:00Z

1x04 The Most Suitable Person

1x04 The Most Suitable Person

  • 1978-10-09T20:00:00Z1h

Sandbagger One Willie Caine goes to Gibraltar to investigate the murder of an SIS agent, and potential new Sandbagger Laura Dickens goes to Morocco to get more clues in the case.

1978-10-16T20:00:00Z

1x05 Always Glad to Help

1x05 Always Glad to Help

  • 1978-10-16T20:00:00Z1h

Dickens is assigned to find out where an Arab sheik's sympathies lie while Burnside clashes with Deputy Chief Matthew Peele and the Ministry of Defence over a covert scuba-diving operation.

1978-10-23T20:00:00Z

1x06 A Feasible Solution

1x06 A Feasible Solution

  • 1978-10-23T20:00:00Z1h

Caine and an agent fresh out of field school go to Cyprus on the trail of some missing rocket scientists while Neil lets his romantic guard down at home.

1978-10-30T21:00:00Z

1x07 Special Relationship

1x07 Special Relationship

  • 1978-10-30T21:00:00Z1h

Laura Dickens is the most qualified agent for a risky mission in East Berlin and Burnside has to double-deal to make sure her presence there won't pose other security risks as well.

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