Enemy At The Door (26 Episode TV series from 1978)

One of the best things about Enemy At The Door is the beautiful theme tune composed by Wilfred Josephs. The stories all take place on Guernsey between 1940 and 1943. Within those three years there are at least a dozen deaths, a rape, a raid, and a chess tournament. Everyone gets their wireless taken away, a Librarian is arrested, A cleaning lady has the baby of a German officer, a young girl has a breakdown, three people are sent to prison camps, two people step on land mines, coal is stolen, medicine is stolen and hens are stolen. For a short while the island has it's own Nazi whore house.

The series was produced by Michel Chapman who went on to produce The Bill. In my opinion, as a series, The Bill was ever so slightly more reliable than Enemy At The Door. Seven different directors were used on Enemy At The Door and there were eight different writers. Micheal Chapman wrote 7 of the shows. The most interesting episodes tend to be written by either N.J. Crisp (who also wrote; Colditz, Secret Army, and 66 episodes of Dixon of Dock Green) or James Doran (who wrote The Ipcress File). The two main stars Simon Cadell (who plays nasty Nazi, Reinicke) and Alfred Burke (who plays the thoughtful and sincere Major Richter) are very interesting to watch but neither of them are particularly convincing. Despite the fact both men are brilliant in almost everything else they did, sadly the scenes here were they argue are often unintentionally comic. The vast majority of the cast are brilliant; Simon Lack as Major Freidel, John Malcolm as Kluge, Bernard Horsfall as Dr Bernard Martel, Antonia Pemberton as Olive Martel, Anthony Head as Clive Martel, Richard Heffer as Peter Porteous. Everyone listed above was extremely impressive and perfectly cast. The series had some amazing guest stars too. It was a pleasure to see; Richard Pearson as William Clifford,

 Pam St Clement as Fat Molly, John Nettles as Roy Lewis, Martin Jarvis as Nils Borg, Gary Waldhorn as Teddy Lupus, Terrence Hardiman as Hauptmann von Bulow, Kenneth Cranham as Jack Foster, and maybe best of all, Alun Armstrong as Louis Mendoza. 

My favorite episodes were episode 9 ("The Jerrybag"), Episode 12 ("The Prussian Officer") and episode 25 ("The Education of Nils Borg").

This 8 DVD Disc Set contains some first class acting and has moments of brilliance. For more info on each episode visit: HERE