Operation Buffalo

Sadly it looks as though this series is going to be unseen by many due to a combination of bad timing and some truly terrible reviews here. Personally I think it's excellent, using humour in the vein of Catch-22 to highlight the horrific, callous and ignorant ineptitude around the Maralinga atom tests. Ewen Leslie is excellent as the overwhelmed, undermined base commander, trying to keep everything under control. All the cast are good, the setting and period feel are beautiful, and it highlights a period in Australian and British history many know little about.

Finally, it's always refreshing to see an Australian drama which doesn't take itself so deadly seriously, while still managing to deliver its message.

Entertaining dark comedy and original period drama about the A.Bomb testing at Maralinga. An authentic depiction of life in the 1950s, the hair styles, clothing, cars, advertising signs.... everything except for women using the 'F bomb'. Even men rarely used the F word in the 1950s and women NEVER used it. Why do writers and producers insist on spoiling good period dramas by using present day swearing? Some may say its to appeal to a younger audience, but why go to the meticulous effort of making everything else a true reflection of an era, then spoil it with modern day language.

I found the series a little inconsistent at times, but overall an enjoyable satire. James Cromwell definitely stole the show.

What a contrast there is among the reviews so far posted about "Operation Buffalo"! Were all these people watching the same show? I have a suspicion that the 1/10 reviews were written by ASIO agents, keen to avoid the scrutiny of the public (as usual). It is a light satire, set in a cringe-worthy period of Australian history in which politicians routinely doffed their caps to Englishmen (who would have happily let them be over-run by Japanese in 1944). There are very serious issues to consider in this series: nuclear war, treatment of aboriginal people in the vicinity of the nuclear tests, lack of protection for the soldiers who "volunteered", political intrigue, blackmail, cover-ups, all of which were true to at least some degree. The Wilcox MP character is clearly Richard Casey who spent much of his career trying to knife Menzies PM. Lachlan MP is based on Philip McBride. Both of these worthless pollies were knighted by Menzies and pushed sideways, leaving Menzies to rule as a dictator. There were times when I laughed uncontrollably in Episode 4 but the humour is generally subtle. There is a dark side to the plot but the writing takes the viewpoint of the soldiers involved and they probably didn't appreciate the danger they were in. Before "This Day Tonight" and the standard of investigative journalism that we have today, ordinary people were unaware of the egregious lack of talent of their leaders. There were Reds under every bed and King Ming was keeping us safe. We were part of an empire on which the sun never set, well didn't set for very long. If you didn't live through this period, you could not appreciate this series fully.

While the setting of this show in post WWII Au. reminds me at times from A Place To Call Home. Mostly in the way a character of being good or bad can very from one episode to the next.