Box set: Sandbaggers: The Complete Series

Sandbaggers
ITV Productions (1978)
TV Series  /  Action, Adventure, Drama, Suspense, TV Classics
In Collection
#662
0*
Seen ItYes
5027626253042
IMDB   8.7
16 hr 40 mins UK / English
DVD  Region 2
Roy Marsden Neil Burnside
Ray Lonnen Willie Caine
Jerome Willis Matthew Peele
Bob Sherman Jeff Ross
Alan MacNaughton Sir Geoffrey Wellingham
Michael Cashman Mike Wallace
Richard Vernon "C"
Elizabeth Bennett Dian Lawler
Dennis Burgess "C"
Sue Holderness Marianne Straker
Brian Osborne Sam
Jana Shelden Karen Milner
Paul Haley Bruce
Peter Laird Edward Tyler
Diane Keen Laura Dickens
Richard Vernon 'C'
Elizabeth Bennett Diane Lawler
Barkley Johnson Brian
Steven Grives Alan Denson
Michael O'Hagan Stan
Richard Shaw Ted
David Glyder Jake Landy
Pat Gorman Norwegian Shadow
Director
Michael Ferguson
Creggen, Peter
Reynolds, David
David Reynolds
Producer Michael Ferguson
David Cunliffe
Writer Ian Mackintosh
Gidley Wheeler
Musician Roy Budd

"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".
Episodes
Disc 01
 0 hr 50 mins    9/18/1978  1.  First Principles
Neil Burnside is the Director of Operations for the British Secret Service, the SIS. His special operations unit is made up of three agents, known as Sandbaggers, who specialize in covert operations. He's approached by the head of the Norwegian secret service who needs assistance in recovering the crew of a spy plane that has gone down inside Russia. He's dead set against it, but the Foreign Office has its own interests and Burnside is ordered to mount an operation. Unfortunately, the Norwegians are playing their own games and the lives of the agents are put in danger.
Director:  Michael Ferguson  Writer:  Ian Mackintosh 
 0 hr 50 mins    9/25/1978  2.  A Proper Function of Government
When the SIS station in Vienna reports the presence of Dr. Sir Donald Hopkins, Burnside is afraid that they may have a defector on their hands. Hopkins is the chief scientific advisor attached to the Cabinet Office and was supposed to be on his annual fishing holiday in Scotland. After much wrangling, with both the Foreign Office and his superiors, he gets permission to send in two Sandbaggers to bring Hopkins in. At the same time, the SIS learns that an East African dictator has killed a journalist accusing him of being an SIS agent, which is not correct. Burnside is keen to take action against the dictator who was responsible some years previously for the death of Sandbagger #3.
Director:  Michael Ferguson  Writer:  Ian Mackintosh 
 0 hr 50 mins    10/2/1978  3.  Is Your Journey Really Necessary?
Burnside faces all kinds of difficulties when Operation Nightingale - which he mounted without permission as a favor for the CIA - fails. Burnside's superiors are questioning his judgment particularly so when they learn that Sandbagger #3 Alan Denson had to kill Sandbagger #2 to keep him from being captured. When Denson decides to marry, he also wants to quit the job, so Burnside orders Willie Caine to look into the fiancée's background. When the SIS learn that a British diplomat in Paris, the brother of a senior Cabinet Minister, is having a homosexual affair the Foreign Office want them to get proof.
Director:  Derek Bennett  Writer:  Ian Mackintosh 
Disc 02
 0 hr 50 mins    10/9/1978  4.  The Most Suitable Person
Now down to only one Sandbagger, Burnside looks to recruit new members and offers the job to Laura Dickens. When they learn that the number two SIS man from Algiers is killed in Gibraltar, Burnside dispatches Sandbagger #1, Willie Caine, there to find out what was going on. He also send Dickens to Algiers to find out what the agent was doing in Gibraltar in the first place. Burnside has another problem when his CIA colleague tells him that an SIS officer, Colin Grove, has been seeing a psychiatrist privately. There is concern that the psychiatrist may be a foreign agent and if that is the case, the entire special relationship between the CIA and the SIS may be in jeopardy.
Director:  Michael Ferguson  Writer:  Ian Mackintosh 
 0 hr 50 mins    10/16/1978  5.  Always Glad to Help
The SIS start planning a government throw-over of an Arab nation that has close links with Moscow.
Director:  David Reynolds  Writer:  Ian Mackintosh 
 0 hr 50 mins    10/23/1978  6.  A Feasible Solution
While Neil Burnside woos the lovely but sexually repressed Laura Dickens, Willie Caine is on a operation in Cyprus to recover a kidnapped British engineer, and finds himself falling for the attractive female KGB agent that was planted on him.
Director:  Michael Ferguson  Writer:  Ian Mackintosh 
 0 hr 50 mins    10/30/1978  7.  Special Relationship
When an East German spy in the employ of SIS offers them photographs of a new missile site, Burnside finds that the only person qualified for the job is Laura Dickens. For personal reasons - he's quite fallen in love with her - he's reluctant to send her. When she is captured by the East German security service, he makes a pact with the devil by promising the French secret service access to CIA materials in exchange for a high-ranking KGB agent they could swap for her. In the end, Burnside must opt for a solution that pleases no one, least of all himself.
Director:  Michael Ferguson  Writer:  Ian Mackintosh 
Disc 03
 0 hr 50 mins    1/28/1980  8.  At All Costs
When Sandbagger Two Tom Elliot is sent to Sofia on a operation to meet a Bulgarian agent claiming he wants to give information to western intelligence, everything goes wrong and Neil Burnside and Willie Caine go in to try and help save Elliot.
 0 hr 50 mins    2/4/1980  9.  Enough of Ghosts
After having delivered the bad news to Tom Elliot's parents, Willie Caine considers leaving the Special Ops unit. Down to two Sandbaggers once again, Burnside is tasked with locating Sir Geoffrey Wellingham who, while in Brussels, disappears on his way to NATO Headquarters. He dispatches both Sandbaggers to Brussels despite direct orders from the Deputy Chief to send only one. Working with their German counterparts, they seek out the terrorists responsible but are having difficulty identifying just which group that is. Burnside is also concerned that he lent a top secret file to Wellingham on SIS cooperation with South Africa, which is against government policy. The file is in Wellingham's office safe and he's not sure how he'll get it back.
Director:  Michael Ferguson  Writer:  Ian Mackintosh 
 0 hr 50 mins    2/11/1980  10.  Decision by Committee
Willie Caine and CIA agent Karen Milner are aboard a Malaysian Airlines plane that is being held by terrorists, while Neil Burnside frantically tries to get his superiors to send in the SAS on a raid to end the hostage taking.
Director:  Peter Cregeen  Writer:  Ian Mackintosh 
Disc 04
 0 hr 50 mins    2/11/1980  11.  A Question of Loyalty
When Sandbagger #2 Mike Wallace has a run-in with the Head of Station in Warsaw, he finds himself called on the carpet back home. While Burnside accepts his version of events, which puts the botched Warsaw operation clearly at the door of the local station, the Deputy Chief insists on a proper investigation. On another front, the SIS learns that the number two man in their Stockholm Station, Pat Bishop, is passing information to a British businessman who is known to have ties to the KGB. Both Sandbaggers are sent to investigate but when Bishop suddenly changes his routine, they believe they have a leak somewhere. Only by retracing his steps does Burnside realize just what Butler is up to.
Director:  Michael Ferguson  Writer:  Ian Mackintosh 
 0 hr 50 mins    2/25/1980  12.  It Couldn't Happen Here
Burnside and the SIS face a particular problem when they learn that a senior Cabinet Minister and protégé of the Prime Minister is a spy for the KGB. Burnside's CIA friend has recently been complaining about the FBI and expressed his belief that they were involved in the wave of assassinations in the US in 1960's. When Burnside realizes that the Prime Minister, who refuses to take action, already knows all of the information about the MP he broaches the subject of taking action on their own, 'for the good of the Nation'. He and Wellingham agree that this is not the British way and Burnside gives his word that he will take no action. In a parallel story, both Sandbaggers are dispatched to the USA to provide additional security at a US Senator's funeral. Willie Caine is assigned a particularly difficult Senator whose damn the torpedoes approach may cause grief.
Director:  Michael Ferguson  Writer:  Ian Mackintosh 
 0 hr 50 mins    2/25/1980  13.  Operation Kingmaker
When "C" announces that he is stepping down for health reasons, speculation is rife that the job will go to John Tower Gibbs, a one-time senior officer of the SIS who has in recently years been working at the Foreign Office. Burnside and Gibbs have anything but a cordial relationship going back to when Burnside, as a Sandbagger, investigated Gibbs who was at that time abroad as a Head of Station. Burnside decides to play kingmaker by promoting the prospects of the Deputy Chief, Matthew Peele. He subtly tries to influence Wellingham who demonstrates that he is still far superior to his former son-in-law when it comes to the game of office politics.
Director:  Peter Cregeen  Writer:  Ian Mackintosh 
Disc 05
 0 hr 50 mins    6/9/1980  14.  All in a Good Cause
When Neil Burnside receives word from MI5 that the wife of the CIA's station head in London is seeing another man, he decides to check up on it for the sake of his friend Jeff Ross as well as security.
Writer:  Ian Mackintosh 
 0 hr 50 mins    6/16/1980  15.  To Hell with Justice
Concern arises when Director of Intelligence Edward Tyler is seen vacationing on Malta in the company of a younger German woman. Is he having an affair with an enemy agent?
Director:  Peter Cregeen  Writer:  Ian Mackintosh 
 0 hr 50 mins    6/23/1980  16.  Unusual Approach
Not having taken any annual leave for over two years, Neil Burnside finds himself ordered to accompany Deputy Chief Matthew Peele and Sir Geoffrey Wellingham to a planning conference in Rhodes. As soon as he's left, CIA station chief Jeff Ross asks Willie Caine to help him extract an injured American agent from inside the Soviet Union. Willie dispatches Mike Wallace but too late realizes that they have been set up. In Rhodes, Burnside is approached by an attractive Greek woman and believing her to be a KGB agent, decides to play along.
Director:  Peter Cregeen  Writer:  Ian Mackintosh 
Disc 06
 0 hr 50 mins    6/30/1980  17.  My Name Is Anna Wiseman
Neil Burnside wants to plant a sleeper agent, Anna Wiseman, in the USSR but doesn't want to tell the Deputy Chief Matthew Peele, her actual mission. Peele isn't prepared to sanction the mission, so Burnside decides to go ahead with the mission unofficially. The real mission is to embarrass the USSR on its human rights record and Burnside decides that the best way to do so is to create maximum publicity.
Director:  David Cunliffe  Writer:  Ian Mackintosh 
 0 hr 50 mins    7/7/1980  18.  Sometimes We Play Dirty Too
When word comes around that a former government employee in a top secret department is going to jump to the USSR with his Hungarian mistress, Willie Caine is sent to Prague to retrieve him.
Director:  Michael Ferguson  Writer:  Gidley Wheeler 
 0 hr 50 mins    7/14/1980  19.  Who Needs Enemies
When the SIS medical officer suggests that Neil Burnside is under stress and should be rested, Deputy Chief Matthew Peele sees his chance to replace him with the new Director of Intelligence, Paul Dalgetty. The final nail in Burnside's coffin seems to be a secret CIA assessment of the SIS where Burnside is described as a major negative influence. However, when Burnside confronts his CIA colleague Jeff Ross, he gets a different side of the story and goes on the attack.
Director:  Peter Cregeen  Writer:  Arden Winch 
 0 hr 50 mins    7/28/1980  20.  Opposite Numbers
At the SALT 3 talks in Valletta, Malta, Neil Burnside receives word from a KGB informant that he wants to defect, and Willie Caine is downed by a fatal sniper bullet.
Director:  Peter Cregeen  Writer:  Gidley Wheeler 
    Seen it: Yes   0 hr 50 mins    7/28/1980  21.  Opposite Numbers
Burnside is opposed to an East-West arms treaty being negotiated in Malta, so he and the Sandbaggers conspire to scuttle the talks by encouraging a Soviet double agent to defect.
Director:  Peter Cregeen  Writer:  Ian Mackintosh 
Edition Details
Edition 6 Discs
Series Sandbaggers
Screen Ratio Fullscreen (4:3)
Audio Tracks Mono
Layers Single Side, Dual Layer
No. of Discs/Tapes 6
Extras Booklet

Features
Disc 02 The Sandbaggers Files
User Defined
User Lookup 1 Sandbaggers