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Boys from the Blackstuff (1982)
8.5/10on IMDb
First aired
A gang of Liverpool tarmac workers is out of a job, and the serial gives its men room to fail in different ways. Bernard Hill's Yosser might be the face of it, but the stories are strongest when the men try to hang on to a little dignity in front of the people who know them best.
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The Singing Detective (1986)
8.6/10on IMDb
First aired
A hospitalized writer's boyhood memories, detective fiction, and life on the ward keep interrupting one another. Give Michael Gambon's Philip Marlow your full attention: the pleasure is noticing an image or a tune in one story and recognizing what it's doing in another.
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Edge of Darkness (1985)
8.3/10on IMDb
First aired
Start here if you want suspense with a human cost. A detective investigating his daughter's murder is pulled into the politics of nuclear power. Bob Peck has a way of making a pause feel more dangerous than a threat, and the grief in his performance gives the conspiracy its weight.
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Tutti Frutti (1987)
8.0/10on IMDb
First aired
The Majestics are meant to be making a rock 'n' roll comeback. Watching this aging Scottish band try to make the tour happen is half the fun. John Byrne lets a joke sour just enough to show what the bandmates are scared of losing.
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A Very British Coup (1988)
8.2/10on IMDb
First aired
Ray McAnally's Harry Perkins comes into office with a disarmament agenda and finds entrenched interests ready to stop him. There's a chilly pleasure in watching the threats come wrapped in perfectly polite conversation. It's the pick for a political thriller that gets to the point.
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Traffik (1989)
8.4/10on IMDb
First aired
A British minister, a Pakistani farmer, and a woman whose husband has been arrested each see a different part of the heroin trade. The shifts in perspective do the work: a policy that sounds sensible in one scene can look brutally shortsighted when the story changes hands.
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The Monocled Mutineer (1986)
8.2/10on IMDb
First aired
Paul McGann brings a mischievous charge to Percy Toplis in this drama built around the British Army mutiny at Étaples. The performance is a reason to watch, and the story's disputed relationship to the historical record is a reason to keep the dramatization in view.
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The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1986)
8.1/10on IMDb
First aired
When Ruth finds out about her husband's affair, the setup sounds like a familiar marital drama. The pleasure is watching that familiarity curdle. The serial plays revenge with a nasty sense of humor, and its anger at the terms of the marriage gives the grotesquerie a point.
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The Jewel in the Crown (1984)
8.4/10on IMDb
First aired
The final years of British rule in India are the backdrop, but start with Art Malik's Hari Kumar and what happens when the police take an interest in him. The serial takes time to let loyalties shift. That patience gives small gestures of solidarity or self-protection an unusual weight.
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Brideshead Revisited (1981)
8.6/10on IMDb
First aired
Jeremy Irons's Charles Ryder returns to the estate in wartime, then the story takes you back to the seductive summer he spends there with Sebastian. It's a slow watch in the best sense. The distance between the place he first fell for and the place he comes back to gives the lavish rooms their melancholy.
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Smiley's People (1982)
8.5/10on IMDb
First aired
Alec Guinness's George Smiley has unfinished business with Karla. It's best watched after Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, when a small hesitation from Guinness can carry the weight of what those men already know about each other. Settle in for suspense at the pace of someone thinking.
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A Perfect Spy (1987)
7.3/10on IMDb
First aired
When Magnus Pym disappears, the hunt gradually takes you back to the boy raised by a con man. The best reason to stick with this slow-burn spy story is the relationship with his father. It makes the habits of secrecy feel learned long before they could be put to professional use.
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