Bletchley Circle

My friend Theresa came over for lunch after my surgery. She brought me my favorite Beacon Hill sandwich (turkey, bacon, avocado, bleu cheese and tomato) from Bagel Oasis. I asked her what I should watch on television. There are so many shows, it is hard to find the gems. I told her I like the BBC's Sherlock, but I have already watched all of those episodes. The Boy loves Sherlock, and we've watched it with him. The joy and pain of binge watching is that you can cram several years worth of shows into a few weeks or months. What is next? I didn't need something that was kid-friendly, either, but nor was I up for digging into Breaking Bad. I find the concept of a mild mannered high school teacher turning into a drug lord fascinating. I am not sure I have the stomach for the violence.

"The Bletchley Circle," she said. "You'll love it." She was right. I do.

Like Sherlock, this is a British crime series. Like Sherlock, this is a sporadic series, with a few episodes every so often. Unlike Sherlock, the story lines extends over multiple episodes before they are resolved. Sherlock relies on one sole genius, aided by a rational friend. The Bletchley Circle is about four (or more) women who worked together as code breakers at Bletchley Park during World War II. One was the supervisor, one is a math geek, one knows languages and another has an extraordinary memory, bordering on autistic. They were doing important work and they were good at what they did.

Ten years later, they are leading ordinary lives, trapped by institutional sexism. This sexism is almost a character in the show. The writers must have majored in Women's Studies as they are well versed in both overt and passive sexism. (I had thought the show was written by women, but it was written by a man.) In the first episode, a vast majority of the men are sexist, ranging from the innocently clueless to women hating chauvinist pigs. The truly nice men die. The women are functioning far beneath their potential, and there is little room for them to grow. Plus, they have been sworn to secrecy, so they can't tell future employers about their previously impressive work. One of the women was into advanced mathematics, and she practically has to keep it a secret. It is maddening, but is a madness that is put on display and we are invited into their suffering.

Post-war Europe must have been a socially complex and confusing place. Not all women in England were fortunate or talented enough to work at Bletchley, so this is clearly a small subset of English women who were able to taste challenging, meaningful and rewarding work. I think I might have loved working at Bletchley. When I was younger I harbored the fantasy of working for the FBI. The hard part is switching back to being "ordinary." Part of being ordinary isn't just that they are back from the war, but they are pushed into diminished roles because of their gender.

I'll contrast this to two shows from the 1960's I caught five minutes of on television the other day where institutional sexism is played out as normal. I remember the Green Acres theme song from my childhood. Eddie Albert dreams of leaving New York City and heading out to the farm, but his wife, Zsa Zsa Gabor, wants to stay in the city. "You are my wife," sings Mr. Albert. "Good-bye city life!" sings Ms. Gabor. I caught five minutes of I Dream of Jeannie where Barbara Eden called Larry Hagman "Master." Egads. What a contrast. It is good to see a show where women were bucking the confines of sexism in their own day.