Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from February, 2021

2. Technology and Ideology

  The first half of the pilot episode focused on setting up the main plot of the series which is catching a serial killer in London.  The protagonist Susan, who worked at Bletchley Park as a code-breaker during World War II, cannot ignore the killings because she notices a pattern that links all of the victims together.  She brings this information to the deputy commissioner who sends out police to check an area Susan suspects a fifth victim may be located.  The police return empty handed which results in Susan's research and ideas being pushed aside by the authorities.  Her husband, Timothy, who is a civil servant in the Department of Transport, does not know about Susan's past as a code-breaker.  He is embarrassed by her failed attempt at locating the killer with the deputy commissioner and actively insists on her forgetting the case and staying home to fulfill the role of housewife and mother to his children.  His disappointment spurs her to burn her notes about the cases an

1. Plotline and Representations

  The Bletchley Circle, a historical drama from 2012, is a three-episode long show that centers around a group of four women who met in 1943 during World War II as code breakers for the British army.  Jean, Millie, Susan, and Lucy (pictured above from left to right) decipher and crack a German code that reveals German troops are approaching.  With the code deciphered, they save the British military and other allies from the planned surprise attack from the Germans.  Nine years later in 1952, they are all separated and back to their "ordinary lives." https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/birth-of-the-computer/4/82 Although this show is fictional, it is based on actual events.  There really was a group of code-breakers at Bletchley Park in England.  According to the Computer History Museum website, one of the most prominent pieces of technology used was dubbed the "Colossus," an electronic code-breaking computer.  Additionally, most of the code-breakers that were