''Bluestone 42'' is a

British sitcom A British sitcom or a Britcom is a situational comedy programme produced for British television. British sitcoms have predominantly been recorded on studio sets, while some include an element of location filming. Live audiences and multi-camera ...

about a British bomb disposal detachment in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

during Operation Herrick, first broadcast on 5 March 2013 on

BBC Three BBC Three is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes for a 16 to 34-year-old target aud ...

. The third and final series began on 9 March 2015 and ended on 13 April 2015. In July 2015, writers Richard Hurst and James Cary confirmed the show would not return for a fourth series, citing BBC Three's impending move to online and the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan as contributing towards the show having run its course. While the show takes place in

Helmand Province Helmand (Pashto language, Pashto/Dari language, Dari: ; ), also known as Hillmand, in ancient times, as Hermand and Hethumand, is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, in the south of the country. It is the largest province by area, covering ...

, the series was filmed in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

Synopsis

A mix of

black comedy Black comedy, also known as black humor, bleak comedy, dark comedy, dark humor, gallows humor or morbid humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally ...

and action, ''Bluestone 42'' focused on the camaraderie between soldiers, situational comedy, bureaucracy, conflicts of interests and relationships, and is contrasted with the deadly situations the soldiers are required to defuse. The show's name refers to the unit's call sign and is rendered verbally as "Bluestone Four-Two".

Cast and characters

Overview

Episodes

Series 1 (2013)

Christmas Special (2013)

Series 2 (2014)

Series 3 (2015)

Reception

''Bluestone 42'' has been met with positive reviews. In ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', James Rampton described the show as "''

The Hurt Locker ''The Hurt Locker'' is a 2008 American war action thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. It stars Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Christian Camargo, Ralph Fiennes, David Morse, and Guy Pearce. T ...

'' meets '' Miranda''" and said that it "strikes the right balance between edgy and entertaining".

Rich Johnston Richard "Rich" Johnston is a British comics creator, columnist, and founder of the comics news site ''Bleeding Cool''. '' The Comics Journal'' described Johnston as having claimed to be "the oldest extant comics news reporter on the Internet. ...

of BleedingCool.com compared the show favourably to '' M*A*S*H''. Corporal Daniel Whittingham, a British Army bomb disposal expert, said the series' black humour was "spot-on" and its action scenes "pretty accurate".

Distribution

DVD

Broadcasts

In December 2014 Series 1 was broadcast on the Australian ABC network, and online player ABC iView.Bluestone 42
ABC Programmes. Retrieved 9 February 2015

References

External links

* *{{IMDb title 2010s British black comedy television series 2010s British sitcoms 2013 British television series debuts 2015 British television series endings BBC television comedy British English-language television shows British military television series Military comedy television series Television shows set in Afghanistan Works about armies