Summer of Rockets (TV Mini Series) Episode #1.6 (2019) User Reviews

It's been absorbing, and ends on a high.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 10/10 · 13 August 2019]

So often viewers are left disappointed by a series finale, but with Stephen Poliakoff at the helm, it was never in doubt. All the questions we had were answered, we learned who was behind events, and we also got resolutions to the many questions asked throughout.

Everything tied in very neatly, the Doomsday clock party at the end being a nice touch.

Superb scenes between Toby Stephens and Timothy Spall, no wonder Spall appears once again in a Poliakoff drama, having been in Shooting the Past some years previously. The performances in every quarter are dazzling, but Spall was incredible.

I liked the extra running time, and it became one of those shows I didn't want to end.

10/10 Superb.

Episode 6

[Prismark10 · 9/10 · 23 November 2019]

A dead dog is what did it. Samuel Petrukhin knew then that Field was one of the good guys. Whoever killed that dog did not have an agenda worth following.

The welfare of animals emerges as a subtext for this series. It is this that drove Anthony Shaw away, working in a vegetarian hotel until his mother finds him. Even then he protests that he is not Anthony.

Maybe his son's disappearance affected Richard Shaw more than he let on. He acknowledges that he drinks too much but now he is in league with mad generals and bitter toffs who yearn for the empire and see the red menace everywhere. I do think there was a critique of Brexit here by Poliakoff.

Even in the country mansion that would reveal the plan of an apparent coup, Samuel tries to save Richard. He finally sees through Lord Wallington and his ilk. Samuel now no longer wants to be an Englishman like them.

There were a lot of people in this episode who could not keep a secret. The dreaded headmaster Tezler reveals to young Sasha. He knew where Anthony Shaw was all along. Both shared a hatred of cruelty towards animals. Hannah makes an important revelation about what her father is up to someone she meets for dinner.

Although I acknowledge that the revelation about the coup through a daft television show was far fetched. Conceptually it was brilliant and Adrian Edmondson played it up for all its worth. I just knew that the clips featuring him throughout the series would lead to somewhere.

A surprising left field finale really elevated this series. It also allowed Poliakoff to say things about Britain given that a lot about Samuel Petrukhin was based on his family life.

Let down

[julia-37208 · 5/10 · 13 February 2023]

Last episode just wrapped up in a hurry. We're seriously supposed to believe that they let Samuel off with a few punches to the guy? With what they intended to do, he would have "disappeared". Instead, he's back home with all his family, no chastisement of his daughter for sharing with. TV writer what he'd told her in confidence. So much more could be done with Anthony''s character. Once his father realizes that he's admitted to his mother that he IS Anthony, won't his father worry that he remembers being told about their the plot to take over the British government? Then what would he do about it?