The Passing Bells Online

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Yes, some of the button counters will be happy that they can comment on the accuracy of uniforms, sets etc. but remember this emotional drama is actually about the two young men and their progression from happy-go- lucky kids to two nameless cogs in the meat grinder that was the "Great War". As this was a pre-watershed series, the producers were careful to provide a thoughtful insight into the heartbreak that took the youth of our grandparents generation without providing OTT material for the "Call Of Duty" generation.

It was good to see that both sides were treated to the same level of sympathy, something echoed some years ago by my grandfather, who said when I asked him if he hated the Germans, said "they were just lads like us, doing the job they were supposed to do." The final episode had me in tears as I saw what could have been my own sons drawn into what turned out to be a pointless fight to the death. The final scene spoke volumes as a microcosm of the entire war for the PBI that fought it. Answering the call of duty whilst disregarding personal safety to save the life of a mate, in spite of being just seconds away from the armistice and paying the ultimate price. This should be compulsory viewing in schools so that we never make the same mistakes again. The BBC is to be congratulated for keeping the excessive swearing out of this. This generation were largely church-going kids who hadn't learned to eff and blind by the time they started school. There was some bad language, of course, but read the poems of Wilfred Owen to hear what soldiers actually cursed as they died.

The Passing Bells should be watched in schools to show the selflessness of a generation that very quickly had the jingoism knocked out of them.

Many years ago anyone staying at home during the day could watch THE SULLIVANS on ITV - an Australian soap opera that told of the experiences of a middle-class Melbourne family and the effect that World War II had on their lives. The series was very people- centered, and music was often used to set the mood of a scene in a technique that was very different from British soaps (this was in the ways when CORONATION STREET and CROSSROADS rules the network waves, and EASTENDERS had not been even thought of).

Memories of the long-forgotten Australian series were evoked through THE PASSING BELLS: written by Tony Jordan, it tells the story of World War One through the eyes of two young soldiers (Patrick Gibson, Jack Lowden), from the heady days of patriotism as they enlist, confident in the belief that the conflict will be over by Christmas, to the disillusion of 1918, when the aspirations of an entire generation were completely destroyed.

In planning a series like this for prime-time viewing before the 9 p.m. watershed on BBC, director Brendan Maher could have encountered a problem; how to emphasize the bloodiness of the conflict without resorting to graphic violence. Sensibly he chooses instead to focus on the human element; what is interesting about THE PASSING BELLS is the way the characters interact - or fail to interact - with one another. The camaraderie of episode one soon dissipates as the youngsters understand the true horror of the trenches; but even in the midst of war, some kind of friendship develops between the troops from opposite sides. This is historically accurate: hostilities inevitably ceased on Christmas Day, and the troops ventured into no-man's land to exchange a scrap of festive cheer.

And the music? In THE PASSING BELLS it is used to create mood; to emphasize the contrast between the edenic, community-focused world of prewar England and the living hell of battle, where young men had to live cheek-by-jowl in a sea of mud. Some of it might be a tad obtrusive, especially in the first episode, but the overall purpose is a good one; to make viewers aware of the social consequences of the War both at home and at the Front.

As a serial, THE PASSING BELLS works extremely well, despite the odd verbal anachronism (would people in the Edwardian era actually refer to "boyfriends" and "girlfriends"?), while not shying away from showing the destructive effects of war.

I was so impressed by this 5 part series. We are brought up learning about WW1, but this also shows the emotional and personal side of WW1 from 2 young lads who are there. The 2 young actors are (imho) fantastic in the lead roles. At times it was just too much to watch, so enthusiastic about going to war and seeing a different country and then the horror of what they had signed up for. WAtching their friends dying at their side, cold, hungry, wet, and thinking it would only last for a few weeks/months at the most. PLus what the families back home were going through. Remember no social media back then, just a short letter once in a while, so totally no idea if they were dead or alive. Really glad I watched it. Would make a great learning series for schools I think.

It is nice to see a series about World War One for a change as it is a subject that isn't covered all that often, at least compared to other conflicts.

Unfortunately however my main gripe with this series is that it's clearly intended for a pre-watershed audience. People die from nonspecific wounds, no one has any blood on them, no one swears and curses at their impending deaths...

It's not that I want to see limbs flying off after shell impacts and people dripping with blood to slake some sick desire for gore but this was the reality of the conflict. It was horrific. Dumbing it down for the sake of censorship strikes me as being kind of offensive. It fails to get across just how awful the situation was for those involved in it and ultimately makes the viewer feel disconnected from the events on screen. Why show it at all if you are not going to show it right? For example seeing people getting cut down by a machine gun would be horrific. Seeing people falling over without scratch on them after some vague bang bang noises off camera just doesn't quite have the same impact. They might as well just be firing paintballs at the rows of approaching enemies.

I've been watching it on iPlayer and it was only because the next episode just showed up online that I realised it was in a 7pm broadcast slot. It seems pretty obtuse to me that you can happily show hundreds of people dying in this time slot but not show a single person physically getting shot. It paints a completely false picture of events and almost seems to glorify the conflict as one big game rather than a serious event.

If we want people to look back and remember the lessons of the past then they shouldn't be half-lessons which haze over anything deemed unsavoury.

Earlier in the year The Crimson Field was shown on the BBC. It wasn't focused on the battlefield but did not shy away from the true terror of warfare. After the battles had ended and the gunfire had died down it showed the aftermath of events. The Passing Bells does this too at the Somme but despite trying to be all sombre and dramatic it simply fails because not a single soldier has so much as a drop of blood on them or even a bullet hole in their clothing. It seems that there is something seriously wrong when The Crimson Field only showed people being brought in on stretchers after the battle and yet managed to paint a more terrifying picture of what had happened than when this series actually tried to show it happening.

This unrealistic disconnection from events as they happened makes me question why they even bothered to film a series so heavily focused on battle action. The series has more than enough human drama that it could have just filled it with this instead. Showing battle scenes in anything other than full realism just isn't really going to work these days when multimillion blockbuster films are out there, so why bother? Also each episode seems to cover one year of the conflict and frankly half an hour just isn't enough to get through all the stuff it is trying to cover. There is little character development as a result and soldiers go from being green recruits to battle hardened veterans in the blink of an eye.

The first episode made me think that it might touch on some of the lesser known stories from the war. For instance I didn't know about the British making homemade bombs due to a supply shortage. Unfortunately it just sort of jumps from place to place after that in a really disconnected fashion.

In short the series would have benefited from a later time slot and one hour episodes.

Overall I found this a bit disappointing and not helped by the time it was shown as it couldn't be more graphic.

It tells the story of 2 men from either side fighting in WW1. The acting was very good I thought and the attention to detail was fine. However, I found it difficult to get really involved as it seemed to jump a bit between both sides.

The ending was particularly disappointing and I thought contrived with both of the main characters meeting in no mans land while trying to repair damaged barbed wire. The fact that they then end up fighting and killing each other minutes before the war ends was a bit gimmicky and predictable.

So overall not the greatest although it did convey how awful it must have been to fight in the war as well as the despair of seeing so many friends die. Spoiled by the contrived and quite predictable ending I thought.

Made as a co production with the BBC and Polish TV this was shown during the remembrance of the 100th anniversary of 'the war to end all wars'. The synopsis is that this is the full five years of that terrible and pointless conflict seen through the eyes of two ordinary soldiers. One is English – called Tommy (predictable I know but still a great name) the other Michael is German. It is through their 'ordinary' experiences that we are taken on a tour of World War I.

Now we do have a number of issues dealt with, the lying about your age to be allowed to walk slowly towards slaughter for King and country is covered. The gas attacks, the not wanting to be a coward (no mention of the nasty white feathers though), the food shortages, lice, playing footie in no man's land and the 'affairs of the heart'. The uniforms are good though as are the guns, and the musical score is excellent.

Now the bad bits, first off everyone speaks English with a Home Counties accent – even the Germans. The only attempt at an accent is from the Polish nurse. So it is a good job they have good uniforms or you forget which side is which. There are six half hour episodes and on the DVD they have left in all the previews of the next episode and then when it finally starts you have a montage of what previously happened. This could and should have been edited out.

Then the coincidence and plot contrivances and the sheer unbelievability of some of the antics are just a bit insulting on the intelligence. There is also an amazing lack of blood and gore which was done for a certain audience I know, but war should never be sanitised it is the first step to making it acceptable and as such is the lowest form of propaganda. Then the bits that have been 'borrowed' from 'All Quiet on the Western Front' and even the ending shot is a straight lift from the excellent master piece of French cinema 'Wooden Crosses'. If you are going to tackle such a subject matter then do it realistically and do it justice, this was a mish mash of seen before, could have done better and over sentimentality in lieu of having anything really valid or original to say.

I thought this was a good drama and am a little bit baffled as to why some people needed to see blood and guts to be entertained or convinced.Anyone who has studied or read about the history of WW1 would already understand about the horrors of trench life and going over the top into battle.The viewer doesn't need to be hit over the head with blood and gory details we can leave that to the imagination and besides too much graphic details would only detract away from the dialogue of this drama as this story relies mainly on its script of what the soldiers are saying{their thoughts aloud}and thinking.And i think it was awesome. Of course there is a lot we are not shown such as the grounds in the trenches were always muddy and fall of rats and body parts from dead soldiers used to prop or hang things from etc the list is endless of how things really were but then WW1 was always censored our government kept quiet for decades until the 1980s about the amount of soldiers whose bodies were still being found by farmers in France and Belgium,sometimes as many as a hundred a year.And also so many people were totally unaware of how many of our soldiers were cruelly shot at dawn or if they had even knew in the first place. I thought this was a nice tribute to the men who served and put the point across that it was the war that was evil and not the men who served.I think this drama is good for educating the younger generation who might not know much about WW1 as it portrays how misled the men back then were and how underage boys got sucked in on having to do their bit.Very tragic and its what this drama does well. The film Oh What A Lovely War was a British musical about WW1 this also didn't show blood and guts as everything was said in the dialogue in what the actors were saying.Passing Bells has used the same idea.

"Passing Bells" is The Great War seen as a fifth form project. It's undoubtedly a good thing to try to engage children's interest in the Conflict that destroyed the flower of Europe's youth and changed the map of that benighted continent for ever,but at least have the courage to present it as something other than a pastel - shaded commercial for a TV special about the below - stairs staff of Downton Abbey. If you're going to tell young people about the war do them the courtesy of treating them as intelligent beings. "War is hell" isn't just a phrase uttered by a General during the American Civil War - it is a statement of fact. I was waiting for Biggles or Bulldog Drummond to make an appearance. Children aren't spared the sight of hideously wounded soldiers coming back from Afghanistan - they know the cost of war today. Don't hold back from showing it multiplied a thousand - fold. The ending of "Passing bells" was telegraphed in the first ten minutes of the first episode,I doubt if it came as a surprise to any viewer over the age of eleven. Sadly,despite all the media coverage given to the centenary of the start of the war,there was only one person under 70 at the Remembrance Service in my local church yesterday.

This mini-series was, apparently, written for young adults, and this is why it appears so sanitised. Other reviewers have derided its cleanliness, and lack of realism. I personally found it fascinating, despite these valid criticisms. It was meant to show "parallel lives", and suggest that ordinary people were not natural enemies. The total senselessness of the war was brought out at the end where Tom and Michael (the names are common in both England and Germany) attacked each other. Realistically, two soldiers in similar circumstances would have probably avoided each other, but this wasn't the point; the war had reduced them to unthinking machines. No happy Hollywood ending, in respect to the millions who died. The acting, uniforms, locations were all excellent.

This is just awful-I appreciate that the time slot will constrain exactly what the film-makers can show, with the gore, the filth, the disease, and the horror all being toned down (although they don't seem to have the same qualms about showing sex), but the production is riddled with inaccuracies and inconsistencies-modern language (the term 'girlfriend' was unknown) and modern accents (I've yet to meet a German who speaks with an Estuarine accent, especially one from rural Germany), a complete glossing-over of both sides' arguments (whether right or wrong) for going to war, apart from a rather trite comment about the Belgians being 'our' friends, no general explanation of the real time situations in which the two volunteers find themselves (this may be a way of illustrating the common soldier's frustration with lack of information, but as a device for stimulating empathy and interest in younger viewers, it fails abysmally), and a maudlin obsession with sugar-coating even the bitterest pill... This is not supposed to be a Barbara Cartland novel, but an interpretation of the brutal realities of early 20th century warfare, and it's effect on its participants.

The BBC has concentrated on it's PC agenda, showing the mêlée from both sides, and deliberately avoiding any specific finger-pointing, but in doing so, it has completely obliterated any chance of showing real human emotion and partisanship. Nationalism may be unfashionable today, but it was one of the major motivational factors used by both sides in recruiting to their cause. If this is supposed to be a vaguely factual account of the events from 1914-1918 (and as has been pointed out elsewhere, why does the strap-line talk about "spanning the five years of the First World War"), it shouldn't be prejudiced by modern sensibilities. My forbears fought on both sides of the Great War-this simplistic, dumbed-down soap opera is an insult to all of them. I shall keep watching until the end of the week, if only to see how much worse it can get, and shall append further brickbats as and when necessary-this was yet another waste of licence-payers' money!..

If your history of WWI was primarily from this TV show you'd probably believe that all the soldiers were 16-17 years old, widely engaged in premarital sex, and that the wars were fought almost exclusively in trenches, including right up to the very end. These are all things that yes, they did happen, but were rare, or happened at points and places in the war very different from that portrayed on-screen. At first I was concerned that the 30 minute format wouldn't allow them to tell the complex nuanced stories that were the reality of the war. By the end I was glad the stories were only 30 minutes long because they were having difficulty filling the time with anything not a blatant trope.

Even if you ignore the history there's some serious structural problems. The German soldier's girlfriend/wife is a major character in the first few episodes before entirely disappearing. All of his home front scenes are about his parents and the wife appears only occasionally as a picture. Seems a little off.

Also, you might recall that the french were a major player in WWI. Something that is sort of overlooked considering that there are almost no french characters, no french scenery, and really, that the western front is located across hundreds of miles of France is barely mentioned. Here's another specific inaccuracy: During early war when the first British reinforcements with our new recruit are deploying in the aftermath of the Marne they march through fields full of poppies. Fair enough, right? Poppies are the anglophile world's key floral symbol of The Great War. Except that after the Marne was September-October 1914 and Poppies bloom in the spring and early summer. They just didn't care.

There is nothing in this show that has not been done better, elsewhere. What there is, is weak or remarkable for its inaccuracies.

The first person on here to review this, (Mr Mcinsley), got it absolutely right, but I would go further; it's so dumbed down and insipid as to be pointless. This series is supposed to follow the lives of a German and a British soldier during WW1, which I expected to be a moving, gritty and realistic story; how wrong could I be? The main characters are drab and stereotyped, along with the other supporting cast. The battlefield sets look artificial, the uniforms are inexplicably spotless, even the trenches are carefully sculpted. Nothing looks remotely convincing. No one is smoking. Just about every soldier smoked backed then but I don't recall that anyone lights up. No one gets cut, bruised, maimed or blown to pieces. That's what happened - that's what should be made clear to the viewer.

The screenplay is laughable. Because it is pre-watershed it's devoid of any believable dialogue or any credible action scenes. It's like some corny censored war film from the 1960's, where anyone who dies gets an instant painless demise, no one swears and all the main characters are such fine and jolly nice young men. Pass the sick bag.

A few random samples of what is so wrong with this series. The main British Tommy character, (called Tom just for extra cheese value), at one point is part of a stretcher party, taking two wounded stretcher cases to a field hospital, (where our hero's girlfriend just happens to be stationed, how handy is that?). Everyone is so Clean. The wounded in the stretchers have whiter than white shirts and bandages without a spot of blood or dirt. All of the stretcher party have immaculate uniforms. They look like something from a parade ground.

At one point a new recruit starts to itch having only just arrived and is cheerfully informed by our hero that it's merely lice; he hasn't been there five minutes yet his freshly pressed clothing is crawling with vermin.

The German hero (Michael) is sent to the Somme to face the British attack. He and his comrades wear Pickelhaube helmets. These were virtually unused by this time in the war. You will not likely find a photo of Germans wearing these at the Somme. They also should have had the regiment numbers in green. They were only red at the very start of the war. They would have definitely had reissued ones with removable spikes which they would have detached by order. These are just a few basic facts that the BBC got wrong. It might seem anal but this is supposed to be a big budget series and it lacks even fundamental research.

Tommy also inevitably ends up at the first day of the Somme - now there's a surprise - where he manages to witness the close hand death of each one of his comrades in turn as they cross no man's land. It seems no WW1 drama is complete unless the protagonists go through the Somme carnage. In this case though the carnage is presented as a game of toy soldiers. Tom Tommy survives it all by staggering into a shell hole, where for reasons unknown, he falls asleep. A matter of metres away, his German counterpart hero has also decided to have a snooze after the collapse of the British advance. Once he wakes up he reckons it will be a good idea to climb up onto the parapet of his trench to see what's happened to all those British soldiers he was busy machine gunning earlier. Meanwhile Tom Tommy also decides it would be a great wheeze to climb out if his hiding place and stand up in the middle of no man's land for a look around. At that point I switched off. No one would do that; it really is that simple. It was one ludicrous event too many. Simple is also how I would describe the script writers of this dreadful yarn.

I can't imagine what possessed the BBC to make this nonsense. Either make a realistic drama portraying the real suffering and horror the soldiers faced, along with the trauma and tragedy endured by their families and loved ones, or don't bother. It is as well there are no survivors of that conflict left alive to see this as I would imagine they would feel deeply insulted by it. I certainly feel that it's an affront to an adult's intelligence. Truly a lamentable and vapid piece of non drama which snubs the memory of the participants of the First World War. The BBC should be ashamed for such blatant misrepresentation of what our recent ancestors went through.

It is interesting to read the negative reviews all seemed to be from males. As a female, I loved the whole series. I found the use of English, instead of bad tries at German by the actors, all the more believable. I could relate to the thoughts of the people, sons, brothers, lovers, husbands, mothers, with the same sounds as my own. It was refreshing to see war presented in not the blood and guts way that American Television portrays wars. Death was sudden and silent, an innovating look at this senseless war. The actors not being well known, made their characters all the more realistic. As time distances us from the real event, and the hatred of 'the enemy' is lost in new generations, the participants of both sides of a conflict should be seen as families, losing a much love member. Maybe in the future the population of countries will be able to raise their voices loudly against politicians who sit safely at home, while good men and women are sacrificed. I have visited Gallipoli and El Alamein and shed a tear, like I did while watching "The Passing Bells"

The idea of the mini-series is terrific. The execution was shallow and lacking of real substance. Soldiers in WW1 only spent a small part of their time in the front trench yet in this they rarely seem to leave. It seems like the team had a recipe for what a mini-series needs, filled it all into the script and went with it. For WW2, Generation War was far superior with a similar bases and storyline.

This appeared to be produced as a soap opera that had everyone speaking in English with country accents. The only way to tell the difference between the English and the "Germans" was by their uniforms. This proved extremely offputting. The acting all round was terrible, not that they had a good script to work from to begin with! It would have been so much better, and more believable had they done a joint production and had the so called Germans actually speaking in that language. Overall, it is total rubbish but could have been so much better had it had even a modicum of authenticity!

Bland and superficial.

This drama series looks at World War 1 from the perspective of a few British and German soldiers and civilians - the fighting, the effects on families and relationships, the home front. Covers the entire duration of the war (1914-18).

Had the potential to be a WW1 version of Band of Brothers, but falls very far short. Not engaging at all - you don't know much about the characters. Character development is quite superficial. As a result you don't get that feeling of camaraderie that was so essential to Band of Brothers.

Plot development - the series just lurches from one scene to another. There is very attempt to link the series to actual historic events or create a sense of historic relevance or accuracy.

Not very realistic in its battle scenes either. Certainly nothing like the terrors and mass casualties that actually occurred in the trench warfare of WW1.

For a much better, grittier and far more realistic portrayal of WW1 from a soldier's perspective watch the mini-series "ANZACs" (1985) instead.

Where to begin, where to begin...

OK, let's start at the start. I guess the producers thought it would be a cute effect to give the German protagonist an English accent, so that we could see the similarities. However, rather than being cute it's confusing. Probably deliberately so, but as a plot device it falls flat. Once in miraculously-always-clean uniform, the distinction is made.

Next. Our protagonists on both sides volunteer in 1914, and are rapidly in the front line. This could be correct for a German Kriegsfreiwilliger, but was highly likely not to be the case for a British 1914 volunteer - the first units raised in 1914 didn't see action until 1915, and many not until the Somme.

There's so much that's wrong about it, I'll just list a few of the many, many massive clangers:

• Trenches apparently untouched by 7 days of bombardment.
• Soldiers who, we are told, haven't been able to eat or drink for 7 days somehow manage to find enough water to shave.
• Soldiers in the line practically all the time.
• A British front-line dugout that was roomy, well-lit, contained bunkbeds, with soldiers sleeping on mattresses under blankets, in their underwear, right before a big battle.
• Everyone dying at the Somme aside from out two protagonists, who are then free to wander around the battlefield.
• A West Indies Regiment corporal commanding British privates (err, nope, not in WW1, really, that could never have happened) for a prisoner escort through a miraculously untouched British-looking pine forest just behind the lines. Apparently the German lines were just beyond the untouched wood. If you only know one thing about WW1, it's that there were parallel lines of trenches from the North Sea to the Swiss border, so the idea that the German trenches were just beyond a wood IN THE BRITISH REAR is totally, ridiculously laughable.