u/auldclem

Having just come off the back of a binge rewatch of ‘Tinker, Tailor…’, I spotted ‘Edge of Darkness’ on iPlayer. I’d never seen it, and aware of its towering reputation, I gave it a whirl and… I just don’t get the hype.

I get that it was tackling fears about nuclear from the time, but I didn’t find it particularly great at all. I found the acting to be incredibly wooden, the dialogue bizarre, and the weird interplay between all these posh guys in suits irritating as fuck. Not to mention, the guitar motif throughout really wore thin by episode 6.

When dealing with nuclear, I found ‘Threads’ was much more effective - a masterpiece. I just watched this with a weird sort of puzzlement.

Sorry if this is considered heresy. Happy to be told how wrong I am - maybe it’ll help me understand its appeal.

Am I misremembering?

I just rewatched the BBC series on iPlayer and have a question about the penultimate episode with Toby Esterhase in the trap.

What I thought happened, Smiley and Peter use his Hungarian birth as leverage to break him in the safe house. Esterhase freaks. And gives them what they need… At least that’s how I remember it… (This was even more overt in the film when they take him to the airfield and threaten to send him back to Eastern Europe).

But there was no mention of this on rewatch. Have I imagined this? Or has it been removed?