Foyle's War series 7

Series 7 of the ITV programme Foyle's War first aired in 2013, beginning Sunday 24 March; comprising three episodes, it is set in the period from August–September 1946.

Foyle's War
Season 7
No. of episodes	3
Series chronology

Episodes

"The Eternity Ring"

Writer: Anthony Horowitz	Director: Stuart Orme	Airdate: 24 March 2013 (UK)	Net duration: 87 minutes	Set: August 1946	Viewers: 8.58 million
Guests: Ken Bones, Stephen Boxer, Nicholas Jones, Kate Duchêne, Gyuri Sarossy, Joe Duttine, Dylan Charles, Jennifer Hennessy, Sam Clemmett, Emma Lowe, Nathan Gordon, Jeremy Swift, Gabrielle Lloyd
After a year in the US, Foyle returns by ship to the UK, where he is intercepted at immigration and "invited" to a meeting with British intelligence, which includes an old acquaintance, Hilda Pierce. MI5 suspects that British atomic research has been infiltrated by the Soviets and uses Stewart's (now Mrs Wainwright) connection as secretary to Professor Michael Fraser to leverage Foyle to investigate. Foyle, whose neutrality, police expertise, and instincts are sought after, is reluctant to get involved, but he realises that the investigation may disadvantage his former driver if it isn't undertaken by himself. The trail of evidence he uncovers leads back to an intelligence "house of cards" when Foyle detects that the fictitious Eternity spy ring is part of a power play by Pierce to oust her supervisor. He also detects the real reason behind the theft of U233 from the Arnwell Atomic Research Facility by Fraser was the hope of preventing the further use of nuclear weapons.

Cast and characters

Foyle returns from a trip to the US, during which he pursued former industrialist and subsequently senator Howard Paige ("Fifty Ships"). It is revealed that Paige committed suicide, allegedly after being hounded by Foyle, although Foyle was unaware of Paige's suicide. The episode reintroduces the recurring character Hilda Pierce, played by Ellie Haddington ("War Games", "The French Drop" and "All Clear"), turning her into a regular MI5 character and Foyle as one of her operatives. It also introduces the regular character of Arthur Valentine, another MI5 operative played by Tim McMullan.

The episode also reintroduces Adam Wainwright, now Stewart's husband, as a Labour candidate in a forthcoming parliamentary by-election, though he is played by a new actor (Daniel Weyman, as opposed to Max Brown). Another character is Sergeant Frank Shaw, a former constable and POW, who struggles as he returns from Singapore to a family and reality that has changed and evolved in the six years he was absent.

Background and production

The episode begins with the 16 July 1945 Trinity nuclear test in New Mexico, USA, and is framed within the rising mistrust of the developing Cold War between the West and the Soviets. The main nuclear scientists portrayed in the episode, Dr. Max Hoffman and Prof. Michael Fraser, are loosely based on John von Neumann and Klaus Fuchs, respectively.

"The Cage"

Writer: David Kane	Director: Stuart Orme	Airdate: 31 March 2013 (UK)	Net duration: 86 minutes	Set: August–September 1946	Viewers: 7.08 million
Guests: Rupert Vansittart, Jonathan Hyde, Laura Way, Rufus Wright, Jeremy Swift, Ross Armstrong, Simon Coury, Alexandra Clatworthy, Radosław Kaim, Ruth McCabe
As a new MI5 chief, Sir Alec Meyerson, assumes control of the department, three Russian defectors housed in apparent safe houses are killed by Soviet agents. Valentine, in charge of the safe houses, becomes desperate to find answers. The situation is complicated by the brutal death of another Russian, the doctor who attempted to save him, and the disappearance of two different women, both named Evelyn Greene. One, a Foreign Office Russian translator, is later identified in the Russian sector of Berlin, while the other is simply a person who happens to share the same name. Foyle, aided by his new assistant Sam Wainwright, begins by tracing a NKVD tattoo noted on the dead Russian, which leads him to the secretive Barton Hall. Here, he uncovers details of a covert interrogation operation, and he sends in an operative to rescue the innocent Greene. In the process, he exposes Major George McDonald as a Russian sympathiser, responsible for both Greene incidents and the murders.

Cast and characters

Adam Wainwright, with the support of Sam Wainwright, is successful in his bid to win the Peckham by-election as a Labour Party candidate.

Background and production

Much of this story is loosely based on the real "Tin Eye", Lieutenant Colonel Robin Stephens, who ran Camp 020, an interrogation centre near London during the Second World War. References are also made in the episode to ongoing housing and food shortages, food rationing, the Lend-Lease programme and abuses of the Official Secrets Act. Women's multi-style coupon buster shoes, fashionable at the time, also serve as a plot point as does Dr Ian Ross' tick-borne tropical disease research.

"Sunflower"

Writer: Anthony Horowitz	Director: Andy Hay	Airdate: 7 April 2013 (UK)	Net duration: 89 minutes	Set: September 1946	Viewers: 7.39 million
Guests: Tamzin Outhwaite, Rupert Vansittart, Daniel Weyman, Daniel Hill, Charles Aitken, Lars Eidinger Jeremy Swift, Richard Dillane, Andrew Tiernan, Jimmy MacDermott
Foyle investigates threats against a former senior Nazi SS officer, Brigadeführer Karl Strasser, now living undercover in London as a Dutch art history professor and protected by MI5 in exchange for providing counter-Soviet intelligence. Strasser, while working for Pierce, has proven his value by exposing "Red 5", a Soviet network operating in Sweden. However, American officials led by Lt. Col. Hoyt Jackson want him arrested and turned over as a war criminal. Meanwhile, a survivor of Strasser's massacre, Capt. Thomas Nelson, still suffering from PTSD, spots Strasser on the street and begins threats on his life. Foyle, through Nelson, also becomes aware of Strasser's war crimes in Normandy in 1944 and exposes his superior's attempts to foil the Americans by faking Strasser's death. Foyle then considers the need to protect the German for the greater good his information offers, but Strasser is ultimately arrested by the Americans after a tip-off from Valentine.

Cast and characters

Foyle's personal life is not expanded in this episode, apart from his increasing work collaboration with Valentine. Much of the character focus in the episodes of this series centres on the developing personal lives of Sam Wainwright, news of her pregnancy, and the evolving political career of her husband. Adam Wainwright, now a PPS, also deals with a politically influenced land valuation, which he exposes, leading to the resignation of his minister from parliament (cf. the Crichel Down affair).

Background and production

The film is based around the fictionalised events of a massacre of 26 US soldiers known as "Operation Sonnenblume (Sunflower)", although in fact the actual Operation Sonnenblume happened in North Africa in 1941. In August 1944, Mortain - the village with the sunflower farm referred to in the episode - was an important battle site within the wider Normandy Campaign and the eventual allied successes in the Falaise Pocket, but the incident bears similarity with the later Malmedy massacre in Belgium. In the show, the Americans also attempt to pressure MI5 into handing over Strasser by threatening the 1943 BRUSA Agreement and loan terms that the US has extended to the UK.

International broadcast

Series Seven was broadcast in the United States on PBS stations on Masterpiece Mystery! as Foyle's War VII on 15, 22 and 29 September 2013, and on Netflix as of April 2014.

External links

• Series 7 on IMDb