Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

I stumbled across this early in series 1 while late-night channel hopping and rapidly grew to love it, other members of the family have accumulated along the way and it's now (early series 3) become required viewing. The sharply observed writing careers recklessly across the full range of comedy styles while a solid cast of identifiable characters bicker and connive their way through a lethal tour in some miserable outpost. The unsentimental approach leaves you with a strong suspicion that any member of the cast might be explosively written out at any time (probably in a blackly hilarious way), giving it a tension the likes of MASH and Dads Army would never have aspired to (although the description of this as "Dads Army for our time" is spot on).For my money series 3 has faltered a little at the start, hopefully it will find its footing again and maintain the standards of the first two.

Having read the positive reviews for this series, most peoples' take on it seems to be that it accurately captures the gallows humour of an armed forces unit. Fine. So be it. But those folks must also allow for the opinions of Civvy Street, where any review is based solely on the series' merit as a comedy drama. I'm not sure it's even such a good subject for this treatment. We don't have the benefit of hindsight here that we had with the likes of MASH and Dad's Army; the rights and wrongs of this current-day conflict haven't yet been chewed over sufficiently to make it worthwhile looking for the funny side. This makes the whole project feel a bit cynical, like it's cashing in parasitically, looking for laughs in the wrong places and milking an unfunny scenario for financial gain. Sure, the real-life situation could indeed flip from the mundane to the tragic in seconds, but would everyone still be laughing post-flip? The dialogue is glib and smart-ass and unrealistic in the same way that MASH scripts could be; but it's just not funny. Couple that with the drama school-grade performances, distorted guitar riffs, slow motion action sequences and the inane macho posturing right from the opening credits, and you've got something that - to me at least - feels quite sickening.

Bluestone 42 captures the modern British Army in every way, the black humour, profanity, wind-ups, and day-to-day life is all spot-on.Apart from the slightly less than realistic scenery, I can't fault Bluestone 42 - the production team have clearly done their homework pretty well and have listened to their technical advisers. There have been very few technical glitches and overall the production is very convincing.The humour is superb, each of the four episodes so far has been equally gripping and entertaining and results in a show which I'm sure will be loved by the soldiers it portrays so well. There is so much bad comedy these days, thank goodness Bluestone 42 delivers.I don't know if Chopendoz has even watched the same Bluestone 42 as me as his review is so far off of the mark. Please ... ... please ... ... please BBC, commission series 2 ASAP.Bluestone 42 is superb!Update 24/44/2013:It was announced at the end of Episode 8 on 23/4/2013 that a second series has been commissioned, excellent news.

Just watched the first episode and am very impressed. The whole cast is strong without any weak links or actors jostling to be the 'leading light'. A few well known faces and a lot of strangers they mesh together very well to present us with a top class storyline and, hopefully, series. The comic timing is very good, kit and locations well up to the mark ( although I wouldn't recommend firing a shoulder launched anti tank rocket standing in front of a hard surface like an armoured vehicle, the back blast is liable to do naughty things to your body).I only hope that it doesn't sink into a mire of self pitying homilies about the horrors of war which was the fate of the TV series of MASH, especially after Alan Alda took over directing.There will be some of you who haven't been in the forces in combat and might find the humour a bit strange, that it is but very accurate. (Advancing through a minefield and a man steps on a mine. He's on the deck screaming that he's lost his leg only to be informed by his mate that it's OK because he can see where it went. Strangely enough he was quite happy with that!)