Special Branch was regarded as the precursor to The Sweeney. However this was mainly only from the third series onwards.
The first episode is more sedate, almost like a police procedural.
There is an urgent meeting called at 4 am at Scotland Yard. Special Branch are working with the security services to arrest three alleged Britons spying for the Soviets.
Three teams will make the arrest soon after the briefing.
Two of the arrests go like clockwork, the third man goes missing. It appears he escaped earlier dressed as a woman. Worse, American intelligence informs them that he was a KGB infiltrator and not a British travel agent.
You get to know very little about the characters. The main person in this episode seems to be the charming man, DC Morrissey rather than DCI Jordan played by the star of the series Derren Nesbitt.
It was all a bit too much yapping. The producers must have been more excited than the viewer with the in depth briefing that took place. I chuckled when they rang the airport and asked the desk agent if they had seen a beautiful blonde rather than a man in drag. I laughed even more when he replied, yes she went on a plane to Poland. I presume the rest of the blondes at the airport that morning must have been darn ugly.
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