Land Girls

              I almost stopped watching Land Girls after one episode.  One of the characters was too full of herself, while another was far too naïve.  It drove me crazy.  But, since there were only five episodes, I decided to keep going with the show.  I found the annoying characteristics did lessen some, and that I was able to push my irritation aside because of the other interesting characters.

                It’s World War II and women are moving to an estate to help work the land as part of the Women’s Land Army program.  Joyce Fisher (Becci Gemmell) has lost everyone and everything in a bombing.  The only family she has left is her husband, John (Nicholas Shaw), who is in the Royal Air Force.             

                Nancy Morrell (Summer Strallen) is a young woman who believes she should be catered to and is above everyone else.  Not exactly an attitude that works well on a farm.

                Bea Holloway (Jo Woodcock) is a young, naïve girl.  She lives with her sister, Annie Barratt (Christine Bottomley).

                Then there is the woman in charge of the women who have come to work on the estate, Esther Reeves (Susan Cookson).  She lives on the estate with her son and comes off as hard at first to the new arrivals.  In truth, Esther really does care about the women she looks after.

                Also on the estate is the farmer who conducts black market dealings, Frederick Finch (Mark Benton), and his son Billy (Liam Boyle).  Billy is crazy about Bea.  The problem is, being so young, she gets her head easily turned by an American soldier.  After not even a full night together with the soldier, Bea finds herself pregnant.  This is against the rules of the program.  Because of this, Bea is forced to hide her pregnancy to keep from being sent home.

                Eventually Bea reaches the point where she can’t hide her pregnancy any longer.  She and Annie must confide in Esther about the horrible father they are trying to escape from at home.  Esther takes pity on the women and tries to hide Bea in the house until the baby is born.

                While Bea got pregnant so quickly, Nancy somehow didn’t, even though she regularly runs around with the owner of the estate, Lord Hoxley (Nathaniel Parker).  His wife, Lady Hoxley (Sophie Ward), has suspicions about Nancy and her husband.  They are only confirmed, though, after Joyce tells her what is going on.  And Joyce only does this because Nancy broke a promise to her.

                Despite the reveal, Nancy and Lord Hoxley keep seeing each other.  In fact, now that their relationship is out in the open, they are more determined to figure out how they can officially be together.

                While I mentioned Joyce giving up Nancy’s secret, this is not the type of thing she usually does.  For the most part all Joyce does is work hard.  It isn’t until her husband shows up that she really gets a storyline.

                John is about to go on his first RAF mission, but before he leaves, he goes AWOL in order to see his wife one last time.  He is also starting to doubt what he is doing in the military.  He lost everything to bombing, and is not sure about doing the same to someone else. 

                Joyce is thrilled to see John, but she’s worried about him getting into trouble being away for so long.  John agrees to go back to the RAF, but is caught before he can get there, thanks to Nancy.

                Annie has her own problems to deal with.  First off is looking after Bea, which is not an easy task.  Then she receives news her husband has been killed.  Not being truly attached to her husband, Annie has a hard time grieving.  When travelers who have lost everything come to the estate, Annie falls in love with one of them, Adam Blackfield (Richard Harrington).  The problem is, a local man, Dennis Tucker (Danny Webb), who thinks he is the military, is out to get him.

                Tucker is out to get everyone.  He has Esther open the women’s letters with the suspicion one of them is a spy.  He goes on the hunt for John when he hears John has gone AWOL.  And he’s always on top of Finch, trying to figure out what he is up to, but never actually able to catch Finch in his black market deals.

                As awful as Tucker is, he does have some good moments.  When word is received about the death of Annie’s husband, he is kind to her.  He also saves John from a bad fate when he could have easily said nothing.  It’s too bad he couldn’t have shown these good characteristics the rest of the time.

                Someone who is good pretty much all the time is Billy.  He comes to Bea’s defense when the American soldier denies the baby is his.  He’s also kind to all the women on the estate.  Pretty much the worst thing Billy does is help his father with the black market.  Since he cares about his father, and his father cares about him, it’s not a huge surprise Billy is willing to help even though it is illegal.

                As strange as Finch could be at times, he is actually a caring man.  When Bea and Billy decide to get married, he makes sure this is something Bea really wants to do.  He likes Bea, but out of concern for his son, he wants to be sure she is marrying him for the right reasons.

                All of the events I have written about happen in about the expanse of a year.  For the longest time I thought this was the only season of Land Girls created, leaving the rest of the war years unmentioned.  Now I know that is not the case.  There are two more seasons I have yet to watch.  It would be interesting to see just how far into the war this series goes.