BBC One’s Our Girl started life as a 90-minute TV movie that struck a chord with viewers in the UK and drew in over 6 million viewers.

The army drama was popular enough to ensure that a full season was commissioned, gaining new fans in the US, Canada and Australia.

What was it about Molly Dawes and her experiences that kept pulling people in?

> Buy Season 1 on DVD on Amazon.

> Buy 2013’s feature-length Our Girl special on DVD on Amazon.

A second season was announced in June, albeit with a new cast telling an all new story in a new setting.

With filming set to begin in Kenya early next year, guest writer Major Ben Simmons reveals why he thinks the show has been such a success and suggests films with similar themes that fans can watch to curb your Our Girl craving while waiting for the second season to air…

 

The personal journey

Watch: Private Benjamin (1980), An Officer and a Gentlemen (1982) and Top Gun (1988)

The public’s understanding of the recent conflict in Afghanistan is mostly restricted to what they have seen on the news or read in the papers. Returning soldiers are in no mood to discuss what they have been through, and as a result most people are curious to know more about the military in general.

Molly’s journey from ‘civvy’ to combat medic takes the viewer along for the ride. You can relate to everything she goes through, from her dissatisfaction with how her life has turned out, her confusion and difficulties dealing with the military environment, to her ending up becoming far stronger than she thought possible.

The 1980 film Private Benjamin does a similar thing with Goldie Hawn at the helm, but with a comedic spin. It is about to be remade, so see the original before it becomes tainted. It won awards for its script despite being turned down by all the major studios for having a female lead.

An Officer and a Gentleman and Top Gun are both more serious affairs dealing with military training, friendship, love and death in equal measures. Whilst Top Gun is more exciting and adrenaline fuelled, and with a stronger more assertive female character, it drops you into the action straight away with little explanation as to the ways of military life.

An Officer and a Gentleman has more heart and romance to it as you see Richard Gere progress through basic training , whilst combatting his demons and developing into the man that the title suggests.

 

The complicated romance

Watch: Casablanca (1942), Enemy at The Gates (2001) and Pearl Harbour (2001)

The love triangle between Molly, Smurf and Captain James was the key driving force of the drama and tension within the first season of Our Girl.

Whilst a relationship between an officer and one of his/her soldiers is strictly taboo in the military, you want Molly to end up with Capt. James. However the ‘will they, won’t they’ set up is only going to end badly for all three of the characters involved, and it all comes to a head at the worst possible time in the final episode.

There are some great stories set against the backdrop of war, with love triangles only adding to the complications. Casablanca is an enduring classic that always features near the top of any list of the greatest films of all time. One of the best love stories ever committed to screen, but with a wartime thriller of a plot, coaxing career defining performances out of its two leads. What it lacks in explosions, it more than makes up for with a sharp script with a bucket-load of quotable lines and not a single flat moment.

Enemy at the Gates and Pearl Harbour both deserve mentions in this category. Whilst they do not have the same critical acclaim as Casablanca, at their heart they have a ‘two friends, one girl’ story perhaps more akin to that in Our Girl. Both have far more action on truly epic scales as they are set amid the backdrop of real events during WW2, but in my opinion Enemy at the Gates has the stronger cast and plot.

 

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