World on Fire (BBC1)

Yes he's going to make Dunkirk, will he find out where Jan is?

It must be littered with those I am sure.

It is remarkable that Lois feels able to chat about her pregnancy as if it's 2019 and not 1940 and none of the conversation was about what she was going to do and whether she would have to go away and her father wasn't remotely upset with the situation. You just can't put todays standards on the past. Like the gay relationship, neither of these two men are in a position to allow themselves to be exposed to the authorities and yet they don't seem overly concerned to be seen together. These men would have been terrified about it. The doctor would probably be struck off and not just lose his job, even doctors I worked with in the 80s were worried about coming out.Their moments together would have been so clandestine and quick and most probably denied by both of them. Still so far this is a superfluous storyline in the drama and I can't see how it connects with anything unless that connection is after Dunkirk.

Even Kasia seems remarkably cool about soliciting Germans. Notwithstanding the situation she is in and wanting to work with the resistance, she has gone from innocent young waitress who looks about 16, to cunning seductress. I think she would have had some moral dilemmas about this, around her own upbringing etc.

I sometimes wonder if people are paid by the word in these dramas, because they have very few conversations with each other.

I think they have tied themselves in knots trying to tick every PC box.

It was good to see that there were some civilians Brits and others that evacuated from France, they mostly did that before the troops arrived but they did get themselves out where they could. I remember reading a book about the War Graves Families who lived and looked after the graves from WWI and how they were on standby to go south or get to the coast. Some of them had pretty tricky times getting out.

Finally the US doctor has linked up with the some of the others, but now all the Brits are off the beach is his story relevant, was it ever relevant. No - but they wanted the Americans in it and hence there he is, plus they wanted a gay romance in it and hence there is his lover who is also black and would have been on a fast train out of there like the rest of the black musicians. Hitler hated jazz or jazz/big band themed music and I think he may have banned it from being played on radios and in bars/theatres in Germany. Travelling musicians would have known that and they wouldn't be hanging around.

Anyone studying Dunkirk would be aware that the French army held off as long as they could to allow us to escape, but the soldiers who took the brunt of this were the Senaglese and Algerians, so I was happy enough with them being on the scene, but I am afraid the shell-shocked did not have priority at that time (was it the third day of evacuation) and would been undoubtedly left at the field hospital, whether the US doctor wanted them there or not. Injured soldiers and airmen were given priority on the first ships when things were still organised, after that they tried but when Harry finds himself at a hospital with these men he would have seen the sense of leaving them there.

Then we have a single hugely pregnant singer (of the average variety), still working for ENSA at British Airfields. I don't think so.

Kasia and her pal have to leave Warsaw soon, surely, there little execution game is bound to be found out. German soldiers being executed on their own in back alleys was hardly going to go unnoticed and they'd be on the watch for her within days. The SS took this stuff incredibly seriously and threw a lot of resources in to it.

I am trying to rack my brains to think of another tick box I can come up with.

We have these, I think:

Black
Gay
Unmarried mother
Pacifist
2 x unnecessary US characters
German in the Nazi Party who hates the Nazis - this is a particular popular theme in German literature currently.
Refugee
Racism
Mental Health
Abandoned Child

Please add any more.

I'm still watching because the action is good and so far Harry's little team have added light and shade and been good together - their scenes have been some of the best. I may be wrong, perhaps there was an officer who rescued a group of shell shocked men, but I don't think he could have got them all out. Some people with shell shock are so traumatised that they would never have been able to make that journey, they need total care. I liked the sergeant and his sarcasm. I liked Sean Bean feeling so guilty for making his son go back. This week it was Kasia and the US journalist who didn't really have a story line.

No we haven't yet, in fact we haven't had a Jewish person yet- that I can recall. Perhaps Kasia's fellow waitress and May be the nurse in France. I'm sure that'll be coming.

Yes I am still watching.

So now we see the reason for the US doctor, he had to save the young sailor. Goodness he was lucky to be rescued from the field hospital and then on to Paris.

Perhaps I missed it, was there an American Hospital in Paris. Is there some historical basis for this.

Harry's mother is a gem of bitterness and pent up anger isn't she.

So Harry's off to Poland - did we send agents there. Probably we did but I know little about this.

I worked with a woman whose father was a (British) dentist practising in Paris. She was born there in the early 1900s, married there before the war and had never lived in England until her family was forced to escape in a hurry in 1940. I don't know exactly how they managed the journey but do know they left virtually all their possessions behind and it had a very traumatic effect on her.