Our Girl just wants to be one of the boys

TV Watch with Dave O’Connell

You’d imagine you wouldn’t have to search too deeply for drama in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan – but you’d be only half right. Because you had to dig deep for the drama in the latest BBC mini-series set in the heart of Helmand.

And that’s a pity – because Our Girl promised so much. It still delivers on some fronts; not least because the female in the title is Lacey Turner, whose acting abilities have long been evident to those who know her as Stacey from EastEnders.

There are also occasional scenes that might have you moving a little closer to the edge of your seat – but there are other times when the drama makers have managed to turn one of the world’s bloodiest hotspots into a sort of stroll through the desert sands.

And worst of all is the sort of clichéd depiction of these young soldiers – from the stiff upper lip commanding officer to the chauvinistic carry-on in the mess, it could well have been scripted by someone whose knowledge of war comes from a graphic game on their Playstation.

This five-part series began with a pilot episode a year ago.

Molly Dawes (Turner) is a medic who is sent to Afghanistan where she finds she’s in the same platoon as an old boyfriend called Smurf (Iwan Rheon from Game of Thrones), who is determined to ruin her reputation because she appears to remember him as little more than a one night stand around the back of the Indian takeaway in Guildford.

So with work to do to prove herself to her all-male platoon, it stretches credibility just a little that it’s Smurf’s life she ends up saving.

Never mind that the pair of them appear to have survived virtually unscathed despite triggering at least two mines or the fact that there’s nare an Afghan in sight – it’s just a little too convenient to be true.

Molly’s first encounter with her commanding officer, James, is supposed to show her other social failing – she’s under-educated and from the wrong side of the tracks.

School wasn’t her thing – which begs the question as to how exactly did she make it as a medic – and she has class issues that aren’t helped by her Captain’s mouth full of marbles every time he talks.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.