[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Ultimate_Force_Title_8301.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Ultimate Force indeed, ladies and gentlemen...]]

An {{Creator/ITV}} Main/ActionSeries originally starring Ross Kemp, Jamie Draven, Creator/TonyCurran, Creator/DannySapani, Creator/ElliotCowan, Creator/SendhilRamamurthy, Christopher Fox and Miles Anderson as members of the British Special Air Service Regiment, more specifically the fictional 'Red Troop'. Created by Rob Heyland and Creator/ChrisRyan, the show's first two series presented a stark and brutal demonstration of what the operators of the SAS go through, from hostage rescue to preventing an assassination, and the repercussions of their actions both with the world at large as well as with their families and friends. [[AnyoneCanDie People die]]. But then it went pear-shaped with the beginning of the third series, where nearly the entire cast, excluding Kemp, Fox, and Anderson were given the boot and replaced with [[Series/LipService Heather Peace]], Louis Decosta Johnson, Creator/LiamGarrigan, and Jamie Michie. [[spoiler: Draven, Curran and Sapani's characters (played by body doubles) were killed in the opening episode of series 3.]]

The show has aired in over a few countries now, including recently the USA (via BBC's American channel) aside from most of Europe, Oceania and Japan (as SAS: British Special Forces in Japanese). It's also available only in [=DVD=] currently with a collector's edition that collects all of the [=DVD=]s from all four seasons.

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!!This show features examples of:
* AbortedArc: The departure of half the cast led to several plot threads going unresolved, such as Jamie's family drama, the death of his stepfather (WordOfGod states that Ricky killed him), Pete's struggle with PTSD, his wife's affair, Henno's killing of [[spoiler:Capt. Ian Macalwain]] and Jamie's relationship with Caroline.
* ActionGirl: Becca Gallagher and Caroline Walshe.
* AffablyEvil: Louis, who combines a bit of SociopathicHero and DeadpanSnarker to create one of the more interesting characters later in the show.
** If only because [[spoiler:he's one of only three original cast members by Season 3]].
* AnyoneCanDie: Slightly jarring at times, particularly during the first series.
* AssholeVictim: When Jamie finds out that his abusive father has been murdered, his response is "Good. I hope it hurt".
* BadassCrew: Well, they're the ''SAS''...
* BankRobbery: The first episode involves the team being called in to deal with a bank siege gone wrong.
* BaseballEpisode: In "Mad Dogs", Captain Macalwain's first act upon taking command of Red Troop is to make them play rugby as a team-building exercise. Not being upper-class, the guys aren't thrilled, though Ricky takes pleasure in tackling Louis.
* BlackComedy: Most of the original cast frequently indulges in it.
* BlackDudeDiesFirst: Averted, Ricky Mann dies off-screen.
* BodyDouble: The villain of "Something to Do with Justice" is a war criminal who has many doubles, much like UsefulNotes/SaddamHussein.
* CaptainSmoothAndSergeantRough: Col. Dempsey is the Captain Smooth, while Henno fits the Sgt Rough trope to a T.
* CartoonBomb: In "The Class of 1980", Henno, having jumped out a transit stuffed with tertiary explosives, is on the cliff face when the van detonates, the yield supposedly capable of shifting an entire city block sideways, and Henno climbs up with no apparent ill effects from an overpressure that would normally have collapsed his lungs, throat and sinuses.
* {{Catchphrase}}: Ricky Mann's "They love it" and variations thereof.
* {{Chickification}}: Mostly averted with the female cast members, but happens a little bit to Becca Gallagher, who goes from staunch tomboy at first to dressing in more noticeably feminine ways out of uniform by the end of the run.
* ColonelBadass: Colonel Aidan Dempsey reliably kicks a lot of arse when called upon, most notably in "Dead Is Forever", "Never Go Back" and - particularly - "Charlie Bravo". In the latter, he strides through a gunfight, casually taking one-handed potshots at rebels, while exhorting his local counterpart to "Pretend you're an officer and get your men in order!"
* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: [=MI5=] Attache Pru Banks, who is a regular in series 2 and [[spoiler:ends the series romantically involved with Henno]], disappears without explanation before the beginning of series 3.
** Also happens to Kathy Crampton after Series 3, although she featured less often, and Sean Smith, who was head of Blue Troop for two seasons and had been on enough missions for his absence to be noticeable.
* ColdBloodedTorture: In "The Killing of One-Eyed Bookie", Jamie is captured by Northern Irish terrorists. He gets beaten up, worked over with a red-hot poker and made to dig his own grave.
* CopKiller: In "What in the Name of God", an ex-British soldier from the first Gulf War kills a couple of constables.
* CoupDeGrace: In conjunction with NoKillLikeOverkill, SAS troopers are shown taking down terrorists with controlled bursts and then raking the body with a few more to make sure their targets don't get back up.
* CourtroomEpisode: "Mad Dogs" sees Red Troop face a full judicial inquiry that could land them in jail following the events of "Communication".
* CrazyPrepared: The UK-based Al-Qaeda cell in "Class of 1980". They were so prepared that they expected to face [=SAS=] [=CRW=] commandos when they gunned down [=SO19=] officers before the [=SAS=] went to engage them, armed with [=LAW=] rocket launchers and a [=FN=] [=MAG=] [=GPMG=] to stall the [=CRW=] units before Red Team was able to defeat them.
* CreatorCameo: Chris Ryan shows up as the commander of Blue Troop.
* DeathOfAChild: In "What in the Name of God", Pete is forced to kill a child holding a gun during a siege. He later vomits out of distress.
* DontCallMeSir: Henno reminds the newcomers in the first episode not to call an officer "Sir".
* DoubleAgent: [[spoiler:A PIRA officer was also working with the RUC in quelling the revolts in Northern Ireland.]]
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: [[spoiler:Done with nearly the entire cast at the beginning of Series 3. Only Dempsey, Henno, and Louis made it through unscathed.]]
* ElitesAreMoreGlamorous: The British [=SAS=] after all, even when they get on the action with little/no involvement from [=SO19=]. There's (possibly) the 1st Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment, although they get into a firefight with [=SAS=] units in civilian clothing.
* FakeActionPrologue: "Wannabes" opens with Jamie, Pete and Ricky scoping out a house at night, awaiting a man and a woman entering. It seems like they're on a mission - it turns out to be a prank they're playing on Louis and a prostitute, whom they tricked into meeting him.
* FakeShemp: [[spoiler:Draven, Curran and Sapani didn't return for the third series, so body doubles were used for their death scene]].
* AFatherToHisMen: Colonel Dempsey, very much so.
* FarEastAsianTerrorists: Red Troop was called during a hijacking to take out Tibetan ultranationalist terrorists, led by an ex-British Army officer who is tired of seeing the Chinese government mistreat Tibetans.
* {{Fingore}}: In "The List", the safe cracker that Red Troop recruits to assist them in the heist gets most of his fingers blown off by a booby-trapped box.
* FirstNameBasis: Despite being higher by several ranks, Col. Dempsey is very close to Henno and is the only person who calls him by his first name.
* FiveTokenBand: Between the working-class northerner (Jamie), the big black man (Ricky), the ginger Scot (Pete), the middle-class British-Asian (Alex) and the public-schoolboy Captain (Dotsy), the original cast ticked virtually every British socio-ethnic box going. Keeping it PC.
* FromCamouflageToCriminal:
** The villain of "Natural Selection" is a wannabe soldier who failed the SAS course twice and tries to prove his worth by murdering the current recruits.
** The villain of "What in the Name of God" is a Gulf War veteran turned fanatical cult leader.
* HeistEpisode: "The List" sees the team take a "black bag operation" to steal a list from a secure bank vault. To do this, they enlist the service of a professional safe-cracker.
* HighAltitudeInterrogation: In "Natural Selection", Henno threatens to throw the villain out of a helicopter to get a confession about the murders he committed, much to the disapproval of the police inspector riding in the helicopter alongside them. Billy claims that he was good enough for the regiment, and that he should have been selected instead of being returned to his unit. Henno refutes, saying that Billy cracked under two seconds when threatened to be pushed out of the helicopter. Henno then puts a bag on Billy's head and throws him out of the helicopter to fall to the ground, but it is then revealed that the helicopter was hovering just above the ground.
* HostageSituation:
** The first episode involves a siege at a bank where criminals have taken hostages.
** "Deadlier Than the Male" involves Free Tibet terrorists hijacking a passenger plane and threatening to blow it up.
** "Violent Solutions" sees gangsters take control of a tour bus with Becca posing as a hostage.
* {{Hypocrite}}: In "Wannabes", one of the main villains is a woman who recruits suicide bombers for a cult that wants to, among other things, outlaw homosexuality, deport illegal immigrants and execute paedophiles. She - a) has sex with a black nightclub bouncer, b) has a girlfriend and c) recruits candidates at the school she teaches at via seduction.
* InstantMarksmanJustSqueezeTrigger: PlayedWith when Henno gives a pistol to an ambassador he is protecting with these instructions. However, he then reveals he was actually suggesting a suicide method.
* JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: In "Wannabes", Pete interrogates a bigoted villain tied to a chair via smacking him with a copy of his own inflammatory book and punching him in the face.
-->I've read your book. ''(smack)'' It's shite.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Corporal Louis Hoffman embodies this.
* KilledOffscreen: Corporal Ed Dwyer is killed off between Series 3 and 4 in unknown incident and buried at the start of Series 4.
* LargeHam: Ross Kemp as Staff Sergeant Henno Garvey, also Miles Anderson as Colonel Aidan Dempsey.
** "Boss" from the very first episode also comes to mind.
* MiddleEasternTerrorists: One episode involves the squad taking out an Al-Qaeda cell that occupied the Italian Embassy.
* MissingBackblast: Horrifically averted in Season 4's "Violent Solutions". One of the bad guys fires a [=LAW=] 80 from the top of a bus, roasting the face of one of his own men. Becca, undercover on the bus, manages to duck, thus secretly weaponizing it.
* ModelPlanning: In "The List", the SAS team under Henno practices with a semi-turned thief on how to break into a high-security vault.
* TheNeidermeyer: Captain Macalwain showed many tendencies toward this.
* NotEnoughToBury: According to Henno, [[spoiler:Pete]] had to have sandbags in his coffin, "because there wasn't enough to fill a mess tin".
* OffWithHisHead: In "Never Go Back", Henno decapitates a man who was holding him hostage with a machete.
-->[[BondOneLiner A little less conversation]].
* PervyPatdown: While posing as a mercenary, Henno uses the opportunity to 'demonstrate' the correct way to search a female journalist coming to interview the warlord he's working for. The journalist is actually a female member of Henno's unit, so while his pat-down is entirely professional there's a definite subtext.
* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: "Wannabes" features a hard-right group of suicide bombers led by a racist, ant-semitic, xenophobic businessman. Naturally, he's interrogated by Ricky and Pete.
* PutOnABus:
** Alex leaves the army at the end of Series 1, partly due to the death of his brother in the first episode.
** [[spoiler:Caroline Walshe]] gets this treatment at the beginning of Series 3, after being a major character in the first two series. [[spoiler:She doesn't return.]]
* RecruitingTheCriminal: "The List" sees the team recruit a thief to help them break into a bank vault and steal a list. He does well until he injures his hand in a booby trap and the team are forced to abandon him to the police.
* ShootTheTelevision: Pete shoots a TV set during a [=CQB=] exercise.
-->'''Henno''': Alright, who shot the T.V.?
-->'''Pete ''': I did. It was [[Series/{{Countdown}} Richard Whiteley]]. I felt he posed a risk to life so I used necessary force.
-->'''Henno''': Fair enough.
* ShoutOut: Henno [[Film/DieHard saying a familiar line by John [=McClane=] after he knifes a [=PIRA=]/[=RUC=] double agent to death.]]
* SouthAsianTerrorists: An Al Qaeda terrorist named Al Djouf, who takes over the Italian consulate in "The Class of 1980". It's possible that AD is of South Asian origin since his actor is a British man of South Asian origin.
* TheSquadette: Becca Gallagher, to some one of the contributing reasons to the vault over the shark.
* StressVomit: Jamie throws up after killing a man for the first time in the first episode and Peter vomits after having to shoot a child holding a rifle in "What in God's Name".
* StuffBlowingUp: Naturally, given Red Team's habit of explosive breaches.
** In "Violent Solutions", an anti-tank rocket fired at a police car misses and hits a flatbed truck...'''loaded with fireworks''. The driver ''[[ScrewThisImOuttaHere immediately]]'' [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere runs the hell away]] as the entire load goes up.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute:
** Corporal Dave Woolston filled Ricky's role as the token black guy in the final two seasons.
** Corporal Finn Younger replaced Corporal Ed Dwyer for the final season.
* TeacherStudentRomance: In "Wannabes", one of the villains is a schoolteacher who recruits impressionable students to join an Aryan suicide cult via seducing them.
* TeethClenchedTeamwork:
** During the first season, Jamie and Alex repeatedly butt heads, with Alex blaming Jamie for his brother's death in the first episode.
** Henno and Captain Macalwain the second season. The former having an affair with Pete's wife only escalates things. Henno may obey an order, but that doesn't mean he has to like it.
* TooDumbToLive: ''Captain. Ian. Macalwain.'' Sleeping with another man's wife can lead to murder amongst ''civilians''. Macalwain doubles-down on the risk by cuckolding one of his own men - one of a group of highly-trained soldiers who work with explosives and automatic weapons on a daily basis and routinely arrange for fatal mischiefs to befall people they have no personal reason to dislike. Then he gift-wraps an opportunity for Henno to deal with the problem by putting himself alone with Sgt. Garvey in circumstances where his death could be blamed on the hostiles without any bothersome questions being raised.
* TrainingFromHell: In "National Selection", ten new SAS recruits face their toughest challenge yet, a three-day combat survival course in the Welsh highlands, where they must evade capture by 40 Paras while navigating rough terrain and swollen rivers. Henno even gives them a speech saying that no matter how cold, starving, or exhausted they may be, things can only get worse. Louis and another recruit pass after enduring interrogation, white noise, sexual humilation and violence.
* TrueCompanions: It's occasionally shown just how far the troopers are willing to go for one another. This includes committing cold-blooded murder in someone else's stead so that the person the police would suspect will have an air-tight alibi.
* UnfriendlyFire: In the series 2 finale, Henno clears a room with Captain Macalwain, picks up an enemy AK-47, and shoots half a clip into his back in retaliation for sleeping with Pete's wife. Afterwards he has a Coke.
* VitriolicBestBuds: The troop members wind each other up, insult each other and play pranks on each other, but they have each other's backs in combat and support each other in other ways. Plus, they take attacks on them personally.
* WhamEpisode: The first episode of series 3 killed off three of the five main characters in the first five minutes and put its mission control on a bus, as part of a retool to a longer format.
* WhatTheHellHero:
** In "Breakout", Alex guns down a Russian-British scientist named Sergei after he was holding a flask in a top-secret disease research center. Jamie uses this on Alex that the two slugged it out against each other. Granted that Sergei was not armed and was under heavy stress when one of his relatives was with a pro-Chechen extremist group that attacked the center that it initially raised a lot of suspicion, but he was cleared of not being a terrorist. [[DownerEnding Still you wonder if his relatives would press charges against the British military for wounding/killing Sergei?]]
** In "Dead is Forever", Henno guns down Captain Macalwain at close range in Georgia during a rescue mission, covering it up by disguising it as a shootout between [[spoiler:Georgian government-sponsored militants]] and Red Troop. The others didn't bother to figure it out (possibly since the captain's personality was disliked by most of them) and Colonel Dempsey treated him as a "hero", not bothering to ask any questions.
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