History Series / TheBletchleyCircle

* DomesticAbuse: Lucy's husband, Harry
* EurekaMoment: Several, e.g.:

* PutOnABus: Susan's husband is posted to India midway through Series 2, so she is absent from the latter two-part story of that season. The shows cancellation meant the bus never had a chance to come back.

* NearRapeExperience: Lucy is used as bait to try and draw the killer out. Unfortunately, they snag a common date-rapist instead of the intended serial-killer/necrophiliac.

* RealityEnsues: The entire series is an effective deconstruction of tropes associated with AmateurSleuth stories....

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: The general Susan talks to in the second episode of the second series. It turns out he's ''not'' behind the events, and as soon as she gives him all her information, he immediately works out what has happened and absolutely forgives Susan. He even provides her a car so she can go see her friends, one of whom has been hurt.
* SexSlave: Millie's partner's suppliers don't just smuggle goods. They traffic girls out of the USSR and other Warsaw Pact countries and into their hotel. The girls' parents ''think'' they're getting them jobs as chambermaids...
* ShellShockedVeteran: Susan in the second series. She's having a lot of trouble dealing with the fact that she was stalked and almost killed by a twisted psychopath.

** The police distrust Susan's hunches not because she is a woman, but because her first hunch leads to nothing, damaging her credibility.

A second miniseries of two two-episode stories aired early in 2014.

This miniseries provides examples of:

* SexSlave: Millie's partner's suppliers don't just smuggle goods. They traffic girls out of the USSR and into their hotel. The girls' parents ''think'' they're getting them jobs as chambermaids...

:: Unfortunately for the ladies' credibility with the police, sometimes the killer is further ahead than they had realized.

** While the women are very good at skills associated with code-breaking (mathematics, memory, logic, etc.), they clearly have trouble with other aspect of detective work.

** The police distrust Susan's hunches not because she is a woman, but because her first hunch leads to nothing, damaging her credibility. ** After the end of the first series, Susan [[ShellShockedVeteran suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder]] and has to be cajoled back into sleuthing by her friends. At the end of the second series, [[PutOnABus Susan has had enough, and she is happy to accompany her husband when he is promoted to a new position in India.]]

** When Jean is shot in the second series, it is stated to be OnlyAFleshWound ... but she has permanent damage to her leg, having an ugly scar and needing a cane in the third series.
** The women get together to solve a mystery all of three times, each of them several months (or years) apart (though they would have had more if the show had not been cancelled). The first time is partly out of moral outrage at the killer and partly out of for their GloryDays as code-breakers. The second and third times, one of their own is in danger, and ItsPersonal.

** While Alice's name is cleared in season 2, the stigma of a murder accusation follows her, making it impossible for her to find work. Eventually she takes on an assume name.

* GirlsNeedRoleModels: And how.

* SexSlave: Millie's partner's suppliers don't just smuggle goods. They traffic girls out of Russia and into their hotel. The girls' parents ''think'' they're getting them jobs as chambermaids...

* BadGuysPlayPool: In the second half of the second series, Jane and Lucy are trying to track down whoever [[spoiler:took Mellie]], and end up in a pool hall.

* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: You can't disarm a grenade by putting the pin back in; that's like unfiring a gun by unpulling the trigger. However, a massive explosion wouldn't have been in keeping with the rest of the miniseries.

* HiddenInPlainSight: The killer. They realize in the first episode that he's a ticket taker or something like that. [[spoiler: But then the trope is subverted. It turns out that the killer is has has killed ''seven'' other girls before and framed others for the crime. This time he's framing a railway guard who's rather simple thanks to a head wound.]]

* Housewife: what Susan and Lucy became after the war. Millie does her best to avoid this trope.

* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Susan (sanguine), Jean (choleric), Millie (melancholic), and Lucy (phlegmatic).

** That's not how pineapple-style grenades work. The pin is merely a safety device, holding the handle in place. If the pin is pulled, and the (spring-loaded) handle released, the timed fuse triggers. In this scene, Susan manages to grab the grenade and hold the handle at just the moment the pin is pulled, before the handle flies off, meaning the fuse never triggered. Putting the pin back in afterwards will "safe" the grenade again.

A second miniseries of two two-episode stories begins airing on January 6, 2014.