Authenticity

I had a similar reaction as you: overall I thought it was pretty darned good, but the authenticity issues really got in the way of it being great. I can just about buy, for the sake of dramatic licence, the idea that a military base in Canada is able to receive and transmit signals from operatives using a portable briefcase radio in the field in France. But that the team flew back to Canada after their mission? Nope, no way.

Is this a bad joke on your part?

This series appears to be based on the true story of Camp X, which was a North American radio and espionage center during WW2.

Allies communicated through Camp X using shortwave radio and Canada was actually deeply involved in front line and espionage of the war YEARS before we were. Shortwave radios can and do reach across hemispheres, even around the earth's curvature.

And no, Canada wasn't part of Britain at the time, they broke off nearly 100 years prior LOL. You have to be making an unfunny joke or you're the worst history student ever.

Your complaints about wrong details are actually what's wrong. Learn some history before you go off making backwards criticism.

Quoting for the lulz:

Although the show isn't that bad, it left me with lots of questions and I wish they put a little more effort into the details.
For instance, quite a few of the chaps had long hair, at least for the era.
The explosives guy practically looked like he stepped straight out of 1960s London.

I was also wondering why and how they would contact Canada with their suitcase radio.
As far as I know those radios had a reach of about 500 miles, not 5000.
And Canada was part of the British Empire at the time, so I assumed they would/should just contact Special Force Headquarters in London.

And maybe I misunderstood, but really?
After they were involved in a top secret raid all the way in occupied Europe these 4 agents get picked up, flown back all the way to Canada (would have taken days, there is a war going on after all) and still wearing the same clothes are debriefed?
That is a bit odd.
Most of these groups would stay as long as they could and IF they were called back, they would go to England, not half across the world.

The whole story would have been made a lot more believable if they had not insisted on making part of the story take place in Canada.
Why not just pick a special Canadian branch of SOE situated in England?

History like this is important enough to take serious and put some effort into getting even the details right.
If you spot mistakes, especially ones that could easily have been avoiding, it is just a sign of somebody not doing their job properly.

Besides that the story was a bit over the top but not too bad and I think it is entertaining and may teach kids a few things about the war.
I'll give it another go but am not too impressed by the first episode so far.


Complaining about mistakes is almost as bad as complaining about complaining about mistakes.

Was able to see it online through one of our POP's. It's beautifully shot. It's also very dramatic, although I felt it went to far and became melodramatic.

I also question the inclusion of the now cliche magic savant. Maybe there was such a guy, I couldn't say.

Having to wait for a live response from what was implied to be Canada HQ may also have been dramatic license.

There were some nice performances, but also some hammy ones.

It has the look of a series that will be picked up on PBS or BBC America.

One big mistake I noticed was the commander of Camp X casually mentioning the kind of personnel the Brits had at Bletchley Park. There is no way he would know about Bletchley, much less the kind of personnel they had there. Bletchley was right up there with the Manhattan Project in terms of operational secrecy. It was not common knowledge that some podunk camp commander halfway around the world would know about. If you weren't directly involved with Bletchley, you wouldn't even know it existed.

Why don't your write your own TV series to rival this then?

[deleted]

When you see mistakes in a tv show, it is a sign of someone not doing their job properly, nothing more, nothing less.
Most people would agree that seeing a digital watch on a Medieval knight would be a terrible shame.
But people sometimes disagree on the importance of the mistake just because they don't see it as important while others find such mistakes just as bad as that digital watch.
Saying that its just a movie, not a documentary, etc, is fine, however there are still mistakes made and some people find that a shame and worth of discussion.
Especially when the subject is so important, I feel people should put as much effort as possible into getting things right.
Even more so when some of these mistakes could be so easily avoided.
I have no problems with some mistakes, I used to be in the tv/film business and know that sometimes things are just impossible to get right because of budget or time restraints.
But I get annoyed when mistakes are made because someone just didn't do their homework, mistakes that easily could have been avoided by just a little bit of extra effort.

Anyway, I had a little chat with Mr Brisson, curator of the Camp X website.
With his permission I share his reply;

Many thanks for your email in regards to the series "X Company" - you are absolutely correct in that there is no way that agents would have been communicating with Camp X (Canada) awaiting mission orders. If anything, it would have been with SOE (Special Operations Executive) in the UK. Plus it appears that the man in charge is Canadian ... if anything, any person in charge of a mission would have been British. And the other curious aspect is that at the end of the show, the team is back at Camp X giving the appearance that they'll be leaving from there for the next mission in Europe likely France. Once the agents were in theatre, you would keep in there as there's always high risk in removing them and then sending them back!

It will be interesting to see how the rest of the series unfolds!

One other aspect that did happen was the deployment of agents in the Americas (especially in South America) by British Security Coordination in New York headed by Sir William Stephenson. Jack Bassil was such an agent deployed in Montevideo for one. However as far as I know and have read, Camp X was there principally to give basic clandestine warfare training and to be a relay center for enemy wireless intercept forwarding of traffic to the UK especially German Enigma encrypted messages - that last effort was codenamed HYDRA as you already know.