The entire series of the popular BBC Television series charting the lives of a group of four Geordie friends from their teens until middle-age: Nicky is a radical socialist, determined to devote his life to the class struggle; Tosker a Jack-the-lad with dreams of pop stardom; Mary, courted by Nicky and Tosker, is eager to pursue her own professional ambitions; and Geordie, a drifter who runs away to London. The award-winning drama starts in 1964 in Newcastle and carries through the swinging Sixties to the recession ridden Seventies. By the late Seventies the friends find themselves together again, but the political climate and social changes mean that they are growing further apart. Tosker and Mary's marriage breaks down, Geordie descends deeper into petty crime and alcoholism, and Nicky's political protests manifest themselves by both illegal and legitimate means.

All seven episodes of the HBO mini-series following the opening weeks of the Iraq war from the perspective of a batallion of young American marines. Far from home and positioned at the forefront of the assault on Baghdad, the men rely on humour, grit and camaraderie as they face unwieldy military bureaucracy, over-zealous and incompetent commanding officers, constantly changing rules of engagement, a non-existent strategy, severe deficiencies in necessary armour and supplies and an enemy they cannot begin to understand.