My Name Is Anna Wiseman

Burnside wants to plant a sleeper in the Soviet Union, and he wants to keep the real mission a secret from the man who has to approve it. On paper, Anna Wiseman is a long-term double agent going in for the duration. In practice her job is short and loud: human rights propaganda designed to embarrass the Soviet regime, with maximum publicity as the whole point. The plan asks a woman to go into the Soviet Union under one story and act under another, and the danger to her is real either way.

Matthew Peele, the Deputy Chief, isn't prepared to sanction the operation. So Burnside goes ahead anyway, unofficially, which is his way of asking forgiveness in advance. The gap between what Peele approves and what actually happens is where the episode lives, and it's a gap Burnside is very comfortable standing in. It is a quiet abuse of power, conducted entirely in omissions, and the episode refuses to wave a flag over it.

Written by Ian MacKintosh and Gidley Wheeler, directed by Michael Ferguson, first shown on 30 June 1980. Carol Gillies plays Anna Wiseman, with Roy Marsden as Burnside and Jerome Willis's Peele. Ray Lonnen, Michael Cashman, Dennis Burgess as 'C', Sue Holderness, Guy Deghy, Anthony Schaeffer and Terry Walsh complete the cast.

The interesting thing is how small the omission is. One detail left out, one sentence not said, and a sanctioned operation becomes an unauthorised one. Burnside knows exactly what he's doing. The drama is in how far he is prepared to push, and whom he is willing to leave out of the picture. What makes it uncomfortable to watch is that he is probably right to do it. The mission needs speed, and committees need meetings. Burnside has never once mistaken the two for the same thing.