Operation Buffalo

2020 Ended ABC ★ 6.0/10

Drama

Operation Buffalo shines a spotlight on a controversial time in Australia's modern history, the 1950s British nuclear testing in outback South Australia. There is no more lethal cocktail than a combination of blind faith and paranoia. And it seems in 1956, everyone was drinking it. It's the height of the Cold War. The Menzies Government has welcomed British atomic bomb testing at remote, ‘uninhabited' Maralinga, in outback South Australia. Charged with keeping the base functioning smoothly is Major Leo Carmichael, an Australian Army Engineer and WWII hero. But testing the most dangerous weapon in the world is no easy task for Leo with a Commanding Officer who is not fit for purpose; a new meteorologist, Dr Eva Lloyd-George who starts asking questions; and the Government and press watching his every move. And as it turns out, the land of Maralinga may not be so uninhabited after all, when Leo's faced with the arrival of a family of Indigenous Australians, curious about the giant clouds that explode occasionally… This is a story of our infinite capacity for betrayal, and no one is immune, not even the betrayers themselves.