Mini series based on the 1953 defection of Vladimir Petrov, a minor KGB agent at the USSR's Canberra embassy, and the snatching of his wife Eva, by Australian officials, from a Russian-bound plane at Darwin. The mini-series also covers the political fallout from the Royal Commission set up to examine Petrov's claims and ASIO's treatment of the situation.
According to Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series,
The Petrov Affair is very much part of a Laborist view of Australian politics in the twentieth century. Important political movements, which might form the dramatic highlights of a conservative history -- such as Menzies' downfall at the hands of Earle Paige, the formation of the Liberal Party, the electoral triumph of 1949 and the Suez crisis -- are instead ignored in favour of a chain of narratives that sets the Labor Party and its leaders, warts and all, on centre stage.
Moran also notes that the Nine Network was cautious in its treatment of the mini-series: 'It lay on the shelf for some time after production and was finally aired without fanfare over two consecutive nights in an out of ratings period.'
