[1] The series focuses on the character Lewis Eliot, following his life and career from humble beginnings to being a successful London lawyer, Cambridge don, wartime civil servant, and finally to retirement.

Eliot's private life is also explored, relating his unstable marriage to Sheila, his difficult affair with, and then marriage to, his second wife Margaret, and his relationships with his brother Martin and with the mercurial Roy Calvert.

The behind the scenes machinations in the election of a new Master at Eliot's college are explored in one episode.

The series also deals with the British scientific community's involvement in the development of nuclear weapons during World War II.

The themes are big, the issues are important, but Strangers and Brothers is a monumental disappointment.