Bloody ITV4. Just as I start getting into things like The Strange Report, they dump them! So no The Strange Report on ITV4 tonight, or The Persuaders!, only a repeat of Miami Vice. Still, it’s Golden Triangle Part One, which is the good episode where Castillo cracks open a can of martial arts whoop-ass on some drug dealers.
The Champions is still on Thursdays though.
Just in case you’ve not been tuning in, I’d like to issue a semi-hearty recommendation to UK viewers to watch The Strange Report, Mondays on ITV4. It’s a strange combination of the 60s sensibilities that led to The Avengers, The Champions, Department S and the rest of that ilk, with the forensic investigations of CSI. It’s little-remembered but actually deserves better, mainly because of a strong performance by Anthony Quayle.
Adam Strange (Quayle), a retired Scotland Yard detective, investigates crimes that baffle the forces of law and order. Unlike the crimes faced by Jason King, say, these are relatively normal crimes, such as kidnappings and assassinations, and Strange solves them using the very best science the 60s had to offer (the show had a forensic scientist for an advisor).
It’s quite fun, even though it’s played straight the whole time. Quayle embraces the role, but is never hammy, making it almost like Shakespeare at times. The wonderfully named Kas Garas, the token American hunk who’s also a Rhodes scholar, provides able support that offers a little more depth than characters in similar shows of the time.
The same can’t be said for poor Anneke Wills (who played Polly to Hartnell and Troughton’s Doctors Who), whose character is supposed to “slip in and out of undercover roles like a chameleon” but who blends unnoticeably into the background instead. Bad scriptwriters!
All the same, worth a look if you haven’t already tuned in. There’s more over here on the ITC Classics web site.
They don’t make them like The Champions any more. A classic ITC show from the 60s, it featured three agents of the international ‘Nemesis’ organisation travelling around the world fighting dastardly evil-doers. And good old ITV4 is repeating it again, starting at 6pm tonight.
What lifted The Champions out of the ordinary and made it just so fun to watch was its premise. You’ll need to being sitting down for this one.
Our three heroes’ plane crash-lands in Tibet during the first episode. On the point of death, they get rescued by a lost civilisation, which saves their lives. But their rescuers do more. They ‘enhance’ them to the limit of human abilities. They make them as smart as Einstein, as strong as Olympic champions, able to hear the slightest sound, see in the dark and more; they even get a form of shared ESP.
I told you you’d need to be sitting down for it.
Another entry in the ongoing top titles stakes: The Persuaders! Outstanding tune by John Barry, who did the James Bond theme, plus titles that give the entire history of the two main characters in just a few moments.
The rest of the titles bear little resemblance to the series itself, so are more aspirational than representative, but great titles all the same.
I’ve been “radio silent” for the last few days. Judging from the fact I used the phrase “radio silent”, you might have thought I’ve been enjoying myself watching some gung-ho escapism like The Unit. You’d have been wrong. I’ve been watching the four DVD set of The Adventurer, prior to its release on Monday.
I’m not exactly sure what I did to deserve that particular fate. Like Earl in My Name is Earl, clearly I’m balancing out some particularly evil act in a former life – I’m hoping it was in a former life, because otherwise there’s an act of genocide from my 20s I’ve repressed and you’d don’t want to be bottling that kind of thing up.
Anyway, 26 half-hour episodes of quite some of the worst early 70s television later and I’m ready to rejoin the living again. You can read my review after the break, if you want. I’m going to be out and about most of next week, so I probably won’t be blogging much, but you never know.
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