While evenings on 7Two (Seven’s new digital channel) may start with Jack Bauer fighting to keep America safe from terrorism in 24, they end on a much more stylish note with the team from CI5 keeping England safe from criminals who act beyond the reach of the police. Anarchy, acts of terror, and crimes against the public all fall under the purview of the protagonists in classic 70s action show The Professionals.
One of the great things about digital multi-channeling is that it provides an opportunity for the programmers to run some series that have a much more niche audience than they otherwise cater to. Something like The Professionals would never get a run on Seven’s primary channel other than in an early morning graveyard slot. It’s great to see that they’re being a little more adventurous with scheduling shows like this.
The Professionals, which ran from 1977-1983, centres on Doyle (an ex-Detective Constable) and Bodie (an ex-SAS sergeant). The two agents now work for ‘CI5’, one of those fake law enforcement agencies that allow the screenwriters to place their protagonists into any crime investigation that is required each week. One could almost see Bodie and Doyle as a British Starsky & Hutch if their relationship didn’t seem so prickly.
The show is everything you want it to be. Gun fights, fast cars, excellent late 70s sideburns, British accents, and split screen opening credits.
While The Professionals lacks the style and fun of earlier British action shows like Department S and Jason King, it does bring with it a sense of gritty 70s funk that manages to define shows of the era. The action sequences are actually quite decent and much more brutal than you’d expect. Tonight’s episode (‘Private Madness, Public Danger’) opens with a man jumping from an office building window with the camera lingering over the body once it hits the ground just that little bit longer than one now sees from a modern TV show.
The Professionals is gritty television fun that is absolutely perfect to end your night of TV with.
The Professionals screens tonight on 7Two at 10:30pm.
Not to mention some of the best theme music ever created to accompany same.
It also has a rather good appreciation of shades of grey. In one episode as I recall, a minister pitted ‘one of those fake law enforcement agencies’ against another, with agents from the other agency trying to kill a guy under the protection of CI5.
They succeeded in the end, and as the other guys agents retreated after the gunfight, one hero turned to the other and said something to the tune of ‘don’t blame those guys, they probably don’t know who was behind this either’ or words to that effect.
That sort of moral ambiguity is something British TV can do quite well.
I prefer ‘The Bullshitters’ by Comic Strip. Plays up the homoerotic attraction felt between the two male leads, as well as taking Robbie Coltrane taking the piss out of Gordon Jackson’s ‘Cowley’.
Up the Moscow Dynamos.
LOVE this show – knee high to a grasshopper when I used to watch it with my older brother.
Dig the Ford Capri.
Mark Duffett – you’re right. Theme song is ace.
You can get some more Bodie action (well, same actor) in Who Dares Wins. Mwah.
I am surprised this series hasn’t been re made into a modern movie. Jason Statham, Clive Owen, Mark Strong, Gerard Butler, Christian Bale or maybe even our own Sam Worthington would all be good candidates for the the two leads?