It follows a specialised (and fictional) branch of British law enforcement known as CI5, with the head of the department, George Cowley, and two of his best agents Bodie (played by Lewis Collins) and Doyle (played by Martin Shaw). They don't seem to have a specific sort of remit, they deal with all sorts of things from terrorists to kidnappings to other sorts of crimes.
Whereas The Sweeney seemed to be a more serious sort of drama, The Professionals seems a lot more tongue in cheek and more inclined to laugh at itself. There is a lot more in the way of comedy in this series than in The Sweeney. It meant that it took me a little while to get into it because Mr Click had told me it was like The Sweeney, which in a way it was, but at the same time it was very different.
It ran for four series and my favourite was probably the third. It had really found its feet by then and there were some really outstanding episodes. My absolute favourite was one which had a terrorist group preparing to attack some gathering (a conference, I think), meanwhile the guys from CI5 were preparing to counter the attack. The whole episode switched between the point of view of the good guys and bad guys; it seemed like quite a modern episode, considering when it was made.
The fourth series was probably my least favourite because by that point it felt like it was recycling the same old storylines. Nine times out of ten if there was something strange going on, or the team were doing something unusual, it was some sort of investigation into the department or there was a cover-up going on.
The DVD box set that Mr Click has was pretty good, in that the episodes had little tidbits (through the first series at least) with notable things to look out for (like the now Mrs Billy Connolly's appearance in three episodes, playing three different characters). Unfortunately later episodes didn't have the same sort of information, and the little text interviews that they had weren't very easy to read (white text on a green background) so we stopped looking at those. Also in the final series they sort of gave up with the box set and all the episode titles were printed for a different series!
On the whole though it made for good bedtime viewing (particularly once we got the TV set up in the bedroom so we didn't have to watch it on my little laptop screen). It was fun looking out for famous faces, before they were famous (it was particularly cool to spot Max Gallagher from Casualty back when he had hair!) and as I said above, there was a fair bit of humour in the episodes.
For now we've been watching Friends, which takes me back because we're watching ER on an evening as well. It's like every night is Thursday night (circa. late 90s/early 00s).
The fourth series was probably my least favourite because by that point it felt like it was recycling the same old storylines. Nine times out of ten if there was something strange going on, or the team were doing something unusual, it was some sort of investigation into the department or there was a cover-up going on.
The DVD box set that Mr Click has was pretty good, in that the episodes had little tidbits (through the first series at least) with notable things to look out for (like the now Mrs Billy Connolly's appearance in three episodes, playing three different characters). Unfortunately later episodes didn't have the same sort of information, and the little text interviews that they had weren't very easy to read (white text on a green background) so we stopped looking at those. Also in the final series they sort of gave up with the box set and all the episode titles were printed for a different series!
On the whole though it made for good bedtime viewing (particularly once we got the TV set up in the bedroom so we didn't have to watch it on my little laptop screen). It was fun looking out for famous faces, before they were famous (it was particularly cool to spot Max Gallagher from Casualty back when he had hair!) and as I said above, there was a fair bit of humour in the episodes.
For now we've been watching Friends, which takes me back because we're watching ER on an evening as well. It's like every night is Thursday night (circa. late 90s/early 00s).
RIP Lewis Collins :(
ReplyDeleteI know, it was sad news. He wasn't that old either. :-(
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