British TV took a decidedly dark turn in the 1970s. In the 60s UK TV screens were filled with fanciful and cool adventures like The Avengers, The Prisoner and Danger Man which, while still often intricately plotted, were more concerned with capturing the swinging vibe of the decade than reflecting the real world.
But once the 70s came around TV was finished with all that naive whimsy, and crime or detective shows strived to be gritty and serious, mainly by having its characters driving cars very fast whilst shouting. The Sweeney is perhaps the most well known example of this trend but The Professionals had much more scope in its action. This is mainly due to the fact that its heroes weren’t technically cops but rather members of CI5, a fictional unit put together by George Cowley (Gordon Jackson) and comprising of experts from both the police and the military who are called in to deal with serious threats posed by assassins, mercenaries and terrorists.
This 3 disc set comprises all 12 episodes of series 1 (or Mk1 as some marketing genius has rechristened it) and introduces us to our heroes: former London detective Doyle (Martin Shaw) and SAS hard-man Brodie (Lewis Collins). The two are paired together in the first episode and quickly become BFFs, bonding over a shared love of shooting bad guys and showing minimal respect to women.
Back in the late 70s The Professionals probably seemed fairly grim and gritty; it has lots of bloody action and deals with issues like drug abuse and racism that had been all but ignored in the more innocent 60s. But, by today’s standards it all still seems laughably far-fetched and over-the-top which makes it hugely enjoyable, but certainly not in the way creator/writer Brian Clemens intended.
The cast all play it completely straight, even Gordon Jackson who was a bona fide film star having appeared in beloved movies ranging from Whisky Galore to The Great Escape gives it his all and doesn’t act as if he’s above the material. Lewis Collins, who sadly died last year, never really escaped the shadow of Bodie and spent the rest of his life playing similar roles in straight-to-video dreck. It’s rumoured that Martin Shaw, who’s gone on to be a mainstay of respectable British TV, isn’t too fond of the show, doesn’t like to discuss it and actually tried his best to stop it being repeated. Given that Shaw is the only surviving member of the cast it’s not surprising, but very disappointing, that there are no retrospective extras in the package; or any extras at all for that matter.
It would have been very interesting to hear people involved in the show discussing how it looks to modern eyes, because aside from the fun to be had from the shoestring action, overacting and horrendous 70s fashions the most remarkable aspect of The Professionals is its horrendous sexism and racism. Recently as Operation Yewtree has been confronting various stars of the 70s we’ve been hearing on the news how attitudes have changed towards women since that decade. Watching The Professionals really brings home the fact that even as recently as 35 years ago they were casually subjected to behaviour that today would lead to court cases.
It’s not just that the show doesn’t have any strong female characters; even when the female character is a baddie she’s mucking things up by accidentally getting run over. But what’s truly perplexing is the fact that the two main characters are blatantly chauvinistic arseholes whose attitudes are seen as perfectly respectable.
The whole series is peppered with moments where they patronise or generally abuse women that they’re supposed to be rescuing but one scene in particular left my jaw on the floor: a new female agent has joined CI5, we’re told she’s one of those pesky “women’s libbers as well as a karate champion. Obviously, both Doyle and Bodie want to get in her pants. Doyle, who is marginally more liberal than Bodie decides the best way to do this is to let her beat him in a fight. Before he can ask her out though, in marches Bodie who casually lays out the woman, pins her to the ground and asks if she wants to come away with him for the weekend. She goes all doe-eyed and says “yes before explaining to Doyle that she could “never go out with a man she felt superior to. Her and Bodie then saunter off and that is the last we ever see of her character!
It’s so staggeringly, insanely sexist that you can’t help but laugh. This is exactly the kind of attitude that the Anchorman films were spoofing but it’s disturbingly hilarious to see it for real. The show’s target audience were obviously young men but it often feels as if it’s written by them too, immature young people whose only experience of women is leering at them from afar and making smutty jokes.
And then there’s the racism. Included in this package is an episode that never actually aired on British TV as it was deemed to racially offensive. If something was seen as racist in 1977 you’d better believe that in 2014 it’s going to be hard to watch. And indeed I found myself watching most of this episode through my fingers. It’s called The Klansmen and tells the ridiculous story of a branch of the Ku Klux Klan operating in London. What’s truly bizarre about it is that in theory it’s an anti-racism story. The Klan are the baddies after all, but even the sympathetic black characters are nothing more than nasty stereotypes.
This is also one of the few episodes to have conflict between Doyle and Brodie. Usually they’re the best of buddies but here they have a falling out as Bodie is revealed to be a full-blown racist. It’s hard to imagine a modern show suddenly revealing in its ninth episode that one of its heroes hates black people but that’s what happens here. Of course by the end of the episode he has changed his ways and has a new found respect for the black community but this transformation happens in the most cringeworthy way imaginable (hint: it involves a young, attractive black nurse). What’s most revealing about the episode is that Doyle is portrayed as the radical, liberal one because he doesn’t hate black people. But in a previous episode he makes the astonishing, Sherlock-like deduction that a character is a pimp because a) he’s black and b) he has a nice car.
But if you can stand the toe-curling attitudes that prevailed in the 70s than The Professionals is a lot of fun and was probably at its best in this first series. It’s also fun to play spot the slumming future British TV star before they were famous. Some of my favourites include Only Fools and Horses’ Roger Lloyd Pack as an Arabian assassin (yes, really), Phil Davis as a grenade lobbing madman and Game of Thrones, Harry Potter and upcoming The Strain star David Bradley as a German baddie.
Bradley’s episode was my favourite actually. It involves Bodie taking one of his girlfriends on a nice rowing trip on the Thames only to bump into a wanted German terrorist. He takes him into custody and then has to take shelter in a local vicar’s house along with his girlfriend and a terrified housekeeper as the terrorists’ comrades launch a deadly assault to rescue their boss. This episode perfectly encapsulates the appeal of The Professionals; it’s patently absurd and unintentionally hilarious but at the same time while watching it you can’t help but get caught up in the story and invested in the outcome.
The show has been fully remastered and looks incredible on Blu-Ray; often looking almost as if it was shot on digital. That’s not always a good thing, following on from the 60s which always looked very inviting, judging by the visuals here the 70s was an incredibly ugly decade, a lurid, primary coloured collage of concrete, polyester and bad perms and in High-Definition it’s sometimes a bit of an eyesore. But Blu-Ray does make the most of the truly amazing theme tune. Seriously, it should be the national anthem.
Overall Verdict: The guiltiest of guilty pleasures. If you like cheap and cheerful shootouts and car chases, distressing 70s fashions and appalling sexism and racism then this is entertainment guaranteed. It just might not entertain you in the way it was originally intended.
Reviewer: Adam Pidgeon