I wasn't even born when this show was first shown on British TV in the late 70's. It was created by Brian Clemens, was a follow-up to a cop show called The Sweeney and starred Gordon Jackson as George Cowley, Lewis Collins as Bodie and Martin Shaw (who hated the show and his character) as Ray Doyle, working for a spy agency called CI5.
Violent, sexist and very politically incorrect, The Professionals was just good fun and it knew how daft it was. Basically an episode would go like this: Bad guy of episode shows up, usually foreign and he was a hitman, terrorist, spy or something like that. He would commit a crime and then the main titles which still impress would come on backed by the great theme tune. Bodie and Doyle would be given the case by Cowley, and then there would be 45 minutes of fights and car chases (in their Ford Capris) which ended with the bad guy dying in an explosion.
The plots were interesting and there were a lot of good ideas from the writers. After the show ended there were lots of pretty awful follow-up shows like Dempsey and Makepeace and Bergerac and have mostly been forgotten. Although The Professionals is not often seen on TV nowadays it's a cult classic, and way better than any of the stuff they put on nowadays.
Violent, sexist and very politically incorrect, The Professionals was just good fun and it knew how daft it was. Basically an episode would go like this: Bad guy of episode shows up, usually foreign and he was a hitman, terrorist, spy or something like that. He would commit a crime and then the main titles which still impress would come on backed by the great theme tune. Bodie and Doyle would be given the case by Cowley, and then there would be 45 minutes of fights and car chases (in their Ford Capris) which ended with the bad guy dying in an explosion.
The plots were interesting and there were a lot of good ideas from the writers. After the show ended there were lots of pretty awful follow-up shows like Dempsey and Makepeace and Bergerac and have mostly been forgotten. Although The Professionals is not often seen on TV nowadays it's a cult classic, and way better than any of the stuff they put on nowadays.