User Reviews

Another episode that would have been more on home with Robert Vaughn's later BBC series, Hustle.

Alan Sutherland (Anton Rodgers) is a suave con man who charmed Irena Gleskova, In return she gifted Sutherland a valuable religious painting.

Sutherland then broke up with her and sold the painting at an auction. It is all legal but Contessa Caroline di Contini is not happy. Irena is a friend of hers and Caroline buys the painting back at auction.

Now Caroline wants the money she spent buying back the painting to come from Sutherland. The successful bid was over £70,000.

The con is on to con the con man. Sutherland is already eyeing up Caroline.

Harry Rule poses as an American millionaire who likes to gamble and either win or lose big. When Harry suddenly needs to some money quickly, he borrows the money from Sutherland and gives him a valuable diamond ring as collateral.

The ring is valued at over £200,000. It is a case of whether Sutherland will fall for the bait?

It is enjoyable hokum but really does play as rather puerile. All hard to take when Irena basically gave her fancy man a valuable gift in the first place.

For me this was the best episode so far. At one point I even found myself laughing at one of Harry's quips, which is definitely a first.

The opening scenes don't stray away from the well established standards of the series, with the smug Contessa making an inordinately positive impression on everyone within her sphere.

By this point in the series I have personally come to dislike every patronising expression Nyree Dawn Porter throws at the camera. The Contessa is an unfunny parody of the affluent upper classes of society, clumsily acted by Porter and not helped by the storylines which depict her as virtually flawless. Compare this with Roger Moore's role in The Persuaders. Moore's Lord Sinclair is equally as supercilious and condescending, but is entertaining and affable because in reality he is so flawed. Moore's character is self mocking, Porter's Contessa is just unbearably haughty.

The series takes an unpredictable turn at this point. Believe it or not it moves into the realms of relaxed comedy. It's all infantile fun, but it is a refreshing change from everything that has preceded it. It may not necessarily be funny, but the actors seem to be enjoying it, so at least someone is.

The greatest aspect of The Protectors is that once the plot is established and the characters are introduced, you realise that it's time for the programme to wind-up and for Tony Christie to do his thing. Such is the case here. Nyree puts her cleavage on display again, we have the completion of the simplistic plot and finally, as usual, the script writers display their inability to write an amusing closing scene.

This whole 25 minute pantomime actually has some very capable actors scattered throughout its cast, including Anholt, Ronald Lacey, Peter Cellier and Anton Rodgers. It's a shame that they don't have more screen time and that certain central characters don't get less.