It's not all Capris and cardboard boxes...

Introduction

Da da da.
Da da da da da da da da.
Da da da.

One of the most recognisable and memorable TV theme tunes ever. It opens this time capsule of a TV show. Oft parodied, sometimes mocked, criticised and banned (more on at story later) this is a pure slice of 1970s action TV.

The Professionals has a fairly simple premise which allows the stories to go off in lots of different directions. It revolves around two main characters, Bodie an ex SAS man, and Doyle an ex "normal" police officer. They are recruited by CI5, under the command of George Cowley, another ex army man. They look into cases and operate outside normal legal channels. They also get involved in personal cases too.



The episodes presented here are the complete first series, but presented in a different order to the original broadcasts. You can find lots of sites dedicated to taking you through all of the plots so I won't waste time with that here. This set also includes an episode that was originally banned due to its racial content, but it has since been shown on repeat runs. It doesn't appear all that controversial through today's eyes, but you can see why ITV was very twitchy about it back in the late 1970s.

Video + Audio

Wow. This looks good. It's not Star Trek : Into Darkness or Avengers Assemble. But given the age of this TV show, it has been scrubbed up rather nicely. If you watch the short comparison feature which looks at the previous SD DVD release and this Blu-ray you can really see the differences. This is by no means reference material, I just think it looks really good for 1970s TV, whilst retaining some of the gritty, run-down character of the 1970s London and surrounding areas.

The screenshots pictured here are from the original DVD release - this is what it used to look like - it looks so much better now.



Audio wise, there's a subtle surround sound mix, a mono and music only mix to choose from. I wondered about the music only option, but when I watched the show again for the first time in many years I realised why it was there. The soundtrack is a proper 1970s wah wah affair, but it really works here and adds so much to the episodes. Think Dirty Harry films, and you get the general idea.

Extra Features

A nice little bundle of extras too.

There’s a 1996 Channel 4 documentary “C4PD” which runs for around 25 minutes and features interviews with the main cast and crew (with the notable exception of Gordon Jackson who died in 1990). You find out that Martin Shaw and Lewis Collins met during an episode of The Avengers. You find out about the friction between them, partially due to them being entirely different actors - Martin Shaw was more experienced at the time. You also find out about the bitterness still living on after so many years about repeat fees from the show!



Alongside this documentary there are clips from the later series end credits, the restored original opening title sequence with voice over (this is seen on about four of the episodes), as well as the cleaned up end sequence used in series 1 and the advert breakers (the bits before the ads). It was interesting to see the show without any adverts, having only ever seen it with them until now!

There’s also some other bits of footage as well as a nice little HD/SD comparison which shows just how much better things look now!

Conclusion

Great stuff. I remember watching this series in the 1980s. Bodie and Doyle were the action heroes of TV for many of my classmates. Yes, it's massively dated, yes there are some very out of date attitudes and opinions, but that's just a sign of how we've progressed as a society. Some of the episodes have consequently not aged well, and there are some clumsy storylines but its still a very enjoyable series on the whole.



This is a great piece of 1970s action TV. One for anyone who remembers the show fondly or anyone who has ever wondered what the fuss is about. It looks and sounds better than it has ever done, but retains its “classic” character so it still looks very much of its time.