Pr1.11

TEN THINGS I NOTICED ABOUT...

SYNOPSIS:

The only woman Cowley has ever loved is back in the country - 

and someone wants her dead!   

001 The episode starts with a close up of a briefcase. I work in an office, and here the briefcases are filled with warm sandwiches, chewed pens and minutes from the last managerial meeting. But then I work for a local authority, not CI5. In the world of 'The Professionals', the briefcase is a supremely sinister object. Worst case scenario? A sniper rifle, or a bomb, perhaps nuclear; best case scenario: mucky photos, dirty money. So, no, Doncaster Council is not like CI5. Not at all.

002 The Annie who needs looking after is an American based evangelist turned politician. She's described as being a cross betwen Joan of Arc and the Tolpuddle Martyr, but is more like the missing link between Aimee Semple McPherson and a presenter for QVC. She's right wing, but not quite right wing enough for some, which is why people keep shooting at her. 

From the outset, it's clear that the usually implacable Cowley has a thing for her: "Handsome woman, eh?" he drools. "Not bad for an old ‘un" says the ever gallant Bodie. Cowley is disgusted: "Old? She can’t be any more than 45!" (actually, Cowley should know exactly how old she is)."That’s what I mean", says Bodie, never content to just stop digging once he can no longer see out of the hole. Those of us who remember his statement that a 'good woman' is one who is  'UNDER 50 and comes across' will be appalled at his rank hypocrisy. Bodie is nothing if not inconsistent when it comes to being a sexist hooligan.

Cowley assign Bodie and Doyle to protect Annie, even though it's out of their usual line of business. "Why us?", they bleat. Cowley is very firm on the issue: "Because I want it. Because I say so", something of a CI5 mantra. In an alternate universe, the show is actually called 'BECAUSE I SAY SO'. Don't ask for reasons, don't ask for logic - kill that man, beat that suspect, destabilise that country, risk your life for that woman with the hard hair - because I say so.  

003 Bodie and Doyle dress up as waiters and infiltrate Annie's hotel room, staging a mock assassination just to prove how shit her existing security is. It's a rather childish and alarming way of doing things, really. When Annie sees their warrant cards, she says ‘Georgie sent you?', neatly bringing us to the whole Annie / Cowley thing.

One of the main issues with this show is that, if you stop to think about it, very little makes sense. Of course, the answer is NOT to stop and think about it, but that's sort of the point of what I'm trying to do here so I usually end up with lots of unanswered questions and narrative disconnects. Example: Annie and Cowley used to have a thing, but the dates are all wrong, and because nobody took the time to align things, it seems to infer that Cowley was a sexual predator with a taste for young girls, which completely screws up the 'great love story' aspect. It's an extremely trivial thing, of course, but I haven't been able to sleep for worrying about it.

The Cowley and Annie thing certainly sparks Bodie and Doyle's imagination, and they spend some time debating whether their Boss is hot or not. Proto-Metrosexual Doyle takes a typically enlightened approach, unreformed Neanderthal Bodie not so much: 

Doyle: 

"Well he must be an attractive man... I suppose...? I mean he's a bit aggressive but he would be attractive, wouldn't he?"

Bodie 
(pursing his lips and putting on a camp voice): 

"Not noticed!"
(Bodie takes a second to reflect) 

"Cowley and a woman!"

Doyle: 

"Yeah! He'd kick the door down... throw her on the bed..."

Bodie: 

"... and frisk her!"

Whatever the true facts of their relationship and subsequent break up. Annie brings out something previously unseen in Cowley. He becomes raw and clumsy – and his normally black eyes glitter with a mix of hope and disappointment – he says too much, tries too hard, and there remains a gulf between him and his lost love, his lost youth, his lost life. For her part, Annie looks at him slightly askance, as if she can't quite believe he's going to rake all this up again.

As Bodie and Doyle are back at HQ having a cup of coffee, a bloke called Charlie is sweeping up. He served under Cowley in the army, and seems to have been kept on as some sort of mascot - oh, and to fill in some blanks. Charlie once carried a broken legged Cowley for a mile across rough country – and every single step was unbearable agony – but, according to Charlie, that pain was NOTHING to what Annie did to him.

004 There are actual black shirts in this episode (The 'NBP'), British fascists organised by a former army colleague of Cowley’s – Cowley hates him. 

In many ways this episode is as much about race as 'The Klansmen', but here it simmers rather than explodes in a shower of n-word fireworks, particularly when Cowley realises that Annie’s current lover is her black manager. Knowing Cowley as we do it’s hard to equate his obvious disapproval with out and out racism, but it’s clear that this has to be part of the problem: no man is good enough for Annie, it seems, especially a black one.

005 The world of CI5 revolves around mercenaries and hitmen and there's yet another hired killer in this episode, a small, intense man played by Keith Buckley, a familiar face with an interesting CV – any man who has appeared in 'Virgin Witch', 'Dr Phibes Rises Again', 'Special Branch' and 'Excalibur' is alright with me. I think he’s dubbed here, which is a strange thing, really: he's a professional and perfectly competent actor. This hit man is a bit of a joke, to be honest. He’s ridiculously indiscreet, recruiting a gang of Hell's Angels from a local transport cafe to help him do the job and, at one point, brazenly driving his van up to the venue for the assassination and pulling in just as Cowley is pulling out – the Angels pile out of the van, in broad daylight in a public place, all tooled up, laughing their heads off - not a care in the world and not giving a shit about being seen. It’s not how I’d do things.

006 This episode’s main dramatic drawback is that the storyline involves a full scale riot, and the budget simply isn’t there to achieve this. Stock footage is employed, from the 1971 film ‘All Coppers Are…’) and angry mob sound effects are dubbed unconvincingly over the action to try and convince us that a clearly unoccupied building in the middle of nowhere is under siege. It doesn’t work, and kills the episode stone dead.

007 Have we mentioned Annie’s hair? She has an extraordinary hairdo, a sort of ozone layer depleting helmet that never ever moves. It reminds me of one of those paper Xmas decorations that are shaped like a bell, only made out of wire wool and straw.

008 In an interesting take on the strange dynamics at work between these hard bitten men of action it’s worth noting that Bodie and Doyle are obviously unimpressed with Annie, and treat her with some disdain. Why? Because she broke Cowley’s heart. It’s quite sweet, really, like two schoolboys being off with the girl who chucked their mate.

009 We meet another CI5 agent in this episode. Not sure if I caught his name, but it hardly matters. He's a smart, clean cut, open faced man in his early twenties. We see him three times: at Annie's hotel standing thanklessly in the corridor; a pissed off Cowley walks straight past him without even acknowledging his existence. Secondly, we see him giving the thumbs up to show he's in position. Finally, we see him being shot in the guts repeatedly before falling to the ground like a sealed sack of dead shit. Bearing in mind that he has an elevated shooting position and a clean sweep of fire, the fact that he is outgunned by an amateur clumsily wielding a shotgun is a disgrace. Perhaps it's best for all concerned that he gets taken out - he's clearly not up to the job. 

010 Naturally, there’s a big fight at the end – Doyle gets pasted this time. It could be worse but, for some reason, the Hell’s Angels take a long while to realise that it’ not particularly effective to attack him one at a time. Just as Doyle is about to be overwhelmed, Bodie appears, standing on a high wall and waving his gun around. ‘Drop everything’, he says, ‘including your pants’ – before jumping ostentatiously to the ground to watch the bikers strip off.  Doyle has a broken arm (CI5’s sick records must be so ridiculously above the national average, it’s astonishing that there are ever enough of them on duty to get anything done) but he bravely soldiers on until everyone is under arrest at which point Bodie says: ‘Alright, sunshine, you can pass out now’ and Doyle duly flakes out. That’s discipline. 

All that’s left is for a concussed Cowley to shoot Annie’s manager / lover. It’s necessary, but you get the sense that he’s more than happy to do it.

As a postscript, Bodie and Doyle drive Annie to the airport. She doesn’t have any luggage for some reason. They stop at the hospital so she can have a go at Cowley for saving her life, and then she gives Bodie and Doyle a secret message for 'Georgie' that we don’t hear and they decide not to pass on to their already heartbroken leader. It’s a funny old episode, really, I can’t say it’s my favourite.    

Pr1.10

TEN THINGS I NOTICED ABOUT...

SYNOPSIS: 

A campaign of racist violence brings out the worst in Bodie - 

and the best in Doyle.

001 ‘Klansmen’ is a controversial episode, so controversial that it was pulled from broadcast and has never been shown on UK terrestrial TV. I don’t intend to get into whether I think it is inflammatory or not, but I will say this: if you want to watch a television show about the hugely complex and emotive subject of racial prejudice, then I wouldn’t suggest an episode of ‘The Professionals’, that’s not what it’s for. As it is, we’re left with an often cack handed mish mash of cliché, genuine offence, condescending liberalism and a twist ending that is simultaneously a cop out, a two fingered salute and the most ironic the programme ever gets. It's also very violent and fast moving: too raw to be entertaining, perhaps, but very engaging.

002 As you might expect from such a hand grenade of a subject, there are any number of contrasting attitudes on display here. Within thirty seconds, the loathsome Tony Booth (one of my least favourite actors of all time, EVER) has dropped the ‘n’ word, kicking off a prevailing mood of violent hatred. The ‘surprisingly liberal for a blunt instrument of the government’ Mr George Cowley, however, makes it very clear that he HATES prejudice and Doyle, of course, will go on to read The Guardian, so is already pre-disposed to agree with his Boss on this particular hot potato. Despite it never having surfaced before (even when talking about his time as a mercenary in Africa), for the sake of this episode, it transpires that Bodie is a racist.

There’s a scene where Bodie and Doyle are interviewing a black lawyer at his nice home in the suburbs. Bodie doesn’t like the lawyer’s self-assurance, his smooth manner, his intelligence, his smart suit, the Merc on the drive. When Bodie is introduced to the lawyer’s white wife, he is sulkily unimpressed, a reaction that does not go unnoticed.

003 Have you ever heard the expression ‘Black Town’? No, neither have I, but Bodie and Doyle go there to conduct an investigation, i.e. wander around aimlessly looking for trouble. Eventually, Bodie happens across some black men playing craps in a disused building and decides it’s a good time to start playing the colonial overlord. Within seconds, he has been stabbed twice. It’s a shocking and unexpected moment but, guess what, he sort of asked for it.

As he is wheeled into the hospital, close to death, he grabs Doyle’s sleeve and says ‘tell Cowley a  couple of spades did this. A couple of big black spades!’ which, even if you assume that there were less black people in the country in 1977, is not a lot of help.  Excruciatingly, the Doctor and Nurse looking after him are black. To their credit, they don’t put a pillow over his face as soon as Doyle leaves, even though Bodie periodically drifts back into consciousness to give a brief racist rant.

It’s worth mentioning that Doyle cries at the hospital. He actually CRIES. He loves that big, bone-headed black hating bastard, he really does.

004 Cowley says “I’m Cowley the cow. A cow gives milk”. Even in context, it doesn’t make much sense, but I believe he is suggesting that he will offer succour to Bodie in his hour of need. It’s poorly phrased, and creates an unpleasant image that you have to shut your eyes and wish away.

Incidentally, when you get the chance, have a look around Cowley's office. There are some strange things in there, not least a framed picture of Europe with everything north of Edinburgh cut off.  

005 The Ku Klux Klan is a loathsome organisation but, it has to be said, their methods are horribly effective. The silhouette of the Klansman, with the outlandish hood and robes is terrifying, and it is used to chilling effect here. Their initial attack on the black lawyer takes the form of a burning cross planted in his front garden, which is bad enough, but their second attack, in which the Klan decide to ‘scare the arse off that flash n***** lawyer’ by flinging white paint over the lawyer and brown paint over his wife has even more impact: it’s shockingly violent, without actually causing any physical harm. It’s a disgusting act, designed to degrade and demoralise. Pointy headed bastards.

006 Edward ‘think once, think twice, think bike!’ Judd plays Hulton, head of ‘The Empire Society’, the organisation ostensibly behind the attacks. Judd was a star in the early sixties, but he was an egomaniac who liked a tipple and ended up derailing his own gravy train. Here, he seems to have left his toupee, and the ability to act, in the whisky bottle he crawled out of. 

Judd’s character would be a great role for a more committed thespian: he’s a politician first, a nationalist second, a violent racist third: one of those insidious ‘I’m saying what you’re thinking’, ‘preserve our traditions of fairness by treating other people unfairly’ ‘I’m not a Nazi, I’m a patriot’ bastards that try and get some small amount of mainstream power every now and again. To our national credit, we always see them off in the end, though, don’t we? Sort of. We'll see.

As it turns out, this particular Nazi arsehole is the tip of a very nasty iceberg, but not, perhaps, in the way that you might first think.

007 With Bodie in hospital, only now and again emerging from a fever to be really nasty to his black nurse, Doyle takes centre stage. He poses as a fascist bullyboy and infiltrates the Klan, finds out who is behind it all, gets the shit kicked out of him for his trouble, and ends up passed out in the same disused building where Bodie was knifed. There’s a moment when he agonisingly pulls himself into an upright position and then literally whinnies with pain. Don’t worry, he gets his revenge. He can pretty tough when he wants, even if he does have stupid hair.

008 There’s a brief appearance by Willie Payne, who made an indelible impression on me as one of the incarnations of Satan in ‘The Devil Rides Out’. He was the one with the hypnotic eyes, remember? He gets shot to fuck within a few seconds.  

009 The ending, in which (SPOILER!) it is revealed that, gasp, a black man is behind the racial intimidation, is insulting at first, a farcical volte face which seems like a cheap shot, white wish fulfilment. It reminds me a bit of when I told my (lovely) Mum that the word ‘coloured’ could be offensive to black people, “Well” she said “they call us honkies…” No, Mum, they don’t, and that’s NOT the point.

On reflection, however, ‘The Professionals’ never tries to present us with a black and white world, but a grey one: a place where ideologies are bought and sold, where greed outweighs feeling, a ruthless, immoral place where loyalties are flexible and colour is largely irrelevant in comparison to the size of your gun or the weight of your wallet. In that context, the ending is par for the course, although the involuntary groan I emitted when watching was perfectly justifiable.  

010 As a postscript, a remarkably healthy looking Bodie strolls out of hospital hand in hand with the black nurse he previously found disgustingly inferior. His brief stay in intensive care seems to have cured him of prejudice as well as his stab wounds. God bless the National Health!