Department S

The reason why there are so many men called 'Jason' and to a lesser extent 'Stewart' are about, of a certain age. This popular series was highly influential in its time. So how does it stand up in 2006? The good points are,the leads are just great! the outfits, style and look of the series are still superb and when Dennis Spooner and his writing team's wonderful imagination is allowed to strain at the leash of the budget , then we get some wacky villains and ahead of its time plots and gadgets. Here we come to the main problem of the series, the stingy, always looking for ways to cut corners budget. You can see that Spooner wanted to take the series towards fantasy, while the producer was happy with B picture style crime. The result is when the producer uses his own ensemble pals of directors. some of the dullest and tatty (plot wise) episodes are produced. While in the hands of brought in directors we see Dept S at its best.

Rosemary Nichols apparently got the humph making this series and its not hard to see why , as an intelligent actress she is terribly underused, however we get to see her legs quite a bit, which is perhaps a delightful compensation?.

I first saw Department S perhaps twenty years ago while doing work experience at a studio in London dealing with dvd restorations.. instead of watching what the audio guy was doing I spent more time enjoying this great show

I liked it even more once i realized Peter Wyngarde (Klytus from Flash Gordon) was Jason King and so purchased a really great restoration of Department S by network just recently, and what a treat it is.. it has cleaned up really well and is just a perfect snapshot of the late 60's

I'm a big fan of shows like The Avengers too but I actually prefer the lesser known Department S a little more now since the storylines are a tad more serious and more James Bond / Ipcress File styled

The 3 main characters are all great, the head of Department S who appears sometimes is also excellent

The production values of the show are high class.. good sound and dialogue, lovely late 60's interior designs. Attention to detail was even paid to things like making the views outside moving cars look reasonable and consistent given what else was going on at the time

Department S also has good humour and is of course lusciously retro

Like NIGHT STALKER and then X-FILES, the show set up a fantastic situation and the main characters had to sort it out. Unlike these, the hero(es) weren't left holding an empty bag at the end. They had usually tangible results. It was also made clear that the 'good guys' were in a dirty profession where they occasionally had to pull some nasty things. Imagination, wit, acting which didn't always take itself too seriously ... I miss it. One reason being, I'm hard pressed to think of too many shows - BANACEK aside - which did as good a job of taking the viewer and grabbing their attention right off the bat. The writers excelled at setting up hugely improbable, if not downright impossible situations which the characters then had to find an explanation to. explanations which often took 90 degree turns into the clearly unexpected yet, for all that, still made sense. Too, I agree with another reviewer that the Anabelle character was somewhat underused, but when she was on screen, it wasn't just for eye candy. She was quite competent in her own right and stood up to the two male leads when she felt the point she was making warranted it. A rarity in those days. Sullivan? If he wasn't in the Department, he'd be working for the KGB or CIA. He's that sort of coldly efficient, ruthless type. He knows how the world works and realizes what it can take to get the job done. King? It's clearly a game to him. One he excels at and which he parleys into ideas for the detective/spy novels he writes as his ostensible 'real' job. He's probably the most fun to watch of the three, although they all have their moments and often, too. I do agree that the eventual spin-off series featuring only his character lacked the interest of the original, however.

With all due respect to Joel Fabiani and Rosemary Nicolls and their characters, Department S will be forever associated with Peter Wyngarde's Jason King.

Most people remember him as this camp, flamboyant and debonair womaniser cum detective in the mould of Austin Powers but that will do a disservice to the character: He's far more nuanced than that.

Jason King is lazy (he often lets Stewart fight all the bad guys and only chips in at the end), he is egotistical (his appreciation of people is based on whether they've read his novels or not), a lot of his detective work is speculation without facts to back them up and he sulks whenever Annabelle is right...and she often is. He's clearly a man having a mid-life crisis and drink drives but.......Jason King is brilliant. If Wyngarde had played him purely as a dashing hero, it wouldn't have worked but he shows King often as a paper tiger, led by his libido, love of finery and prone to grandstanding (and it gets in the way of his detective work at times) but he has some of the best lines and put downs in TV history. And by not playing him as whiter-than-white, the chemistry and interactions between the three lead characters is all the better for it.

Watching it again on DVD recently, you get to see just how much depth Wyngarde put into Jason King.

Department S was one of the first TV programmes I can remember watching and loved it for it's strange plots and interesting characters. I waited for years to see it again and I am delighted to say it has just started a re-run on a UK satellite channel and it's just as good as I remember it. The character of Jason King is fantastic and the two straight-playing members of the trio are also very good. The whole thing looks fantastic, there are some wonderfully corny lines, excellent clothes, theme music that ranks among the very best and it all comes together to present us with something camper than a hut full of cub scouts (and if you ever wondered where many of the ideas for the X Files came from - look no further than Department S). Simply brilliant.