Probe

All 26 episodes in this series. If interested, drop me a note at this site.

I had just come to America from Australia and was like a kid in a candy store, when it came to television. I find it amusing that today many of the sophisticated shows are becoming popular. I was accustomed to "The Persuaders" , "UFO", and reruns of "The Avengers" and "The Saint". All these shows offered exotic locations and cars, excellent theme songs and fast pace with a lot of high tech gadgetry. "Search" offered a format similar to that of NBC"S "Sunday Mystery Movie", by using revolving characters. "Fame is the Name of the Game" offered the same type of format years earlier. That also starred Tony Franciosa. There are so many of these forgotten shows, but I am glad that they were able to make an impact on my childhood. I feel sorry for the young lads and lasses that do not have this type of educational influence on their lives today. These shows introduced us to many new things and an air of sophistication. My nephew who, is almost the same age as I was when I came here is getting that from DVD's of these shows along with the Connery Bond series. The only show that offered anything close to these shows is "Keen Eddie". Cancelled after only one season. We should probably be grateful that there are only a handful of these shows as it makes each episode even more special.

Probe, later to become the TV series "SEARCH" (72-73 on NBC) was an attempt to cash in on the publics fascination with high tech from the space program. The movie had all the pieces of a fun romp: sci-fi with the hight tech scanners and communications, intrigue with the search for the NAZI theft of the French "Entourage" diamond collection, and locations spanning from Innsbrook Austria, the Gulf coast, and New York City, though I think all of the filming was done in southern CA with the Angeles National Forest doubling as the Austrian mountains and forests. The movie was well written, acted (it was great having older, more cerebral actors on the show) and produced, and the show started out that way until I think they ran out of ideas. Having three different agents (Hugh O'Brien, Tony Franciosa, and Doug McClure) was a mistake I think as it did not allow a fan following to develop for one main character. It would be great to do the series today, but I think there would be too much of a temptation to put young pretty boys instead of older more competant (and believable) actors in the agent roles.

This TV movie / pilot was very interesting. Adding Sir John Gielgud to the cast gave it more gravitas. The diamond caper with the Nazi angle was fairly clever. When the show became a series, Hugh O'Brian (of "Wyatt Earp" fame) did not want to do a full time series. Unfortunately, the temperamental Tony Franciosa and the untalented Doug McClure were drafted to form a three agent "wheel". Each took turns every week. The series may have succeeded with the commanding presence of O'Brian, but it was watered down by Franciosa and McClure and faltered. The concept was great: having an agent jacked into to a mission control center that could advise and assist him in real time through a surgically implanted audio communication system and a miniature video camera that could be mounted on a ring or worn on a necklace. TV movie was fun, the series was a turkey.

I can add little to the excellent previous reader comments about the movie.

I disagree a bit on the TV series. I thought the rotating cast was a brilliant idea, and actually preceded rotating casts on a number of other shows. I was always a fan of all three actors.

One of the most common comments I heard during the short TV show run was "It's too unrealistic...a TV camera the size of a pendant? Being able to talk to the Probe ANYWHERE in the world? A computer system that's linked to computers all over the country? Those things will never happen." Of course, we take all three of those things for granted today.

I think the demise of the TV show was, at least in part, due to the fact that the ideas (much like Star Trek) were way too far ahead of their time.

While the pilot movie appears on TV from time-to-time, I have never seen the TV series run. I would love to get the series on DVD.