Adderly

"Adderly" is not of the caliber of "Twin Peaks" or "24," but it is a sharply written, clever little show that will appeal to anyone stuck in a menial job. Winston Reckert plays off his aging-pretty-boy-looks well, and Dixie Settle is a nice romantic foil. All in all, this is memorable Canadian series.

It's been a long time since I thought of this show. I was watching the Chuck Norris movie "Hit Man" and saw Ken Pogue. I remembered that I used to see him in some Canadian show about a spy that had much the same feel as another favorite, "MacGyver". I couldn't quite remember what the show was until I searched this site.

Now I remember more about it, such as the pencil pushing boss and the slightly daft secretary. I see that it went on for a couple of years and hope that it will show up again in syndication, such as TVLand or something.

I don't remember lots of specifics, but I do remember I tried never to miss an episode.

I have most of the episodes on tape and have almost worn them out rewatching them. This is so funny, so good, so sweet. It perks me up all over to watch it. The DVD is ruinously expensive but still...I might get it some day.

The theme song is perfect. The relationships are wonderful. The episode where hen-pecked Melville (Debbie beat him down and he beat Adderly and Mona down) got involved with a beautiful female spy behind the Iron Curtain was choice. The one where Adderly went home to see his parents, just terrific. And Mona! Mona who would have loved to be an agent if life hadn't led another way, and enjoyed her spy novels but was nobody's idea of a femme fatale. Melville and Mona both wished they could be like Adderly, but Mona got to help him while Melville for most of the series was just an obstructive force. And Maj. Clack who seemed to secretly want to get Adderly back into full service if he could earn it by showing the hand didn't matter and he wanted it enough.

And the quips! One I remember was when Adderly was playing catch in the windowless basement office and held up his smashed gloved hand and his ball mitt on the other hand, clapped them together and said, "Flippers!"

As the other reviewer said, much of this is an office comedy. Some of it is about overcoming handicaps of all sorts, whether Adderly's hand or Melville's cowardice. And part of it is about making at least a few of your dreams come true as all three of our office dungeon-mates have a chance to run with the big dogs, and do amazingly well.

I dropped it down to 9 instead of a 10 because sometimes Mona's speech pattern when she is "thinking on her feet" in difficult situations gets on my nerves. And of course the whole Iron Curtain thing is now over. But it's fun to see international espionage from the Canadian point of view and having Canadians save the world instead of Americans.

This was a wonderful show that demonstrates it's possible to make good television entertainment on a budget. Using a handicapped super-spy as an excuse to parody the inane workings of every day office life was inspired. Anyone who has ever been stuck in a job for which they are obviously over-qualified will immediately sympathise with Adderly, and with those who are supposed to supervise him.

I first saw the programme on US late-night television (CBS?) in the 1980's, and I've never seen it again. No big special effects, no amazing stunts, no cast of thousands. Just a wonderful little show with humour and pathos.

Isn't there somewhere in our 3000 channel universe where this could be re-run?

I loved this show when it first appeared in the United States, and wish that they would re-broadcast it again. The chemistry between Winston Rekert and Dixie Seatle combined with the deft comedic touches provided by Adderley's sweetly inept " boss",Melville Greenspan(I just suffered a memory blank about this fine actor's name) combined with interesting stories that combined mystery,drama, and comedy are worth watching over and over again. My one regret is that they have never put the show's episodes on video tape. I taped some of them in the 80's, but my tapes are starting to fade badly. If anyone ever has an opportunity to watch this show again--just run to the tv set and enjoy this charmer!