Danger Man

in my opinion the greatest ever spy series on TV. the original half hour series were amazing and you got a start, middle and end, John Drake always delivers. fast forward 3/4 years and Mr. Drake is back in 1 hour episodes and looking at these you will find an a to z of character actors involved in some fantastic stories. Drake is a loner who will not let himself get involved with anyone romantically due to the nature of his job, in fact he is the ultimate gentleman spy and he has to get close to people to solve the case. look at the episode with Bernard Bresslaw drake really does to get to like him and vice versa the pay off leaves Bernard a very sad man. all in all a fantastic slice of British TV and history, forget Bond, Drake is the man

This spy drama was in the mold of the first '007' movie, "DR. No". A crossover from the paranoid deep cover spy of the 50's to the gadget and spoof of the 60's. And to top it off, Patrick McGoohan, as the secret agent, was terrific. Cool, low keyed, sharp as a tack, traveling to different ports of call. Plots were generally good. Unfortunately, due to its mature nature and age, chances of it being televised grows less year by year...Alas poor Yorick. If you do gain access to these episodes, go for it. You won't be disappointed.

For forty years, cult T.V. fans have been asking the question: "Who was Number Six?", referring, of course, to Patrick McGoohan's fantasy masterpiece 'The Prisoner'. But in an earlier series, he played a character who was equally mysterious and enigmatic. The show was 'Danger Man' and the character was 'John Drake'.

Throughout the series, we see little of Drake himself. We know he lives in London, at a fashionable mews address, drives a Mini Cooper, is fond of cigars and doesn't seem all that fond of women. Whenever one throws herself at him, such as the Jill Melford character in 'The Galloping Major', he keeps her at arms length. This self-imposed chastity endeared him to us kids, as it meant that the stories could not get bogged down in soppy romantic sub-plots. Like Bond, Drake loves gadgets - the 'From Russia With Love' variety - radios in electric razors, microphones concealed in walking sticks, typewriters containing cameras and so on. Occasionally, Drake is called upon to impersonate an army major, butler, or schoolteacher, which meant his entire personality would go submerged. In this respect, 'Danger Man' was the forerunner to the U.S. series 'Mission:Impossible', which also featured agents about whom the viewer knew next to nothing other than their names.

The series was grounded in reality, unlike the later 'Avengers' and 'U.N.C.L.E.'. Each week, Drake would be assigned to rescue a captured British agent, locate stolen defence plans, or penetrate an enemy spy ring. McGoohan played 'Drake' in a terse, arrogant yet oddly charismatic way, preempting Sean Connery's early performances as 'James Bond'.

'Danger Man' was produced in two batches - one transmitted in Britain in 1959/60, and another from 1964-67. Its the early half-hour episodes which work best for me, being more tightly written and directed. In these, Drake works for N.A.T.O., and appears to be an American, but later on, he would be redefined as an Englishman attached to the British Secret Service outfit M9. Of the hour-long episodes, I cite 'Colony Three' ( the inspiration for 'The Prisoner' ), 'No Marks For Servility', 'Not So Jolly Roger' and 'Whatever Happened To George Foster?' as amongst my personal favourites.

'Danger Man' ended with a rousing two-part colour adventure set in Japan - 'Koroshi' and 'Shinda Shima'. Though not popular with many fans, for my money they rounded off the series nicely, and made one wish McGoohan had done more in similar vein before moving onto 'The Prisoner'.

'Danger Man' does not get repeated often because it was mostly made in black and white. Yet, for anyone who loves '60's action television, it is essential viewing.

'Secret Agent' was the series that preceded Patrick McGoohan's 'The Prisoner'. Having seen 'Secret Agent' for the first time makes you understand 'The Prisoner' much more. The agent that resigned in 'The Prisoner' is probably John Drake of 'Secret Agent'. It was a brilliant espionage TV series with many ideas that were later seen in the 'James Bond' movies and 'Mission Impossible'. It was brilliantly written and played and although most of the episodes are in black and white, it doesn't make much difference as long as it is so fascinating and reliable. It really stands the test of time. Every episode is different than the other but they all involve spy games. The quality of the series exceeds anything we see today. So Patrick, why did you resign?

I agree 100% with the previous comments. A nice departure for this series was that the hero wasn't forever slobbering over women - in fact Drake remained impervious to their charms - a sort of 1960s Sherlock Holmes - without an Irene Adler!. Only 2 episodes were made in colour, and these were to form part of the 1967 series, but after the two episodes were filmed PMcG wanted to drop the series and make 'The Prisoner' which is another story. It is probably because they are in black and white that domestic UK TV has not rebroadcast these stories, but the UK satellite channel Granada Plus has the rights to the ITC catalogue, which made Danger Man, but they seem reluctant to repeat B/W adventure series, though they do repeat B/W comedy shows like the earlier series of 'On The Buses' and 'Nearest and Dearest' etc. Perhaps if enough people contacted them they might think again?.

At least one videotape is available commercially of Danger Man, I have seen it recently in a store in London, as there are 4 episodes on one tape I assume that these are from the 1960 series, when the stories ran for 30 minutes. In the early days of Channel 4 (1982) they rebroadcast all 39 episodes of the original series twice a week.