Jason King

Having just read the write up on this site.. I'm not sure I agree. ITV4 has started showing a lot of old ITC progs, including Department S and Jason King. Watching it now at age 54.. I remember it when first shown.. but now.. I'm enjoying it all over again. I'm surprised they were hour long episodes... but find I have really enjoyed them. Many will compare them to modern series.. well, I view everything with the thought of, they were of their time. I've found what I've seen so far humorous.. and knowing what I know now of Peter Wyngarde, am STILL thoroughly enjoying them? Tongue in cheek.. STYLE.. charm with the ladies.. a laugh.Entertaining. Its a shame modern series with hi tech effects.. often overshadow characters. These shows HAVE characters. Now I know there were 26 episodes, I know a mate who told me there were only 6.. must have read a miss print.

"Jason King" was always an anticlimax after "Department S". Both were made at Elstree Film Studios with many of the same personnel, but "Jason King" was shot on 16 mm rather than the 35 mm of the earlier series and in 1971 the difference was jarringly obvious. Despite a few foreign location shots (mainly King crossing a road in Berlin or Paris) the whole thing looked decidedly cheap.

"Department S" had the great hook of a bizarre pre-credit incident and much of the interest was in discovering the rational cause. The Jason King character was a gadfly with unpredictable, often wrong, flashes of insight. Stewart Sullivan and Annabelle Hurst could be left to do, respectively, the gumshoe and the brain work. King was best taken in small doses which worked in "Department S" as he did not have to carry the plot. However, as the lead character in his own series he was in virtually every scene and had to be sensible and motivated enough to do the traditional detective stuff in order to progress the stories (which were themselves (unlike "Department S") little different to those of a dozen other series).

The tension in the one character between the frivolous dilettante and the determined detective often willing to risk his life for others must have been difficult to reconcile and the tone of the scripts and the degree of King's flamboyance varied significantly from episode to episode. King also suffered from not having strong regular characters the equal of Sullivan and Hurst to bring him down to earth when necessary and balance his excesses. The more interesting episodes were those rare ones where King was angered by the real suffering of others and had to confront, if not the hypocrisy, at least the irony of, his usual moaning about the minor irritations of his luxurious lifestyle.

Extracting King as a character from Department S was an example of an often repeated mistake in TV. Because a character is hugely popular in one situation it doesn't follow that they will work outside their complex support structure of setting, format, other characters, style, etc. (Having Inspector Morse star, in an Australian-set, pseudo-western rather than an whodunnit in Oxford is another example which fortunately only happened in one episode) King might have become even more of an unlikely heartthrob in his own series but the drama suffered badly.

Having said all that, "Jason King" remains a far more interesting, entertaining and original series than most and Peter Wyngarde (view "Night of the Eagle" to see him at his very best) one of the more complex and electric performers let loose in the lead of a major TV series. It is just that coming at the tail end of the "golden era" of ITC filmed series it is difficult not to judge it by higher standards than usual.

This is by way of a comment on one of the other reviews.

The episode "All that Glisters..." was playing recently on a TV that I could hear but not see. "Thunderbirds!" I thought since I could clearly hear the voice of Scott Tracey. On going in to actually watch the TV I was amazed to see that it was Jason King rather than Thunderbirds and that bizarrely Clinton Greyn was speaking with Scott Tracey's voice. The lip-sync was excellent but it was clearly a dubbed voice since the acoustic was different. And of course, rather than Greyn's rounded Welsh tones we were getting the distinctive Canadian sound of Shane Rimmer. Cant understand why they did this - and then not credit it? Weird.

I really like Peter Wyngardes performance, a bit of an intellectual cheeky chappy I suppose. . The program may be a little dated but there are some very good guest stars and some of Wyngardes one liners are so funny. It's obviously a follow on from Department S which was also enjoyable to watch, but with the Jason King show Peter is in it much more which I feel is a plus for us viewers watching. I agree with a previous review who said they don't watch it for a mind blowing plot. It's simply great fun with a very charasmaric lead and it's very enjoyable to watch and the program is well produced with a very catchy theme tune.

Finally we have a digital channel that is not afraid to run the old ITC pulp series from the late 60's and early 70's. These are the ones we 50-year-olds grew up with!

They were, of course, formulaic having the two-man/one girl teams (almost always with the Canadian/American Hero in order to sell over the pond). With the popularity of the formula it was surprising that 'Department S' spawned an untypical offshoot - Solo British Hero with very few Transatlantic guest parts. This was harking back to the glory days of 'Simon Templar'.

ITV4 has now re-run a number of these old 'Jason King' episodes most recently a two-parter entitled "All That Glisters.." I am absolutely convinced that Clinton Greyn's character of 'John Mallen' was voiced-over by Shane Rimmer, although no mention of this occurs in the credits. Anyone familiar with these stock actors would surely recognise the substitution instantly, unless Greyn had cultivated a mid-Atlantic accent of remarkable similarity during his time in the USA.

If true it is a shame that Rimmer (who, I believe has been unwell recently) received no accolade for the performance. Such 'Lip-Sync' on live actors must be far more demanding than marionettes and is to be admired!

Can anyone out there shed any light on this?