raffimiami
I think that in all the imagination of the ITC writers, Department S was ahead of it's time. First of all, although it was set in the cold war world years,the series really thought of a global society,the crimes were no longer the responsibility of local police but of a higher authority that had to be involved ( thus the chief Sir Seretse, which shows his position seems to be a sort of a U.N appointment). Then the crimes were not only state secrets but industrial and financial. I can't think of too many shows that would involve themselves with the work of Interpol ever since. In addition the mysteries are so bizarre that all the computer and imaginative efforts have to be thrown into the case to solve it. The Lone Ranger theory would be no longer feasible, it would seem we live in a society that has to pull resources together in order to figure out what is going on.
jimpayne1967
Department S has a rather poor reputation these days and probably has the worst reputation of the ITC action shows of the mid to late 60s and very early 70s. It has not to the best of my knowledge been shown on British television- terrestrial or digital channels- since the late 1990s whereas almost all of the others are shown regularly on ITV4 even now. There are reasons that have precious little to do with the quality of the actual show that see it being regarded almost as the runt of the litter it was part of and aside perhaps from The Persuaders the programme - or at least its most famous character- is the most parodied of the ITC action showsIt certainly isn't the best of those programmes - the Prisoner and probably Man in a Suitcase are better - but on a recent viewing of several episodes I would suggest that it is far from the worst. Unlike the roughly contemporaneous Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and the Champions the show is not based on a ludicrous premise and although the stories are hardly gritty realism a la Line of Duty they do just about possess some credibility. Some episodes such as the opener Six Days, series 1's The Man in the Elegant Room and Series 2's The Shift That Never Was are pretty solid thrillers and whilst series 1's The Pied Piper of Hambledown feels like a Steed/Peel era episode of the Avengers it is still very good.There are faults in the show obviously. The team's boss, Sir Curtis Seretse (played by Denis Alaba Peters) is a far more interesting leader than Anthony Nicholls' Tremayne in the Champions ever was but he is underused and the female member of the team Annabelle Hurst (Rosemary Nicols) often seems marginalised. She is not there as eye candy in the way that Alexandra Bastedo and Annette Andre often seemed to be in R & H (D) and the Champs respectively - but whilst it's a decent enough idea to have a hardworking, female computer expert as something like the brains of the operation her character is pretty under-developed. Joel Fabiani as the straight man - but not quite- of the team, Stewart Sullivan is actually okay most of the time precisely because although Fabiani plays him straight there is obviously a humorous fellow in there. There are hints of some feelings between Annabelle and Stewart but mostly Sullivan is a professional and the show is the better for that.The show is best remembered though because of the character Jason King played by Peter Wyngarde. When those smart-aleck comedians make allusions to the show what they refer to is King/Wyngarde. With his crushed velvet Zapata moustache the character is very much of his time visually but actually that was how men who though they had style looked those days- even big rough, tough footballers like Derek Dougan tried to look like our Jason (though not perhaps on the pitch). A very unfortunate incident in Wyngarde's private life inevitably makes King's predilection for glamorous females seem a bit unlikely but trust me until the follow up series 'Jason King' ( which really was terrible) and the aforementioned incident women really did fancy Wyngarde and men thought he was way cooler than, say, staid old Roger Moore. And the thing is Wyngarde is mostly great as King. Few actors have ever been as convincing as Wyngarde at playing an almost permanently sozzled character and he delivers some sharp lines as though they were his own. He might now be seen as being a ludicrously camp figure but most of the time he plays it as straight as he can- a vain, flawed, erudite man living on his wits and who knows, not even very deep down, he is no super-hero. Department S is not a great programme and having had the courage to give the team a black leader and a female lead who is not just there because she looks nice it didn't do enough with what were for the time bold ideas. Fabiani and especially Wyngarde get the best lines and the best scenarios and look to be having a whale of a time making it and they make it watchable. The best thing about the show should not be the most scorned thing about it- quite the reverse
samsmith81
One in a series of many ITC shows during the 1960s and 70s, "Department S" was one of the highlights. Entrusted with especially baffling cases that other agencies had failed to solve, this elite department of Interpol had to find solutions to the seemingly unsolvable.Interestingly enough, and somewhat ahead of its time, the official head of he Department was black. Sir Curtis Seretse (Dennis Alaba Peters) was a high-ranking diplomat from some (never named) African country (to whom early script versions simply referred to as "the African diplomat"). A little like M in the Bond movies, he would brief Stewart Sullivan on the case at hand and then leave it to the Department to solve it. Occasionally, he would later reappear and sort of supervise.The American Stewart Sullivan (Joel Fabiani) was the field team leader. A former FBI agent, practical, pragmatic and professional, with a no-nonsense attitude, who solved cases with a stubborn insistence that there MUST be a logical explanation. He was also ready to use his fists when he had to, and to put his life on the line when it was called for. He would give chase while dodging bullets and cars bearing down on him, knock out a couple of bad guys single-handedly, and then emerge calm and cool and looking neat as ever in his three-piece-suit. For 'inspirational' input he always turned to the writer King.A bestselling novelist, Jason King (Peter Wyngarde) had a galloping imagination. He solved cases by trying to imagine what Mark Caine, the hero of his novels, would do. On the other hand, he also used the Department's cases as inspiration for his books (much to the dismay of his colleague Annabelle Hurst), so it worked both ways. Eccentric to the core, sometimes Jason's input proved very helpful, or, as Stewart remarked, "he has a nasty habit of scoring near misses". At other times, his 'theories' strayed far away from the bull's eye, or, in the words of Annabelle, "he has a nasty habit of making wild generalizations that cover just about anything!"The computer expert Annabelle Hurst (Rosemary Nicols) was the exact opposite: analytical and only interested in data, data, data, which she would then feed into her computer, "Auntie". While at times she appeared interested in little else than her work, at other times it was clear that there was some kind of romantic relationship between her and Stewart. The fact that this was never directly shown or openly stated, yet often subtly hinted at, was one of the many strong points of the show.The chemnistry between the principals was definitely there, and the teamwork was a major factor in the success of "Department S". The acting was excellent, as was most of the writing. The cases were intriguing, and the stories usually very interesting: an airliner that vanished in midair, a passenger plane that landed completely empty, a man in a spacesuit dropping dead in the midst of London, or an entire village seemingly abducted over night. Some episodes were better than others, but most of them were very good. All in all, a real highlight of an era of television that will never come back.Although, like many of the ITC shows, the series only ran for a year, it was syndicated worldwide, ran very successfully internationally, and has long since achieved its well deserved cult status. It's available worldwide on DVD in various versions (US, UK, Australian...), including special editions. The 40th Anniversary Special Edition (UK) is great, with lots of vintage bonus material. You can take your pick. This show is definitely well worth (re)watching. 10 out of 10
gtbarker
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.
