Return of the Professionals
CI5:
The New Professionals Sky One, Sundays
WHEN ITV declined to broadcast this re-make
of a 1970s' favourite action series this
autumn I assumed it was because the network's
chiefs arrogantly believed it wasn't suitable
for today's much more discerning audiences.
However, I have to admit that, in honesty,
it's just too old fashioned. The only
thing really "new" about it are the three
actors who have replaced the originals
- Edward Woodward, Kal Weber and Colin
Wells for Gordon Jackson, Lewis Collins
and Martin Shaw. Even then, Weber and
Wells play the same sort of characters
- one deep and caring, the other shallow
and impulsive.
The
music's the same as is the opening - a
car smashing through a plate glass window
- and the scripting, lighting and direction
is barely different from 20 years ago,
despite the advances in film-making techniques.
It's updated in that the original and
fictional British-based quasi-police/military
unit, CI5, now operates internationally
which was presumably intended to
boost sales of the series abroad, and
a fourth member of the team, Lexus Doig,
has been brought in for a bit of female
equality. While it's debatable whether
a mass ITV audience would have tuned into
this at prime time, many satellite viewers
probably will.
Like the original, it's extremely well-made
technically (even if the script and story
of the opening episode was old hat) and
it's pure escapist nonsense, especially
if you play the nostalgia card.
(c)
The West Briton, 1999.
THE WEST BRITON, TRURO 30/09/1999
|
