Shark Bytes

Great Show! I just discovered this on DVD and have reaffirmed my status as a bonafide TV Anglophile. Nobody does it quite like those wonderful limeys! An earlier poster had the gall to diss The Avengers, for shame! These were all great in their own way. The Saint too. I love McGoohan here, as in most everything he's done. A brilliant segue into the brilliant followup The Prisoner (of which McGoohan had much more creative control). I agree that his antiBond treatment of the ladies was a refreshing departure. Drake was a far darker incarnation than our buddy James. Original theme was better suited to the feel of the show. I've only seen the DangerMan shows so I guess I really can't make a JTS judgment. The two aforementioned color episodes sound intriguing, however. Closing word on the great McGoohan: I loved the way he would startle you by going from a relative calm demeanor into full-fledged rage at the drop of a pin. He did the same type of thing in Silver Streak when Richard Pryor spills coffee on him. Great stuff! Magnificent actor!

Never jumped. Along with its predecessor 'Danger Man', one of the best TV shows from the 1960's. In addition, Secret Agent had one of the coolest theme songs ever!

I was a teenager when this show was first broadcast. It was one of the best, like United States Steel Hour. Then they cancelled the show I suppose because the TV executives were simply too stupid or assumed the public was too stupid to follow it. Today's shows follow that trend, aimed for an I.Q. of about 80. But this one aimed at at least 100. Patrick McGoohan was a real hoot.

This show never jumped.

I remember Patrick McGoohan coming across as a thinking-man's James Bond.

Interesting fact: When the James Bond producers were looking for a person to play James Bond, Patrick McGoohan was their first choice but he declined.

STRANGER THAN TRUTH!

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I love this show. It is so much more intelligent than most shows of today (or maybe I'm just old!). It seems to be so much more grittily realistic about espionage than the other spy shows of the cold-war era.

The last two episodes in color had the absolute worst breeches of the successful formula. Insane gadgets like the "danger watch" that just plain knows when you have a bomb in your boot and the laughable Death cult bad guy in both episodes showed too much of a desire to be more Bond-like and campy. It is an obvious sign that the Reality slide was going to be set to "insane" soon - enter The Prisoner (which is great taken on its own).

A classic! I was a fan of the Prisoner who then turned on to Dangerman! They are re-running the hour-long episodes on mystery channel here in Canada with the original British theme music. Love that crazy harpsichord! Agree with above commentators. This show was definitely ahead of its time especially the Mid-East episodes. Drake is often clashing with Head Office and often tries to humanize the system. Importantly in this he fails sorting up yet more resentment and disillusionment that would ultimately lead to him becoming No 6!

This is a show that actually jumped away from the shark after the show was retooled from its original concept. In the 1960, half-hour version of Danger Man, Drake worked for NATO (although that fact seems vague at times considering the fact that the NATO reference is not in all of McGoohan's voiceovers in the opening credits). Drake was also an American working out of Washington. As fine an actor as Patrick Mcgoohan is, his "American" accent was very uneven: yes he pronounced his Rs, but he also allowed Britishism to come through, such as rhyming "been" with "seen" and accenting "garage" on the first syllable. But since the show was intended for a British audience, few folks probably noticed. It's fascinating to watch Drake's character evolve from the half-hour to the hour episodes. He is much more garrulous and amusing in the early shows; he seems to grow more serious when he becomes British in the hour eps. (BTW, the entire first season is now available on DVD)

How could this show possibly jump? It was and is one of the most consistently well-written programs ever made. And of course, it has the added good fortune of having secured an extremely solid actor for the lead role. I've purchased all the A&E released boxsets--please, please, release the half-hour episodes now, will someone?--and I have to say that there really isn't an episode of this program that I don't like. The straight up spy ones were great, but I always liked the ep's that revealed some aspect of the character's loneliness. You can tell Drake is not happy doing his job much of the time. My personal favorite is the episode "A Date With Doris", where Drake does some -very- charming flirting with three-time DM and one-time Prisoner girl Jane Merrow as revolutionary 'Juana Romero' and even drops his guard long enough to give her a peck on the cheek for being such a good egg! Also high up is the ep "Are You Going To Be More Permanent" where you realize old Johnny's basically fallen for a beautiful fellow agent; even after he -knows- she's there to get rid of him. Patrick McGoohan is a great actor, very underrated, I think. He's been fabulous in so many films and television shows it would be impossible to count them all. He's even terrific on Columbo! A capital program, Danger Man is.

This show never jumped! Patrick McGoohan as Danger Man John Drake was always at the top of his game. Plus, everyone who raves about the theme song needs to hear the real theme song, "High Wire", which is a dizzy, crazy harpsichord bit of fun. A great show.

This show is awesome! I was a kid when it was first broadcast (on Saturday nights, I think it was) and I thought it was really cool even then. Patrick McGoohan is great! Hearing the great theme song (by Steve Barri and P.F. Sloan) instantly takes me back to my youth. Interestingly, the theme song was added for the American broadcast, and if you stop to analyze it, it really doesn't capture the tone of the show - the show used jazz music for its episode scores, with brass and even harpsichord (!) - rarely, if at all, is an electric guitar heard. The lyrics of the theme also suggest that Drake was constantly involved with beautiful seductresses, when in truth Drake was a gentleman of honor and never became involved with any of the woman characters, even when they wanted it (This was part of McGoohan's concept of the character). The rock and roll theme also suggests a show with younger characters (especially back in the sixties) but "Secret Agent" is generally about older characters - I think when it was filmed McGoohan was close to 40, which was considered OLD back then. Yet in spite of all that, the theme song just seems to fit exactly right! I have all the eps available on DVD now and I can't wait till they release the final set this month.

This show never jumped, TV jumped the shark after this show, in my opinion Just as good as the Prisoner - I actually think the Prisoner is an epilouge to Secret Agent Man. The show called dated!?, is actually more topical now then ever. It deals with every political fear we have today and with the same cast of characters. Many were about the Middle East. Patrick Mcgoohan was possibly the sexiest man to ever have been on the small screen. And a major part of it was that he did not dally with women, he just did his job. This show was a prelude to the downward spiral of the late sixties loss of morality and judgment. That fact does not make it dull, it makes it even more exciting. Tried to watch the Avengers after finishing all the episodes of SA. Could not bear it!!! Everyone who cares about Great Programming should by the CD's of Danger Man/Aka Secret Agent

Being British made (like The Avengers)gave the series a different flavor/look then anything else on U.S.tv which was part of the draw.The "Danger Man" Mentioned above was actually different.There were 39 half hour episodes from 4-5-61 to 9-13-61 made where he was a NATO agent.The Hour long shows where he was an anent for "British Intelligence"ran 4-3-65 to 9-11-65, and 12-4-65 to 9-10-66 which were produced in Engulnd by ATV. My recollection is the settings of most of the episodes took place in Africa in countries with names like Lugash, or mogashshie, and the like.For being low budget and relatively low on screen violence it was a high tension bit of drama. Not only did it have a Fantastic theme song but the music throughout the show was well done.Being shot in B&W they were masters of using shadows(It seemed like most of each episode took place at night) to heighten the suspense Having seen this series with all the sad and corrupt situations "John Drake" encountered, made "The Prisoner" credible.

This one will never jump. It may in fact be the shark! I've been a McGoohan fan since I've been watching the Prisoner, and now that Danger Man (Secret Agent) is on DVD, I've become a John Drake fan. This is a great show. The Drake character has an independent moral center missing from so many spy shows around today, and McGoohan does a great job of conveying Drake's emotions in so many great asides verbal and nonverbal. So far, "Yesterday's Enemies" and "No Marks For Servility" are favorites. But I've only watched 2.5 discs worth of shows. Another plus for John Drake, he's not X-Treme or in college at the same time!