Danger Man - The Complete First Season

Rating:
Summary: My name's Drake, John Drake.
Review: The half hour Danger Man first season is the best spy show ever and some of the best TV ever made. Each episode is concise and believable. They are fast paced with great dialogue and characterizations. The plots are intricate and the action moves with the speed of an Olympic ping-pong game. The casting is marvelous and represents a veritable who's who of British TV from the fifties and sixties.
McGoohan's conception of a master spy is admirable. He is completely self-possessed and reveals no weaknesses. Unlike the characters of the eternally adolescent Bond films, John Drake is no sexual predator or sap who can't keep his pants up. He is always a gentleman and immune to feminine seduction or waterworks. He is noble but no patsy. Drake is intelligent, and perceptive. To accomplish his missions, he would rather fool, trick, or deceive his enemies. He does not like violence, and avoids the rough stuff if possible, but when it is the last resort he can mix it up with the best.
When one considers that Danger Man precedes Goldfinger by five years, it is amazing how much style and pacing of the later Bond films seems influenced by Danger Man. The opening line of each episode (credits) "...Oh, and my name's Drake, John Drake."
One of the outstanding things about Patrick McGoohan's career is his choosing consistently high quality projects. Most of his projects are classics from Danger Man, Dr. Syn, the Prisoner, many BBC productions, and his brilliant Edward I in Braveheart. This is a long awaited treat. Don't miss it.

Rating:
Summary: Even better than Secret Agent Man
Review: This program was the earlier versions of Secret Agent Man. The episodes are 30 minutes long which makes them faster paced and focused on the plot with no tangents. The writers were associated with British Intelligence during the war which makes the episodes so realistic. The plots sometimes illustrate moral choices in the espionage business.

Some things to look for is the introduction where Drake is a NATO agent based in the US. The producer falsely thought that people in the US disliked the English. This was corrected in Secret Agent Man. In the introduction British MI6 is not mentioned because it was illegal to do so at the time. Instead they mention MI5 which is the equivalent of the US FBI and like the FBI is forbidden by law to do work outside the country.

Rating:
Summary: Even better than Secret Agent Man
Review: This program was the earlier versions of Secret Agent Man. The episodes are 30 minutes long which makes them faster paced and focused on the plot with no tangents. The writers were associated with British Intelligence during the war which makes the episodes so realistic. The plots sometimes illustrate moral choices in the espionage business.

Some things to look for is the introduction where Drake is a NATO agent based in the US. The producer falsely thought that people in the US disliked the English. This was corrected in Secret Agent Man. In the introduction British MI6 is not mentioned because it was illegal to do so at the time. Instead they mention MI5 which is the equivalent of the US FBI and like the FBI is forbidden by law to do work outside the country.

Rating:
Summary: Very satisfying. The young John Drake
Review: Very much agree with the other comments.

Some additional bits...

He is American in this first series to appeal to American viewers and he tries to maintain a neutral accent.

As in the later hour-long Secret Agent series, he is an intelligence agency troubleshooter who is sent in to do "the messy jobs" (as he narrates in the intro.)

In the voiceover on the DVD for episode #2 he says he is from NATO, but his agency is left unnamed in the other intros. No doubt this is a clue that there were different versions of the half-hour intro for the UK and US markets. (The one-hour episodes shown on US TV had a different title - "Secret Agent" - and a different opening: with a twirling gun, a gloved hand firing three shots, and the Johnny Rivers song - all ending with a gunshot sound. More gunplay than in the actual episodes!)

The background shot is of the US Capitol dome. (In Secret Agent, there is often a shot of the dome of St Paul's.)

The half-hour shows don't have the plot complexity (most of the one-hour shows have a very realistic major setback or other plot twist at the half-way point) or the plot depth (the half-hour shows are nearly 100% action and suspense; McGoohan and the excellent guest stars have more time for characterization in the one-hour shows.)

And, of course, it is the later one-hour shows that bring out Drake's moral concerns and rebelliousness about his work.

As with the one-hour shows, they are beautifully plotted, written, acted, and filmed.

The half-hour shows are very satisfying and will give you a lift. I have to admit that some of the one-hour shows, being more realistic, can be a bit of a downer.

Get 'em all!