A Professional Job
THE
Professionals are back, now called CI5:
The New Professionals (Sunday, Sky One).
ITV should be karate-kicking themselves
for missing out on this because, in many
ways, it's better than the original. Sharper
haircuts, posher cars, snazzier leather
jackets. Even more preposterous plots.
Where
Bodie and Doyle dashed around London's
docklands in a Ford Capri, scattering
piles of cardboard boxes in their wake,
Chris Keel (Kal Weber) and Sam Curtis
(Colin Wells) get to chase their villains
around locations like Russia, Cape Town
and South Carolina, riding in a Lotus
Esprit, a helicopter or even an F-16 jet
fighter.
They're
joined by Lexa Doig as CI5's first action-babe
Tina Backus (nicknamed Backup, natch)
who is every bit as brave and bright as
the boys. And almost as beautiful.
Edward
Woodward (The Equalizer, aka The Tranquillizer)
plays their boss, Commander Harry Malone.
At the end of the first episode, he pinned
up a picture of his predecessor George
Cowley (the late Gordon Jackson), stood
to attention and saluted it.
Nice
one.
Writer
Brian Clemens, who created The Professionals,
also slipped in a sly reference to a former
agent who used to sport a curly, bubble-cut
hairdo. "You're kidding me!" cried Keel.
"No, really! I saw a photo!" laughed Curtis.
Even nicer one.
(c)
Mirror Group Ltd, 1999.
THE MIRROR 21/09/1999 P9
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