13 Aug 2008, Posted by Cat in News, 25 Comments. Tagged department s, tv

Department Stupid

As you know, I’m a big fan of cheesy old TV shows such as all that Lew Grade/Monte Berman magic: The Saint, The Avengers, The Persuaders, Danger Man, The Prisoner, UFO, The Man from Uncle, The Champions, etc. Many of these classics are now available on DVD in lovely boxed sets. The quality is awesome, crisp and clear in a way these shows never were when I first got to see them way back when. I’m not sure if they’ve been remastered or if my folks just had a really shitty television set.

There are many shows that I never got to see at all when I was a kid: Randall and Hopkirk Deceased, Man in a Suitcase, Wild Wild West, Department S. Now that they’re available, I’ve been busting to catch up. So I blew ninety dollars on a box of Department S. An easy choice — just look at the cover! It has Sparks written all over it. A slick logo, the promise of stylish frocks and lurid James Bond-style escapades.

According to a fan site, “Department S is an elite branch of the international police agency Interpol. Routine cases are not for them. Only the most baffling, unique, bizarre cases get handed to Department S.”

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m enjoying this show and when its done I’m gonna go get me a box of the spin off series Jason King (apparently called into existence at the insistence of Lew Grade’s wife). But I gotta tell you that Department S sux. The S most definitely stands for Stupid. The two male agents: Stewart Sullivan (Joel Fabiani) and Jason King (Peter Wyngarde) couldn’t think their way out of a paper bag. They can’t fight either, not like Roger Moore’s hard punching Saint. Their co-agent Annabelle Hurst (Rosemary Nicols) is the only one with half a brain. She and her computer (Auntie) do 90% of the investigative work. I’m not sure what Stewart Sullivan does, other than get knocked out and confused a lot, and Jason King… Christ on a bike, I can’t believe anyone would mistake this fellow for a ladies’ man, even back in 1969. Practically every episode features him sleazing up to leggy blondes with false eyelashes and, clearly, poor eyesight, because if this dude sidled up to pretty much any woman I know with that hair, moustache and sideburns, the ridiculous dandy suits, cravat, gap between the teeth and sleazy leer, they’d be likely to shriek for the police before the dude had a chance to speak. Mind you, the internet tells me that In 1972 Peter Wygarde was voted the person they would most like to lose there virginity too by a women’s magazine poll. I vote him the man most likely to develop my so far as yet utterly unmanifested lesbian tendencies.

And then there’s their boss, Sir Curtis Seretse (Denis Alaba Peters), an African diplomat who sort of hangs around in limos and steps out onto the marble balconies of swanky diplomatic soires now and then to… well, see, this is the problem. He doesn’t do anything much apart from look smug and rich. The actor portraying him would have to be the most uncharismatic black man I’ve ever encountered.

Jason King is a popular novelist. Whatever happens, he tries to solve cases by remembering what his fictional character Mark Caine would do in a similar situation. Doesn’t really make much difference what Mark Caine might do because many of the plots make no sense at all. This is one of those shows where the props, frocks and backgrounds are more interesting than the cast, Rosemary Nicols excepted. She’s absolutely beautiful. She changes her outfit three or four times per episode, sometimes seemingly leaving one room in one frock and entering the other with entirely different everything, hair included. Not that there’s anything wrong with that — it’s what I watch this stuff for in the first place. But seriously, you really gotta wonder what the writers were thinking. Every episode begins with the hint of the supernatural about it, but has been devolved into a some sort of Scooby-Doo-meets-the-public -service-beige-on-beige tedious explanation by the end.

Department S ran for 28 episodes of 60 minute duration. ITC. 1969-70. More info here.