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4.0 out of 5 stars
Gritty British Spy Drama, Mar 5 2002
This review is from: Secret Agent AKA Danger Man: Set 2 (DVD)
Not as cerebral as "The Prisoner", nor nearly as simplistic as James Bond, Man from U.N.C.L.E., or any of the dozens of spy shows that were popular in the late sixties, "Danger Man" (Secret Agent in the U.S.) is a fine example of how British drama is often more subtle and ambiguous than anything you're likely to see on American TV. Modern viewers may scratch their heads, wondering why this show was so wildly popular. At its worst, the pacing is glacial, the narrative larded with long chunks of exposition. At its best, this is chilling, thought provoking drama with plenty of gray areas, reminiscent of the Le Carre adaptions (Tinker, Tailor, etc.) that were produced in the 70s and 80s. These shows are surprisingly cerebral for a TV series; while some episodes are too deliberately paced to work as thrillers, McGoohan is always worth watching, the black and white DVD transfers are gorgeous, and the endings are often startling. If you're not a McGoohan fan, you'll probably find "The Prisoner" more accessible. If you've already discovered "The Prisoner", and enjoy John Le Carre-style gritty, realistic espionage stories, give this box a try. (The episodes in Volume 2 are generally more absorbing and darker than those included in the first DVD set.)
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Depressing reminder of when television was intelligent, Mar 25 2002
This review is from: Secret Agent AKA Danger Man: Set 2 (DVD)
Watching these 35-year-old shows is a disturbing revelation at how television today has gotten even MORE dumbed-down than when it was referred to as the "vast wasteland". ALL of these shows have interesting characters, exotic locales (from Africa to Greece, South America to behind the Iron Curtain), and PLOT. Compared to "Man From U.N.C.L.E", this is Nobel Prize material! Each 50-minute show has more PLOT than most 2-hour movies foisted on us these days. As noted above, probably of greatest interest to McGoohan fans will be the episode "The Colony", as the origins of "The Village" are plain for all to see. However, my favorite has to be "What Happened to George Foster", where McGoohan's Drake takes on a millionaire Lord (played by Bernard Lee, no less!) and risks his career, not to mention his life, in a private vendetta that foreshadows #6's battles with the assorted #2's of "The Prisoner". This is certainly not light-hearted "Avengers"-style material. McGoohan gets roughed up in just about every episode, and there aren't any charming eccentrics or snappy gadgets. But it is nearly incredible that such high quality LeCarre-like material was shown on a weekly basis. Truely, it was a Golden Age.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Set. Fun for the whole Family., Sep 3 2002
This review is from: Secret Agent AKA Danger Man: Set 2 (DVD)
There are eight episodes on this DVD, of seeming various length. They're certainly entertaining, in black & white, which is part of the charm. McGoohan himself is very appealing and fun to watch. The sets are a bit cheesy, and recycled. The hotel in one episode, is, with minor alterations, the hospital in the next and the German apartment complex in the next. The plots don't really make much sense if you think about them for more than five seconds. The third world episodes all seem to be set in Banana Republic #43. But the visuals are fun, from footage, some stock, some not, of London and Paris, and make-up and fashion styles of the sixties, complete with the occasional semi-fashionable thug. And of course, there's the obligatory set of fisticuffs almost every episode. But the atmosphere is nicely paranoid, and, somehow, John Drake, the hero, emerges as slightly less adolescent than his main screen rival. There are some "upsetting" or "ambiguous" endings, though Drake seems more invigorated than drained by the paranoia. And there's funny dialogue like when an adorable Latin American Minister of Culture, a babe in uniform, says "I have read all of your great writers, your Shakespeare, your Dickens, your Upton Sinclair." I wouldn't exactly call this show intelligent, but it is very entertaining, and, by today's standards, remarkably wholesome. And, yes, the episode 'Colony Three' is certainly a precursor to the Prisoner. But Danger Man stands on its own merits.
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