The Champions


The Champions is a British espionage thriller/science fiction/occult detective fiction adventure television series. It was produced by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment production company, and consists of 30 episodes broadcast on the UK network ITV during 1968–1969. The series was broadcast in the US on NBC, starting in summer 1968.

Plot

Agents Craig Stirling, Sharron Macready and Richard Barrett work for a United Nations law enforcement organization called 'Nemesis', based in Geneva. Barrett is a codebreaker, Stirling a pilot, and Macready a recently widowed scientist and doctor.
During their first mission as a team, their plane crashes in the Himalayas. They are rescued by an advanced civilization living secretly in the mountains of Tibet, who save their lives, granting them enhanced abilities, including extrasensory powers to communicate with one another over distances and to foresee events, enhanced versions of the ordinary five senses, and intellectual and physical abilities reaching the fullest extent of human capabilities.
Many stories feature unusual villains, such as fascist regimes from unspecified South American countries, Nazis or the Chinese. The villains' schemes often threaten world peace; Nemesis' brief is international, so the agents deal with threats transcending national interests. The main characters have to learn the use of their new powers as they go along, keeping what they discover secret from friend and foe alike. Each episode begins with a close-up shot of a map, showing the region in which the story is to take place, followed by a teaser sometimes prefaced by stock footage; this is followed by the title sequence. Immediately following that is a post-title vignette, in which one or more of the Champions demonstrates exceptional mental or physical abilities, often astonishing or humiliating others. In one example Stirling participates in a sharpshooting contest. In another, Macready's car is blocked in, two laughing passing drunks try to lift it out but she goes round to the other side and pulls it out of the parking space one-handed. Paradoxically, the narration during these often-public demonstrations usually mentions the need to keep the powers a secret.
The only other series regular is the Champions' boss, Tremayne. He does not know that his agents have special abilities, although he does ask innocent questions about just how on their missions they managed to carry out certain tasks about which their reports were vague.

Cast

Main cast

The Champions was created by Dennis Spooner and its episodes were written by veterans of popular British spy series, including The Avengers and Danger Man. An unfilmed script originally intended for Danger Man was used for one episode.
The series was produced by Monty Berman, who had co-produced The Saint, Gideon's Way and numerous B movies of the 1950s. Berman used many of the same writers, directors and crew on other ITC series, including Department S, Jason King, Randall and Hopkirk and The Adventurer.
Owing to budget constraints, many sets were reused: three episodes were set on a submarine and three in the Arctic. Stock footage was often used. As with other ITC productions, much of the exterior action took place in and around the studio lot - in the case of The Champions, around Elstree Studios in Borehamwood, England. For at least one episode, "Desert Journey", foreign filming did take place, but with a second unit, and extras standing in for the main cast.
The theme music of the series was written by Tony Hatch, with Albert Elms and Edwin Astley supplying incidental music.

Episodes

Broadcast

Although short-lived, the series had three repeat runs in the UK across the ITV regions up to 1976, and one more on ITV in September–October 1984. It was also regularly repeated on ITV's digital channel ITV4 until January 2011.
The Champions was broadcast on BBC2 in 1995, at about the time when Gaunt was appearing in the sitcom Next of Kin, and it had at least three further repeat runs after that.

Home media

Episodes of this classic '60s British cult sci-fi thriller series were released on DVD in North America by A&E Home Entertainment, and in the UK, where the full series has been released twice, with the most recent edition seeing Damon, Bastedo and Gaunt reunite to provide a commentary for several episodes.
The series was shown in Italy in the early 1980s in syndication under the title Tris d'Assi and more recently in the 1990s on Canal Jimmy, but an Italian DVD collection has never been released because in that country The Champions is an almost completely forgotten show, remembered only by few loyal fans.
In 2010, Network DVD re-released The Champions: The Complete Series as a complete DVD Region 2 box set of all episodes on nine discs.

Adaptations

''Legend of the Champions''

In 1983, ITC edited the episodes "The Beginning" and "The Interrogation" into Legend of the Champions, a feature-length film intended for overseas markets.
Unusually for such features, the two episodes were not simply joined together, but substantially re-cut and edited, with "The Interrogation" being the framing episode, and the flashback sequences originally used in that episode expanded. Additionally, new credits were filmed, not using any of the original actors but photographs taken at the time.
A notable plot change was the renaming of a character from the original version of "The Beginning" to accommodate a plot device in "The Interrogation". In "The Interrogation", Craig Stirling is ostensibly being quizzed on the activities of one Julius Retford, who remains unseen. For the film, the opening credits explicitly identify Retford as the character named Ho Ling in "The Beginning". This allows the germ warfare theme of "The Beginning" to interlink with the sequences in "The Interrogation". Confusingly, in the end credits Young is credited as playing 'Ho Ling', a name never used in the film version.
This release credited Stuart Damon as the star, with Alexandra Bastedo and William Gaunt receiving co-star credits. This was partly because Damon was a well-established star in the U.S. by this time, and partly because "The Interrogation" is essentially a two-hander between Damon and Colin Blakely, with the rest of the regular cast appearing only briefly.
Legend of the Champions was released on DVD as part of the Network box-set.
Note: 'Bookend' sequences were shot for the first episode "The Beginning" showing Richard Barrett recording the story on to a tape recorder in Tremayne's office; this was done so that the episode could be shown out of order on repeat runs without causing any continuity problems. Both sequences were included as extras on the Network DVD box set.

Film

In November 2007, it was reported that Guillermo del Toro would produce and write a film adaptation of The Champions for United Artists. In 2008, Christopher McQuarrie was signed to co-write and co-produce the film.
Since then there have been no further developments about it.

Books

Paperbacks based on the TV series include: