WHAT WAS IT?
Gritty-defining ‘Special Ops’-themed semi-Avengers-spinoff docklands-backdropped setup for a weekly closing pun that inspired a million adolescent guitar hero wannabes to invest in a cheap second-hand wah-wah pedal that crackled when depressed (in both senses). TEN POINTS.
WHAT HAPPENS?
Opens with Public Information Film-esque footage of a car bursting through a sheet of glass before giving way to quick cuts of said ‘Professionals’ hoofing it around urban London and leaping in and out of cars. Then we get some natty-for-the-time animated sillhouette business with the programme logo in military stencil as Cowley rifles through some papers and looks ‘concerned’ in front of an old-skool tape-spinning computer, Doyle poses in – where else? – the docklands and practices some obscure and possibly non-existent martial art, and Bodie hammers a punchbag. Then there’s some business with a car driving through what appears to be the set of The Mary Whitehouse Experience, and finally all three barge down the street knocking the cameraman flying. EIGHT POINTS.
CUE THE MUSIC!
Scarcely needs any introduction. Nothing says Hip-But-Hard-Hitting Seventies TV Detective more than bombastic wah-wah overindulgence, and nothing says bombastic wah-wah overindulgence more than this most recognisable of theme tunes. Surprisingly brief for its vintage too. TEN POINTS.
END TITLE INTERESTINGNESS
Very low on the ‘interestingness’, really. Just a reprise of the sillhouette stuff with a whopping great military stencil ‘CI5′ in a colour scheme that calls to mind a seasick version of the This Is Your Right title card. TWO POINTS.
CUNNING VARIANTS
Now you’re talking! On its first transmission, series one of The Professionals opted for a downright laughable opening sequence in which a decidedly un-swish car screeches up, Bodie and Doyle pile out, and Cowley times them racing unconvincingly round an assault course which takes in diving through windows and bumping into each other in a corridor full of shop mannequins, like some masochistic variant of The Krypton Factor. And what’s more, with two stuntmen visibly in shot throughout. Then, job done, they drive off again. Later edited out of all prints and not even to resurface as a DVD extra. TEN POINTS.
ICONIC MOMENT
Bodie sauntering down the street, doing ‘suave’ in ridiculous collars. SIX POINTS, which gives them a smuggler-arresting-at-the-last-minute total of FORTY SIX POINTS.
