The BEST episodes of The Professionals season 3
Every episode of The Professionals season 3, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Professionals season 3!
The Professionals (1977 - 1983) - "Anarchy, acts of terror, crimes against the public. To combat it I've got special men - experts from the Army, the Police - from every service. These are The Professionals." - George Cowley. The Professionals was one of British television's most popular and successful action series of the 1970s and 80s. At their peak in 1980 The Pros were earning as many as 17.6 million viewers. The Professionals began life in early 1977, provisionally titled The A-Squad, in an idea conceived by Brian Clemens, the then head of the independent TV company Avengers Mark I Productions. His aim was to create a rival for Thames television's hugely successful long-running police series The Sweeney. Bodie, Doyle and Cowley could have looked very different to how we remember them as. A number of very different actors were considered for the three central roles, with neither of the final chosen team being the original choices. The final three were more or less drafted in when the first choice stars either declined or were axed. Gordon Jackson (formerly the distinctly unmenacing Butler Hudson in Upstairs Downstairs) and Martin Shaw (whose first TV appearance was as a hippie in 1960s Coronation Street) were first to be cast. During the filming of the first episode, Old Dog with New Tricks Bodie was in fact played by Anthony Andrews. Unfortunately, old mates Shaw and Andrews spent much of the time cracking up with laughter - hardly a recipe for ensuring the renowned edgy banter between the two leads. Lewis Collins (best known by this time as Gavin Rumsey in comedy series The Cuckoo Waltz) was brought in to play Bodie, with Andrews being given the heave-ho. Collins and Shaw had previously worked together just months earlier in an episode of The New Avengers, and were cast alongside each other again thanks to the 'sparky, abrasive' on-screen partnership that they generated. In other words, they didn't particularly like each other! But with the central cast c
#1 - The Purging of CI5
Season 3 - Episode 1 - Aired 10/27/1979
CI5 and their agents find themselves under attack from a vendetta of bombings and assassination attempts. Bodie and Doyle are on a chase to find out who the perpetrators are before they end up as the next victims.
#2 - Servant of Two Masters
Season 3 - Episode 8 - Aired 12/15/1979
Bodie and Doyle are shocked to discover that Cowley appears to be selling nerve gas to a group of East Germans in order to line his own pockets, and are assigned by his rival Plumb to track their boss's every move.
#3 - Runner
Season 3 - Episode 7 - Aired 12/8/1979
An attempt to start up a street war is launched by a gangland breakaway opposition group, but their leader appears to have an ulterior motive in his actions.
#4 - Stopover
Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 11/10/1979
Cowley is offered the name of a highly-placed double agent from an old colleague - who in return wants to be guaranteed protection with CI5. This leads to the start of a dangerous stand-off between the two, using Bodie and Doyle as the pawns.
#5 - Dead Reckoning
Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 11/17/1979
A spy is extradited to Britain with an attempt to keep his arrival top-secret. However, the Bulgarians from Batak's homeland who sent him appear to be trying to make his movements as public as possible. When he is eventually murdered, CI5 suspect his music student daughter of poisoning him.
#6 - Backtrack
Season 3 - Episode 2 - Aired 11/3/1979
It's just another routine house break-in for a cat burglar, until he accidentally uncovers a complex drugs smuggling operation. When CI5 step in, they realise it's not just the burglar's life that is now in danger.
#7 - A Hiding to Nothing
Season 3 - Episode 6 - Aired 12/1/1979
A dummy run that has been staged for the visit of a Middle Eastern official is found to have been recorded by a foreign student, subsequently leading CI5 to suspect a security leak.
#8 - The Madness of Mickey Hamilton
Season 3 - Episode 5 - Aired 11/24/1979
Years after a man's wife died and his child left brain-damaged following a series of blunders at the hospital they were treated at, he returns to finally seek revenge by systematically assassinating each of the same hospital's medical staff one-by-one.