The BEST episodes of The Professionals season 4
Every episode of The Professionals season 4, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Professionals season 4!
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 - Black Out
Season 4 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/19/1980
CI5 discover that a possible terrorist attack is being planned, and the only clue they have in solving it is a German girl who is found collapsed in a church and suffering from amnesia.
#2 - Mixed Doubles
Season 4 - Episode 12 - Aired 12/7/1980
Bodie and Doyle are undergoing intense training in preparation for an assignment where they are protecting a foreign official...at the same time, two potential killers are receiving similiar training to prepare them for the assassination of the same official.
#3 - Kickback
Season 4 - Episode 14 - Aired 12/20/1980
Bodie and Keller, an old acquaintance from his days in the SAS, go undercover in order to trap a would-be assassin by posing as hitmen offering to do the job themselves - in order to fake the killing. But Keller turns out to have an ulterior motive.
#4 - Blood Sports
Season 4 - Episode 8 - Aired 10/26/1980
CI5 move in to protect the daughter of a South American President after his son - and her brother - is assassinated on the field of a polo match.
#5 - Involvement
Season 4 - Episode 4 - Aired 9/28/1980
In the midst of a shoot-out during a drugs smuggling investigation, Doyle meets and falls for Ann Holly, only to discover that CI5 suspect her of being closely linked to the scam herself.
#6 - Fugitive
Season 4 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/21/1980
A CIA agent is murdered in London, prompting CI5 into launching a fake arms deal with the terrorists who were responsible for the killing. But the gang uncover the plot in time, taking Bodie hostage and using him as their meal ticket to escape the country.
#7 - The Acorn Syndrome
Season 4 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/7/1980
The daughter of a British Government engineer who is working on a defence protect is kidnapped, and the only way she will be safely returned is if he agrees to betray secrets to enemy agents.
#8 - Hijack
Season 4 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/30/1980
Silver bullion is being shipped into Britain via the Iron Curtain, only for it to be hijacked by one of the group's own officials.
#9 - It's Only a Beautiful Picture...
Season 4 - Episode 15 - Aired 12/27/1980
Various industrial secrets and highly-valuable arts treasures are being stolen and sold on by a gang who are using the blind routine of Customs to their full advantage. CI5 devise a trap to stop the thieves in their tracks.
#10 - Weekend in the Country
Season 4 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/14/1980
Bodie, Doyle and their latest girlfriends are on a quiet weekend in the country when they unwittingly get caught up at a farmhouse siege in which they must try and escape from a group of gun-toting fugitives.
#11 - Take Away
Season 4 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/12/1980
A team of Hong Kong police join CI5 in London to help crack a local heroin supply and protection racket. It's down to Bodie and Doyle to expose a scheme to smuggle drugs to the US by teams of Triads and European agents.
#12 - Need To Know
Season 4 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/5/1980
Cowley finds himself under suspicion when a former colleague of his is arrested for being a double agent. So just how deeply involved is the CI5 Chief?
#13 - Slush Fund
Season 4 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/2/1980
A hitman is employed by a group of East German officials to assassinate a reporter who is planning to publish a report in which their new fighter plane is branded as a potential death-trap.
#14 - The Gun
Season 4 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/9/1980
A drug addict is murdered by a pusher who then hastily discards the gun, only for it to be found by a young boy-who then accidently shoots his friend in the process. The pusher then goes in search of the boy in an attempt to retrieve the gun and at the same time has to try to avoid his own people who are in pursuit of him.
#15 - Wild Justice
Season 4 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/14/1980
Bodie's mental state is called ino question when he becomes obsessed with a local Hell's Angel motorcycle gang, gradually sending him further and further behind in training. Is he cracking up?