The BEST episodes of The Professionals season 5
Every episode of The Professionals season 5, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Professionals season 5!
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 - A Man Called Quinn
Season 5 - Episode 10 - Aired 1/30/1983
A former colleague of Cowley's who is now a patient in a mental hospital reappears in London, going on the run when he believes that the KGB have drugged him.
#2 - The Untouchables
Season 5 - Episode 8 - Aired 1/16/1983
Bodie is offered the opportunity to clear up all his gambling debts by a foreign diplomat - who in exchange wants to have some vital secrets from CI5.
#3 - Lawson's Last Stand
Season 5 - Episode 4 - Aired 11/28/1982
Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lawson has gone missing without trace...and is armed with vital military secrets from NATO. Can CI5 seek him out before he tells all?
#4 - Discovered in a Graveyard
Season 5 - Episode 5 - Aired 12/5/1982
Whilst investigating a bombing plot Doyle is shot and left for dead in his flat, and as the hospital fights to save his life, he seems unable to decide whether he wants to live or die...meanwhile, Bodie goes on a chase to find Doyle's assailant.
#5 - Operation Susie
Season 5 - Episode 2 - Aired 11/14/1982
A department in a British Government appears to be attempting to kill a bunch of drug-dealing students...but why?
#6 - Cry Wolf
Season 5 - Episode 7 - Aired 1/9/1983
A young woman contacts the police, saying she is being stalked and is in fear for her life, but they think she is making the whole story up.
#7 - No Stone
Season 5 - Episode 11 - Aired 2/6/1983
A young woman from a rich and successful family turns terrorist, shunning her wealthy background and the British Justice system which she now views as being corrupt. Important legal establishments located around London are targeted by the terrorist groups, who are planting several bombs at key points around the city.
#8 - The Ojuka Situation
Season 5 - Episode 9 - Aired 1/23/1983
A sacked former African Head attempts to get reinstated in office using the help of the British Government, but the plan is sidetracked by one particular civil servant who now wants him dead.
#9 - You'll Be All Right
Season 5 - Episode 3 - Aired 11/21/1982
A leader of a criminal gang offers to surrender himself if in exchange he is guaranteed protection for his family.
#10 - Spy Probe
Season 5 - Episode 6 - Aired 12/12/1982
An organisation which hires killers to assassinate virtual nobodies on sight is infiltrated by Bodie and Doyle, who must find out who the perpetrators are and why, by going undercover and posing as potential hitmen themselves.
#11 - Foxhole on the Roof
Season 5 - Episode 1 - Aired 11/7/1982
A post-operative ward in a hospital is held to ransom by a newly-released convict who plans to make a fortune, setting up his own foxhole at the top of a nearby building. CI5 hatch a plot to bring him down before he takes a fatal shot at the hospital.