The WORST episodes of The Professionals
Every episode of The Professionals ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of The Professionals!
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 - Not a Very Civil Civil Servant
Season 2 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/18/1978
CI5 manage to undercover a series of financial blunders between a group of builders and council officials after a site of newly-built houses on a council estate are found to be crumbling.
#2 - 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.
#3 - 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.
#4 - Where the Jungle Ends
Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/3/1978
A group of former comrades from Bodie's mercenary days reappear in England and in order to impress a top London gangster, carry out a violent raid on a local bank. It's left to CI5 to catch and stop the ringleader Krivas and his gang, reuniting Bodie with some of his old adversaries in the process.
#5 - Close Quarters
Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/10/1978
On leave from CI5 with a hand injury, Bodie takes a day trip with his girlfriend and finds himself face-to-face with the leader of a terrorist group. He captures him but then the rest of the gang arrive and trap Bodie and his girlfriend in a nearby vicarage, leaving him unable to alert his colleagues back at CI5 HQ. With barely any clues as to his whereabouts, Doyle and Cowley go on a chase through the countryside to try and locate Bodie.
#6 - Look After Annie
Season 1 - Episode 12 - Aired 3/17/1978
Annie Irving, an extreme left-wing preacher - and former flame of Cowley's - becomes the target of a hitman when one of her meetings comes to London. Cowley assigns Bodie and Doyle to protect her, unaware that the would-be hitman is right under his nose.
#7 - Fall Girl
Season 2 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/9/1978
Bodie is re-acquainted with a former girlfriend when she shows up in London, and during a secret meeting with her finds himself framed for an assassination and then ultimately on the run from his own colleagues at CI5.
#8 - Blind Run
Season 2 - Episode 9 - Aired 12/2/1978
Bodie and Doyle are assigned to protect a foreign official who is on a secret visit to Britain. But already possible enemy assassins appear to know his - and CI5's - every next move.
#9 - A Stirring of Dust
Season 2 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/25/1978
A British traitor returns to his homeland and must be found before his former colleagues, seeking vengeance for his past betrayals, go in search of his whereabouts.
#10 - 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.
#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.
#12 - Heroes
Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 1/27/1978
When a newspaper takes it upon themselves to irresponsibly publish a list of the names of witnesses to an assassination, it is left to CI5 to not only protect these people, but at the same time apprehend the killers before they strike again.
#13 - Rogue
Season 2 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/11/1978
A trial witness is murdered by a member of CI5, who then goes on and attempts to kill Cowley - his own boss. Bodie and Doyle find themselves battling against a man who is as well-trained as they are.
#14 - Stakeout
Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 3/3/1978
A CI5 agent is murdered, leading to the discovery of a man who is dying as a result of plutonium poisoning. This links CI5 to a further plot involving the imminent explosion of an A-bomb at the same bowling alley. It's left to Bodie and Doyle to try and de-activate the fuse before it takes them and the whole of London with it.
#15 - When the Heat Cools Off
Season 1 - Episode 9 - Aired 2/24/1978
The daughter of a man inprisoned by Doyle six years ago when he was a Docklands policeman turns up, claiming to have new evidence which will exonerate her father. Doyle reluctantly agrees to reopen the case, but will his budding relationship with the girl cloud his judgement, and make even himself doubt whether he jailed the right man?
#16 - Man Without a Past
Season 2 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/28/1978
Bodie is out at a restaurant with his girlfriend when a bomb goes off at their table, leaving her critically injured and several other diners dead. It's left to Bodie to find out who targeted him and why - until he realises he wasn't the target after all.
#17 - In the Public Interest
Season 2 - Episode 5 - Aired 11/4/1978
A virtual police state has been imposed by a local Chief Constable, resulting in a supposedly almost crime-free city. But that is because all the crime is taking place behind the scenes by the police officers themselves - who will think of nothing of imposing on suspects' rights in their pursuit of 'zero tolerance'. Bodie and Doyle become hunted men when they visit the city and begin to question the rather unorthodox methods of action taken by the local constabulary.
#18 - 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.
#19 - Everest Was Also Conquered
Season 1 - Episode 8 - Aired 2/17/1978
A dying man's confession triggers the re-opening of a twenty-year-old case of police corruption, an investigation in which the main prosecution witness was murdered by the police officers who were supposedly trying to protect her. Somebody then decides to silence these officers, and sets about doing so.
#20 - Long Shot
Season 1 - Episode 11 - Aired 3/10/1978
CI5 are assigned to protect a visiting American Ambassador from a renowned hitman called Ramos, who is hot on his trail. But after only one apparent assasination attempt at his life, Ramos appears to give up - only for him to turn up again at CI5 HQ itself.
#21 - 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.
#22 - 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?
#23 - Old Dog With New Tricks
Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/13/1978
A gangster called Turkel devises a plot to free his brother from jail by taking hostage an important figure in authority. He is unaware, however, that the 'important figure' he has taken in is actually Cowley masquerading as the Home Secretary, with Bodie as his bodyguard and Doyle ready to pull the trigger on Turkel's brother.
#24 - 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.
#25 - 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.