Review of Secret Agent

.. and if you do you are in for a treat. McGoohan was a late arrival in British drama, because of his size and height, he tended to play heavies and gangsters. Danger Man (which EVOLVED over its strange run, first it was a half-hour series, then it was an hour series, first it was B&W, then it was colour, first Drake worked for some obscure security service, then he was an international spy with Bond-esque gadgets) is considered by many of its fans to be one of the purest of the spy dramas of the era, especially the earlier episodes. The actor himself was known to be anti-violence (savor the irony!) so many if not all of the stories were resolved by wit and artifice. Ahead of the ground-breaking I SPY in the US, where the series tried to be in a different locale each week, this show actually pioneered the technique and more often than not you got a geography lesson along with your tradecraft. But all else aside, it was McGoohan and his strange intensity that elevated the show to a cult favourite. This was his breakout role (before Prisoner, which although iconic had some strange things going on both in front of and behind the camera) and he deserved the fame. (An international company tried him in a Drake-like role in the spy thriller ICE STATION ZEBRA and it was a disaster for all parties). That I own this entire series on DVD should say something. My favourite episode in Season 1, the one that well defines the inner tension of the Drake character, which is the backbone of the series, is "No Marks for Servility." Here Drake, who abhors taking orders from anyone, has to play a butler to a suspected bad guy, and his desire for perfectionism -- ie, to be a good butler -- is perpetually at odds with his desire to take his "boss" and drop him from a high altitude. I recommend that episode for newbies, if you can find it. The scene where the boss, suspicious of his too-good-to-be-true butler, invites Drake to shoot skeet is brilliant and has been shamelessly copied in many other scripts. At one point Drake is so vexed at his situation that he unintentionally shatters a crystal wine glass he had been holding in his hand. Brilliant. Pure unadulterated spy fiction. And great performances.