User Reviews

The guest villain in this final episode of "Danger Man" is Khano, played by William Marshall. While Marshall is best known for playing the lead in the Blacula films, I always thought he was a marvelous actor--with a gorgeous voice and wonderful bearing that made it a joy watching him. So, at the outset, I was thrilled as "Deadline".

In Victoria, Africa, there have been riots and bloodshed and Drake (Patrick McGoohan) and his bosses think its due to a local strong-man, Khano. Drake travels there and soon sees that Khano is intent on buying weapons and so Drake poses as an arms dealer. However, he really wants to make contact with Khano's wife. His goal is to show her the horrors attributable to Khano and get her out of the country so that she can tell others about this. Can Drake do this and survive--after all, it IS the last episode!

Up until the ending, I liked this episode. However, the ending was great--making this a very good episode and a good way to end the series.

In 1961, black actors in American movies and TV series typically didn't appear as more than servants, bit players, and/or characters with no particular intellect or power. Works like "A Raisin in the Sun," whose film version came out that year, were exceptions. The US, after all, was still three years away from the Civil Rights Act ending segregation. It would be even longer before a black actress joined the cast of "Star Trek" to play a minor lieutenant.

Then there's "Deadline", final episode of the first "Danger Man" (DM) series from Britain. Talk about going against the grain!

This espionage series, and its mid-60s follow-up, frequently send its hero John Drake across the world to various real and fictional foreign countries made up of what would be racial and ethnic minorities in the UK and US.

DM has three habits that are unusual for the era. It often writes minorities to be major roles. The minorities are played by both white and genuine minority guest stars -- sometimes in the same episode. And DM does not frequently apply garish make-up (like yellowface) to the white actors. In the episodes I've seen, the white actors are more often just whites who can pass for Arab or latino, especially on a black and white show, relying less on tricks like face-darkening.

This casting may still seem a little outdated today, but what really sets DM apart from other shows of the era is how respectful it is of all its characters. It makes minorities into major, rounded characters, and usually doesn't resort to racial stereotypes and clichés. Complexity, detail, intelligence and articulateness are its custom instead, for heroes and villains of all races.

Perhaps "Deadline" is the most overt example, because it also features an all-black guest cast. Indeed, series star Patrick McGoohan is the only non-black on the whole cast list of a dozen. It's great how the script simply treats blacks implicitly as equals to whites -- as people who, in fact, can excel in the episode's London and African settings. Basically all the blacks here are smart, elegant and well-spoken. They include a professor, an Oxford graduate, and no less than a knight of the Empire, one Sir Aaron Nelson!

As refreshing as it is to see such respectful diversity, it highlights how sadly far behind the curve America was. In a show set in parts of America, after all, Sir Aaron wouldn't be allowed to drink out of the white folks' water fountain, let alone be knighted by his society. Simply put, I doubt a US network spy series would've dared to create an episode like "Deadline" in 1961.

A progressive spirit is clearly the best feature of this episode, which is otherwise below-average for the series. It's heavy on talky scenes, the worst of which might be Daniels', which is both redundant and literally bedridden. The espionage and thriller factors are just standard. Below-average DM is still good TV, though, not least of all because of the usual high production values and acting quality. The Drake/Khano scenes are solid. William Marshall gives a strong performance as Khano, the rich, charismatic slimeball of a pol.