British spy/adventure series, with 39 half-hour episodes. Patrick McGoohan stars as John Drake, an American operative working for NATO. He travels all over the world on various missions, everything from rescuing high-profile kidnapping victims to thwarting drug rings and smuggling operations, from stopping assassins to solving public health crises. He often goes undercover, adopting the guise of the loud, obnoxious Ugly American type to lower the guard of his enemies. He generally eschews the use of guns, and is positively chaste compared to the womanizing James Bond stereotype. I thought McGoohan was very good in the lead, an unusual mix of honorable man-of-action and quick-witted malcontent. The stories got pretty monotonous by the end of the season, with many of the set-pieces repeated, and the guest cast reappearing as different characters.
The guest cast features many performers who would later appear in the James Bond films, including Lois Maxwell, Donald Pleasence, Robert Shaw, Honor Blackman, Charles Gray, Zena Marshall, Nadja Regin, Walter Gotell, Burt Kwouk, and Anthony Dawson. Other notable guests include Barbara Shelley, Hazel Court, Sam Wanamaker, Mai Zetterling, Nigel Green, George Coulouris, Bevely Garland, Jackie Collins, Judy Carne, Hermione Baddeley, Jack MacGowran, and William Marshall.
The spy adventure was one of the signature genres of the 1960's, and many cite Danger Man as ground zero for the phenomenon. It wasn't the first, but it was the impetus that led to The Avengers on TV, to the James Bond films, as well as the shows The Saint, The Man from U. N. C. L. E., Mission:Impossible, and more. However, the first (and technically only...but more on that in a moment) season wasn't very well received when it aired in the U. S. on CBS, and the show was ended. McGoohan was the first choice to play James Bond in the films, but he thankfully turned it down (too much sex!), and it went to Sean Connery. Meanwhile, after the genre exploded in popularity by the middle of the decade, Danger Man was revived, although changed a great deal. It went to an hour-long format, the character was made a British agent (although the John Drake name was kept), and the US title was held over: Secret Agent, while also adding the hit theme song "Secret Agent Man". This series eventually led to The Prisoner and cult immortality, but that's a story for another day.
