Recent viewings

Danger Man (aka Secret Agent), disk 1

There's a man who leads a life of danger
To everyone he meets he stays a stranger
With every move he makes another chance he takes
Odds are he won't live to see tomorrow

Secret agent man, secret agent man
They've given you a number and taken away your name....

Plenty of people have heard Johnny Rivers sing the lyrics above. Not so many have seen the television show for whose US presentation they were written. Fortunately, DVDs and the magic of the Long Tail have made it possible to do so.

And a good thing, too. Danger Man (to use its original British title) is an above-average spy thriller series in which Patrick McGoohan's character, a British secret agent named John Drake, uses intelligence, personal charm and believable spycraft -- rather than explosions, violence and implausible James Bond gadgetry -- to complete the various missions to which he is assigned. And, occasionally, freelance ones of which his bosses disapprove....

It's suggested early on in the episodes I watched that Drake and his political bosses often disagree about ethics and responsibility. McGoohan went on to create a better-known series, The Prisoner, in which a dissatisfied secret agent tries to resign from a spy agency and ends up incarcerated in a surreal Village of brainwashers and brainwash-ees.

Officially, Number Six is not John Drake. But I couldn't help but notice a prominent, framed picture of a penny-farthing bicycle on the office wall of the boss to which Drake reports in one episode.

Hmmm.

Proto-Prisoner or not, it's worth checking out for anyone who enjoys Cold War spy dramas.