The S4 contemporary TV thread

[Stephen Morgan]

In 1966 the BBC were still making their flagship shows (Doctor Who, Dr. Finlay's Casebook, Dixon of Dock Green, Adam Adamant Lives etc) in black and white, rival channel ITV were ordering up more shows in colour. Although colour would not enter the mainstream for at least another three years marketing dictated that for overseas sales, particularly the American market, shows be made and sold as colour.
American imports like season 2 of Lost in Space, favourites like Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, Peyton Place and The Fugitive arrived on UK screens in 1966 in colour.
ITC filmed series like The Saint and ABC's The Avengers and the Gerry Anderson series Stingray and Thunderbirds were also now being made in colour.
The BBC steadfastly stuck to b/w despite the continuing overseas sales of series like Doctor Who, one wonders about the state of the Doctor Who archive if Troughton's series had been made in colour.
In 1966 the BBC promised that they would be transmitting a colour service from 1967, BBC 2 were the first to show a colour programme, it's tennis output from Wimbledon in 1967, by 1968 most of that channel's output was in colour, BBC1 went colour in late 1969.
In 1966 95% of the tv audience were still watching in b/w and the price of a colour telvision set was £250, the cost of a b/w tv license was £5, and a colour one, introduced in January 1968 was £10.

[Stephen Morgan]

Running across the latter part of season 3 and well into season 4 of Doctor Who was a series starring Gerald Harper as Victorian adventurer Adam Adamant.
The first series ran from June to October 1966 while a swiftly commisioned second series ran December 1966 to March 1967.

In the opening episode, "A Vintage Year for Scoundrels", Adam Llewellyn De Vere Adamant – to give him his full name – is a swashbuckling Victorian gentleman adventurer who, in 1902, goes to rescue his kidnapped girlfriend Louise, but is lured into a trap whereupon he is captured and condemned to be frozen forever in a block of ice by his arch-nemesis, the Face, whose identity is concealed behind a leather mask and who speaks in a sinister whispering voice. The Face grants his helpless prisoner one last request, and Adam asks to see Louise. But in his last moments of life before being frozen, Adam learns to his horror that Louise had faked her kidnapping and had been working for the Face all along.

Adam is found in 1966, when a building is being knocked down, and he is revived. On emerging from a hospital and collapsing on the London streets, Adam is rescued by Georgina Jones and taken to her flat. Though in many ways a typical swinging sixties chick, Georgina had grown up idolising Adam through tales of his turn-of-the-century exploits. She tries to get in on all his cases, despite his efforts to stop her, and often manages to get a job at the scene in question at a moment's notice so she can interfere in the case.

It's a great series, made as the BBCs answer to The Avengers, and produced by Verity Lambert and Sydney Newman. The existing episodes were released on DVD in 2006, of the two series made there are 13 lost episodes, mainly from series 2, but this doesn't detract from the appeal of the series and it's certainly worth a look. It's a quaint reminder of the times and certainly sets the scene for a swinging series.

The theme tune is sung by sixties singer Kathy Kirby, and listening to it there really couldn't have been anyone else that could have done it as well as she.