By the end of the 1960s, British television had done adventurers and sleuths to death. If Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) was the supernatural spin on the mystery format, The Champions was the science-fiction version, mixing comic-book superheroics into the globe-trotting do-gooders formula. In the pilot, square-jawed Craig Sterling (Stuart Damon), model-gorgeous Sharron Macready (Alexandra Bastedo) and ironic Brit Richard Barrett (William Gaunt)--agents of an international good-guy organisation called Nemesis--find themselves in a Shangri-La-style forgotten Tibetan... civilisation, where they undergo training in extrasensory perception and superhuman strength. Back home, they use their powers to tackle a mixture of ordinary crime and more complicated nefarious plans that have a semi-science fiction feel. The good-looking Damon and Bastedo seem to have had their personalities erased in the mountains, leaving Gaunt to shoulder all the acting weight. Nevertheless, it has a kind of creaky, straight-faced charm, like some lost British take on Marvel Comics' superhero teams. Volume One covers: "The Beginning", the pilot story, with Felix Aylmer as a Tibetan lama; and "The Invisible Man", which features cranial implants and bank robbery, with Peter Wyngarde (who played the title role in Jason King) as the baddie. --Kim Newman [show more]
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