Adam Adamant Lives! - Cancellation

Cancellation

As with the purpose of its creation, reasons for the cancellation of Adam Adamant Lives! vary according to observer. Television critic Paul Stump agrees with the conclusion of "The Cult of ... Adam Adamant!" that the programme went off the air because The Avengers was a "'sexier, slicker', better-funded" version of the same concept. This is unlikely in part as The Avengers was as poorly funded as Adam Adamant. However, the programme's largest fan website counters by saying that Sydney Newman, as the BBC's Head of Television Drama, cancelled the show "due to a difference of opinion between himself and his star". An Avengers fansite agrees with both assessments. It says that the production values didn't match The Avengers and that, despite good ratings, "Newman wasn't happy with the show overall, and the star in particular." Adam Adamant was one of various shows that, despite their relative success, the BBC became embarrassed about and later tended to disown: another example, a few years later, was the highly popular Paul Temple (with Francis Matthews and Ros Drinkwater), while in the 1990s Verity Lambert's Virtual Murder (Nicholas Clay and Kim Thomson), though less successful in terms of ratings, was also ditched rather ignominiously.