The Professionals (TV Series) - Controversy

Controversy

Although depictions of actual bloodshed were scarce, the series was often criticised for its level of violence, with shootings, martial arts and asphyxiation a common means of assassination.

To help maximise the on-screen action, Martin Shaw and Lewis Collins were taught stunt driving skills and encouraged to propel their respective cars through streets as rapidly as possible, although London Weekend Television insisted that the stars had to be chauffeured when travelling to filming sets.

Some quarters of the British press seized on these aspects to insist that the programme was moronic and "comic-strip". However, reaction from other critics, including The Times and The Daily Telegraph newspapers, were more favourable.

The first-season episode Klansmen was withdrawn in the UK, ostensibly due to its race-related subject matter. The episode has never been screened on terrestrial television in the UK, although it did screen uncut on the cable television channel Super-channel in 1987, and has been screened on free-to-air television in other countries including South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Philippines. London Weekend Television refuse to explain their view that while the episode remains unsuitable for British television viewers, they continue to license it to broadcasters in other countries.

The show was also criticised for its "political incorrectness". Moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse was among those who highlighted the occasional use of sexist and racist terms. At the time, however, such dialogue was not seen as being disparaging towards protected minority groups. However, in the late-1980s and early-1990s the series was criticised by feminist groups. Yet, with the exception of the 'Klansmen' episode – wherein racist terms were a necessary part of the story – in comparison to, for example, the 1970s police television programme The Sweeney, use of racist terms in The Professionals was scarce, reflecting the increasing "political correctness" of broadcasters.

Martin Shaw was publicly critical of the series during its production, feeling he was playing a one-dimensional character in a one-dimensional show. Several years after the series ended London Weekend Television was contractually obliged to re-negotiate repeat fees with the lead actors. Unwilling to accede to Martin Shaw's demands, plans for further repeat screenings on the UK's ITV network had to be withdrawn, leading to Lewis Collins expressing his anger towards Shaw in an interview for the British press. However, Shaw eventually agreed to UK satellite screenings, although according to a Radio Times interview only after being discreetly made aware that Gordon Jackson's widow, actress Rona Anderson (who guested in Cry Wolf), was suffering financial difficulties after her husband's death.

Episodes were shown on terrestrial TV as part of special occasions, such as a general overview of ITV's early years; LWT, who produced the series, repeated a selection of episodes from the series in the early 1990s, although was the only region to do so. It was not until 2008 that the series gained a re-run on ITV4. The Professionals has also been regularly shown on cable TV.

The entire series was regularly screened on the defunct Granada Plus from 1997, where it was consistently the channel's highest-rated show, initially achieving close to one million viewers. The episodes shown were heavily edited to make them suitable for daytime viewing and it is these same prints that are being used for transmission on ITV4. Neither station screened the Klansmen episode, stating that London Weekend Television continued to forbid its transmission.

In 1987, ITV were halfway through a re-run. The show was cancelled the day after the Hungerford shooting incident. The particular episode that was to be aired, Lawson's Last Stand, had a theme that was deemed insensitive. That was the last time the show was broadcast on ITV's main station.