Roger Moore Movie:

		List Price: $99.95		Label: A&E HOME VIDEO Salesrank: 44273 Released: February 24, 2009
		Our Price: $15.88
		Used Price: $15.88
		MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated) Media: DVD

Editorial Review:
Studio: A&e Home Video Release Date: 02/24/2009 Run time: 2310 minutes

Description of The Spy Collection Megaset (The Prisoner / The Persuaders / The Champions / The Protectors):
The Spy Collection gathers together four different series, with nearly 60 episodes on 14 discs--a total of more than 38 hours of viewing, plus extras. None of the four, all of which were produced in England in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, is actually a spy show, per se, but the elements are here: intrepid heroes jetting to exotic locations, beautiful women, fast cars, yachts, ascots, cocktails, and a certain international flavor abound, especially in The Persuaders! (which teams Roger Moore and Tony Curtis as a millionaire playboys thrown together to thwart various dastardly criminals) and The Protectors (with Robert Vaughn and his beautiful partner, a putative Italian contessa, traveling around Europe for essentially the same reason). But The Prisoner, the best known (and arguably best, period) of the lot, is really more like sci-fi/mystery, while The Champions has a comic book dimension, what with the three principals having been given some measure of superpowers. As it is, there’s plenty here to remind viewers of James Bond, but little to make us forget him; this is TV, after all, with its smaller budgets, faster production time, and limited capabilities when it comes to the kinds of gadgets (like primitive phone machines and computers) and other technical details so familiar to 007 fans. Nevertheless, if your taste runs to pure escapism, The Spy Collection fits the bill in spades. Various bonus features include commentary on selected episodes of The Persuaders! and The Protectors; cast bios; photo galleries; and, for The Prisoner, an alternate version of the episode entitled “The Chimes of Big Ben,” an interactive map, a trivia game, and more.

The Prisoner (two discs, four episodes): If a top-level spy decided he didn't want to be a spy anymore, could he just walk into HQ and hand in his resignation? With all that classified knowledge in his head, would he be allowed to become a civilian again, free to go about his life? The answer, according to the stylish, brilliantly conceived 1960s British TV series The Prisoner, is a resounding no. In fact, instead of receiving a gold watch for his years of faithful service, our hero (played by Patrick McGoohan) is followed home to his London flat and knocked unconscious. When he awakens, he finds himself in a picturesque village where everyone is known by a number. Where is it? Why was he brought here? And, most important, how does he leave? As we learn in Episode 1, Number 6 can't leave. The Village's "citizens" might dress colorfully and stroll around its manicured gardens while a band plays bouncy Strauss marches, but the place is actually a prison. Surveillance is near total, and if all else fails, there's always the large, mysterious white ball that subdues potential escapees by temporarily smothering them. Who runs the Village? An ever-changing Number 2, who wants to know why Number 6 resigned. If he'd only cooperate, he's told, life can be made very pleasant. "I've resigned," he fumes. "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own." So sets the stage for the ultimate battle of wills: Number 6's struggle to retain his privacy, sanity, and individuality against the array of psychological and physical methods the Village uses to break him. So does he ever escape? And does he ever find out who Number 1 is? "Questions are a burden to others," the Village saying goes. "Answers, a prison for oneself." Within this complete 17-episode set (which contains the entire series), all is revealed. Or is it?

The Persuaders! (four discs, 13 episodes): Talk about an odd couple--Moore and Curtis are certainly that. The former’s Brett Sinclair is a titled Brit aristocrat, while Curtis’ Danny Wilde is a Brooklyn hustler who got rich through brains and guile. The pair are “like nitro and glycerine,” says the retired judge who pairs them up, very much against their will, to help track down criminals who somehow evaded the long arm of the law. “Mix them together and you have a potent combo.” The actors certainly seem to enjoy themselves, romping through the scripts like a couple of superannuated Peter Pans. Moore was about to begin his long run as James Bond, and his insouciance, smooth way with the ladies, and penchant for tossing out bons mots while beating the crud out of some hapless fool foreshadow his take on that famous role (he even drives an Aston Martin); as for Curtis, scenery was clearly on the menu, and he chews it with relish. The tone of the whole series is fairly frothy, and you can’t beat those crazy duds they wear. Ah, the ‘70s.

The Champions (four discs, 15 episodes): Based on the pilot episode, this 1968 offering could have been the most entertaining of the four shows. In the pilot, after our three heroes (played by Stuart Damon, Alexandra Bastedo, and William Gaunt) make a daring theft from a Communist Chinese stronghold, their escape plane is hit by gunfire and crashes in the Himalayas, where they’re saved by a strange race who endow them with extraordinary hearing, strength, and other powers (I’ll say--they don lightweight overcoats and stroll out of the mountains as if on a spring promenade through Hyde Park). Cool! But alas, this intriguing premise doesn’t fully pan out, as the three “champions of law, order, and justice,” who work for a Swiss-based operation known as Nemesis, make only limited use of their powers as they battle baddies plotting to steal a huge gold shipment, protect an exiled dictator with assassins on his tail, stop a bitter Brit engineer from selling his blueprint for a Mach 5 “ghost plane” to the enemy, save a nuclear submarine from destruction, and so on. Their enhanced senses (which enable them to tell when another member is in trouble) do add dimension, but not enough to overcome some clunky scripts and cheesy production values.

The Protectors (four discs, 26 episodes): Perhaps the most unusual aspect of this show is its length--with all episodes running just 25 minutes or so, there isn’t much time to develop the stories, let alone the character relationships. Vaughn plays Harry Rule, a private detective who handles his cases with the Contessa di Contini (Nyree Dawn Porter, who’s about as Italian as Big Ben), with the help of their “French” buddy (Tony Anholt). The team is hired by different governments to handle a variety of sensitive tasks, like putting a stop to the stockpiling and distribution of weapons to be used in an armed uprising; capturing a former Nazi who’s sending money to other war criminals hiding out around the world; freeing an unjustly accused man from prison; or finding (at the behest of the KGB) a disenchanted Soviet scientist who’s about to unleash a chemical weapon of mass destruction on the world. Co-produced by British TV legend Gerry Anderson, the show is limited, to say the least; but the episodes are over before you can tire of them. --Sam Graham with Steve Landau

The Spy Collection Megaset (The Prisoner / The Persuaders / The Champions / The Protectors) Reviews:
even SMERSH wouldn't have dreamt up something this frustrating
2009-06-20 - Here is one of the dumbest boxed sets I've seen in ages. It contains pieces of four UK spy shows -- The Persuaders!, which starred Tony Curtis and Roger Moore; The Champions, which is vaguely sci-fi-ish; The Protectors, with Robert Vaughn; and The Prisoner, one of the most wonderfully odd TV shows ever made. You do get the premiere episode of each series but there the logic ends. You get three episodes of The Prisoner when of course anyone who loves the show will want them all, about half of the episodes of The Persuaders!, maybe a quarter of the 52 episodes of The Protectors and half of The Champions 30 episodes. Does that make any sense whatsoever? If someone actually knows and loves these shows, naturally they'd want them all. And three episodes of the widely available The Prisoner? Absurd, especially when no one could possibly enjoy just three episodes of such an intricate puzzle. If they'd given you a complete set of the three other series, bundled them together to make these little known shows more appealing and offered a very cheap price, it would have been nice. But this is neither fish nor fowl and won't satisfy anyone. Visit me at michaelgiltz dot com.

spy collection
2009-05-04 - If you're not a completist and you get this box set for 45 dollars or under, then you've found a great bargain full of wonderful TV spy entertainment from the late 1960's/early 1970's. It contains 14 dvds featuring four episodes of the Prisoner, the first season of the Protectors (26 episodes), and half or so episodes of the Persuaders and the Champions (14 and 15 episodes respectively). Enjoy!

What's Inside the Box?
2008-11-11 - This is a 14-DVD set from A&E with selections from four "cult TV" Brit spy/adventure shows: The Prisoner, The Persuaders!, The Champions, and The Protectors. OK, The Prisoner isn't exactly a spy show, but then, what is it, anyway? The problem is, the box doesn't tell you what's included. It just says that it includes "debut episodes" from each of the four series, contains 14 DVDs, and runs for approximately 38 hours and 30 minutes. I contacted A&E and asked them exactly what the contents were, but they couldn't tell me -- but they could and did ask me if I wanted to buy it for $199!

Dec. 2008 Update: The product is now listed on Amazon.com, complete with a full list of contents. A&E has also provided a full description of contents. Based on contents, I would upgrade my rating to ****. As is usual with A&E offerings, don't expect subtitles.

This megaset contains:

* The first 13 episodes of The Persuaders!, which equals "Set 1", a $36 value (as of Dec. 2008). If you love Roger Moore in the Saint, you will like him in The Persuaders!. Series features the world's largest telephone answering machine. Near the end of the series, see a cameo appearance of Mr. Moore's young daughter. An enthusiastic glove-wearing Tony Curtis crosses the pond as the improbably named Danny Wilde. He runs circles around Roger Moore who, by the end of the series, had Bond, James Bond, on his mind.

* The first 15 episodes of The Champions, which equals "Set 1", a $72 value (as of Dec. 2008). A bit more zing than The Persuaders!, this set will help you get in touch with your heightened super-powers. Darth Vader, or, at least, the actor who played him, makes a guest-appearance. A bit like the Avengers.

* The first 26 episodes of The Protectors, which equals "Season One", an $80 value (as of Dec. 2008). Robert Vaughn escapades his way across Europe in these 30-minute slightly out-of-focus episodes.

* 3 episodes of The Prisoner -- a great way of sampling this series, but you really need to buy the complete set so you can join the rest of us in being upset with the final episode.

The megaset is a good deal and a sensible buy, because, if you like what you see, you can complete your sets by buying the second set in each of the three respective series (The Prisoner excepted).

One final problem: it is called "The Spy Collection" on the box, but is listed as "The Spy Collection Megaset" at Amazon and as "Cult TV Spy Collection" at A&E.