# Blast from the Past: The Champions



## The Master™ (Jun 26, 2005)

*"Craig Sterling, Sharron Macready and Richard Barrett... These are The Champions."*

"Endowed with the qualities and skills of superhumans - qualities and skills, both physical and mental, to the peak of human performance. Gifts given to them by an unknown race of people, when their 'plane crashed near a lost civilisation in Tibet. Now, with their secrets known only to them, they are able to use their fantastic powers to their best advantage...as *The Champions of Law, Order and Justice. Operators of the International Agency, Nemesis!"*

Cast:
Stuart Damon 
Role: Craig Stirling
Anthony Nicholls 
Role: Commander William Lawrence Tremayne
Alexandra Bastedo 
Role: Sharron Macready 
William Gaunt 
Role: Richard Barrett


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## Dave (Dec 13, 2009)

I used to watch this as a child and thought it was great then. It hasn't aged that well, though better than some series have. It is currently being shown on ITV4 so I have caught a few of them. The part I best remembered was the little sequence after the titles when they demonstrated their powers in an everyday way. I was surprised these were not as good as I remembered, and much more often repeated. Apparently, the budget was too small for the scope of the series, so sets had to be reused too - a submarine appeared three times, and three episodes are set in the Arctic.

I liked all those series created by Monty Berman and Dennis Spooner, though at the time I was not aware they were responsible - Department S, Randall and Hopkirk (deceased).

It is great hokum and was close enough in the 1960's to have plots with old Nazis and unexploded nuclear bombs, and Neo-Nazis in the closets. Terry Nation, Brian Clemens, Ralph Smart and Tony Williamson also wrote. It is considered today kitsch with all the 60's pop culture references. Other stories concerned Spy planes, atom bomb tests, a particle ray gun and revolutions in Banana Republics.

Tremayne never quite knew what was happening between them, though he always suspected something was up. The series played on that as a weekly joke, but it equally explored the possibility in one episode that Craig was a double agent (his results were too perfect) and they tried to break him. So it could be quite dark, unfortunately, the series had a bit of a reset button in that regard, because next week it was all smiles again.


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## The Judge (Dec 13, 2009)

I adored _The Champions_.  Even as a child I realised that Alexandra Bastedo's acting was...  er... well, perhaps not the reason she was chosen for the part, but even her wooden delivery didn't spoil my pleasure in the programmes.  

Some years back in a fit of nostalgia I bought a couple of VHS videos of the programmes** and I was pleasantly surprised they weren't nearly as crummy as I'd feared.  OK, AB still grated, but William Gaunt more than made up for her lack of acting ability.  And Stuart Damon was as good-looking as ever...  *mops fevered brow*

I know what you mean about the 're-set button', Dave, but then I don't think then there was anything like the idea of having a series story arc which is so prominent now.  And the upbeat ending of each episode, and the general air of optimism, was as much of its time as Sharon Macready's mini-skirts!

J

** Guilty confession time.  I also got some of 'The Professionals' and 'Noggin the Nog' -- the latter proving to have held its own the best of the three!


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