Review: The Champions, The Complete Series
- Article 5 of 7
- Action TV, September 2006
They don't make them like The Champions any more. A classic ITC show from the 60s, it featured three agents of the international 'Nemesis' organisation, travelling around the world fighting dastardly evil-doers.
What lifted The Champions out of the ordinary and made it just so fun to watch was its premise.
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Extras
Compared to previous releases of The Champions and indeed other older TV series, this special edition release is absolutely full of extras:
- We Were The Champions, a documentary on the making of The Champions, featuring contributions from William Gaunt, Alexandra Bastedo, Stuart Damon, Johnny Goodman, Malcolm Christopher, Ken Baker, Cyril Frankel and Brian Clemens.
- An audio commentary on The Beginning featuring Stuart Damon, Alexandra Bastedo and William Gaunt.
- An audio commentary on Autokill featuring Stuart Damon, Alexandra Bastedo and William Gaunt.
- A second audio commentary on Autokill featuring Malcolm Christopher, Ken Baker and Roy Ward Baker.
- A previously unseen extended version of The Beginning featuring specially shot bookend sequences.
- Artistes test footage.
- Nearly 30 minutes of incidental music by Edwin Astley, Robert Farnon and Albert Elms, prepared as a musical suite and accompanied by an image gallery including many behind the scenes stills.
- The Legend of the Champions, a feature-length compilation of The Beginning and The Interrogation made by ITC for the overseas market in the early 1980s.
- A gallery of the 19 remaining trailers for The Champions, with both US and UK soundtracks, specially transferred from the original film elements for use in this set.
- A gallery of various generic trailers of differing lengths which have been transferred from the original film elements for use in this set.
- Original 'Channel 9' promos.
- A merchandise image gallery, including all the fronts and backs of the trading cards.
- A PDF of The Champions Joe 90 Top Secret comic.
- Reconstructed ad captions.
- A variant title sequence featuring the unused title music composed by Robert Farnon.
- A booklet featuring an essay on the making of The Champions, by Mike Richardson.
We Were The Champions is clearly the main attraction, since it unites the original cast after nearly 40 years. The documentary is surprisingly good, although perhaps more time could have been spent with The Champions together discussing the series, rather than their thoughts on meeting up with their former co-stars. It also commits the sacrilegious crime of spelling Sharron Macready's name wrong. It's a little short to really detail the making of the series fully - something for which Mike Richardson's booklet is better suited - so lacks true depth. Like the other extras on the DVDs, it also shows a slight obsession with the episode Autokill, undoubtedly one of the show's finest, but there are others that are worth equal attention, too. All the same, it's still a remarkable achievement to get so many of the original production team and the stars themselves together.
Similarly, the audio commentaries aren't really very informative, although they have their moments. The commentaries by Damon, Bastedo and Gaunt on The Beginning and Autokill give more information on their work than We Were The Champions does, although when they turn their attentions to the episodes themselves, they tend to mock them rather than give anecdotes about the filming. Notably, Gaunt reveals himself to be one of the most politically incorrect human beings alive, and to have an often Champions-like memory for names, while Damon spots the obvious parallels between their commentary style and Mystery Science Theater 3000's. Nevertheless, the chemistry between the cast even now is clear.
The commentary by the production team on Autokill is at least informative about the industry at the time, although again, it's short on actual detail about the episode being watched. Quite why Autokill deserves two commentaries, when even The Beginning only deserves one is something best asked of Network.
The alternative version of The Beginning is interesting to watch, since it features The Champions recording an explanation for Tremayne of how they received their powers. In some ways, it's a better, more tantalising set-up for the show than the official version and clearly shows that the production team planned from the outset that Sharron would develop into a stronger character: her flinty qualities in the bookends are a marked contrast to her more nervous, neophyte qualities in the episode-proper.
The Legend of the Champions is a curiosity, since unlike similar compilation films of the early 80s, such as Invasion: UFO which was based on Gerry Anderson's UFO, it actually changes the plots of the episodes used. In this case, The Interrogation forms the bulk of the script, with flashbacks to The Beginning interspersed; however, the 'Retford Case' referred to in The Interrogation becomes the events of The Beginning, with Julius Retford revealed as one of the Chinese scientists. It requires a big change in mindset for anyone familiar with the episodes and isn't totally coherent as a plot, but it works reasonably well as a standalone movie.
Most of the other extras are good for completists, although probably require only a single viewing each. Probably the most intriguing is the alternative title sequence, featuring a Bonanza-esque theme by Robert Farnon, which did at least get reused in several episodes as incidental music. It's spectacularly ill-judged in the context of the series, although is still a good tune in and of itself.
All in all though, a fine collection of extras that put most other similar DVD sets to shame.
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