Department S – An Introduction

If a problem was too tricky for Scotland Yard

If a problem was too baffling for the FBI

If a problem was too much for the Sûreté

…it would likely end up in the hands of Department S.

Headed by Sir Curtis Seretse (one of the first, if not the first, black man to be the head of a department in a British television series), Department S tackled the bizarre and impossible crimes which cropped up from time to time. Based in Paris, an off-shoot of Interpol and seemingly beholden to no government, Department S untangled the Gordian knots of crime.

And it did so with only three agents.

Fancy!

The Department S team was ostensibly a typical ITC one. You had the American (because American viewers liked watching Americans), the pretty girl (because all men like watching a pretty girl) and an English man (because it annoyed fewer people than casting a second American man). The Champions was the epitome of this formula and produced perhaps the blandest trio of heroes in television history. To this day I will swear that at least one of them is made of plastic.

Fortunately, Department S got round this pit of cookie-cutter stars by casting Peter Wyngarde as the lead. The theatrical Wyngarde spurned the character as written (according to a DVD commentary because he was playing a demanding part on the stage while making the series and didn’t want the strain of playing two heavily drawn roles) instead opting for an extension of his own personality and style. It was him who designed the wardrobe his character made famous, it was him who came up with the name (with a little help from a friend’s wife over dinner) and it was him who decided Jason King would drive a Bentley.

Wyngarde also had approval on the casting of his co-stars. He liked Joel Fabiani (the American character) because he came to the auditions looking scruffy. Wyngarde liked the idea of a scruffy Stewart Sullivan contrasting the dapper Jason King. Alas, Joel’s wife refused to let him appear in public in such a state and Stewart was stuck wearing cheap suits and sub-Bond tuxedos. The third member of the team was Rosemary Nicols who was the last girl to be auditioned and, having apparently been employed as the producer’s secretary during all the previous auditions, knew exactly what they wanted. There have been rumours over the years that Wyngarde and Nicols didn’t get along but, aside from confirming the commentary that her nickname was indeed "Knickers", Wyngarde ignores any animosity and says she was a delight.

This episode guide will follow the pattern used by a number of far better guides and be broken into sub-headings. As these need a little explanation I’ll explain them a little.

This should be straightforward but my major sources disagree. So, until I get better sources, I'll give the two most likely options. Of course, being an ITV show, it would've been shown at different times across the different regions so any broadcast information refers only to part of the UK. It's the price we pay - the BBC have meticulous records and could tell you when something was broadcast to the nearest second but would've shot it on black and white videotape, telerecorded it and then burned much of the series a few years later.

Each episode of Department S opened with a caption giving the location and the date. However, little care seems to have been given when choosing these dates. If we assume that the episodes took place in the order in which they were broadcast, we soon find that the lifespan of Department S was considerably longer than the twenty eight weeks it ran for. We’ll be chronicling (not all together seriously) just how far into the future these adventures are set.

The episodes began with a pre-titles sequence in which this week’s baffling mystery is presented. Be it an aeroplane landing without any of the passengers seen to board at the other end or a luxurious room built inside a huge packing crate and left in a warehouse. These are generally excellent and lead into the show’s extremely colourful opening titles.

…is just that – our first meeting with Jason King in the episode. He’s one of those people who doesn’t always need to make an entrance in order to make an entrance.

The main characters and the actors that play them. Many will have appeared in an unnamed time travel adventure series, others will be actors and actresses who are in simply everything, darling.

Annabelle Hurst (Rosemary Nicols) had three distinct hair styles which appear more or less at random during the twenty eight episodes. These are –

The Anita Harris (named in particular after Miss Harris’s appearance in "Carry On Doctor")

The Tara King (named after Linda Thorson’s character in "The Avengers")

The Emma Peel (ditto but Diana Rigg)

This section will also cover her clothes, her computer boffinary and anything else which might crop up.

If there was an excuse to show someone – be it cast or extra – in as little clothing as the IBA would allow, Department S grabbed it enthusiastically. This section will detail some – but not all, this isn’t a pervy website – of the skin on display. WARNING: some of it will belong to Peter Wyngarde.

The eccentricities, wardrobe and general behaviour of Mister Jason King. Be it drinking too much, wearing an eye patch, flirting like mad or being as camp as three Pertwees and a Mr Humphries all rolled into one.

Jason King was supposed to be Ian Fleming in Peter Wyngarde’s body and as such, Jason is an internationally famous writer of spy adventures. He’s a modest fellow and drops Caine’s exploits into the conversation whenever he can. And if Caine’s exploits didn’t match the situation they were in, King would turn the whole affair into the plot of his next novel.

Stewart Sullivan – the token American and all round hard man – wore a lot of brown suits. He did other stuff as well and I hope to bring you as much as I can but I won’t neglect his brown suits.

This will be an optional section where the baffling mystery (and the clues provided during the episode) are explained at the end. As the series is 38 years old I don’t feel too bad about giving the game away but it will be up to you if you read them. You never know, it might get a proper DVD release in this country one day (Australia lead the world and it was from there that my set originates).

The obligatory mini-review and rating.

Department S is a series I have a lot of fondness for. It is a step above the usual ITC product as it relies on imaginative story ideas rather than ghosts or super powers for its gimmick. The production values are high, Peter Wyngarde is an icon and it has a theme tune that is so good I have it as my mobile ring tone.

It may not be quite as stylish as the Avengers (a series it desperately wants to be and a cross-over with Steed and King would’ve been magnificent) but it is a cut above the rest of Lew Grade’s late 60s and early 70s trans-Atlantic output.