Cult TV Blog

Another show I have rather avoided writing about here. I am going to be completely upfront with the reason, which is the rather superficial one that the actor Gene Barry plays the lead character, Gene Bradley. I have even had to check that three times while writing it, and I just find the similarity of those names very confusing. Barry was of course American, in true ITC fashion and Bradley is of course the archetypal ITC hero, millionaire, sophisticated, and all over the continent like a rash. And this episode has a very classic plot around inheritance and control related to marriage, which is very solid and a real contrast with the exotic Jason King. The Jaguar footage is used in a quite low key way to show the demise of an associate of Bradley's, who has already gone to the castle housing the titular icon. If you have the Network DVD box set there is a featurette on disc 4 called Icons Aren't Forever, which of course I had to watch in preparation for this post, in which Barr...

Yesterday I bought the boxed set of a series I had heard of but never seen, The Adventurer starring Gene Barry. These are merely my first impressions, since I am watching my way through the set at the moment, but I want to rush my humble opinions into print because it seems to me that this series gets an unfair thrashing on t’internet. In fact, while I’m not slow to express my dislike for a TV programme (although when I think a programme is such a dud that it isn’t even worthy of thinking about, I won’t tend to blog about it here), I’m slightly surprised at the sheer extent of the venom this show has attracted. You will read that it is the worst ITC show ever – granted, there always has to be a worst, but the venom with which this is expressed surprises me – and that Barry plays the least likeable action hero ever. Let’s get the main problems with the show out of the way to start off with. It didn’t work out as it was supposed to, largely because Barry took a dislike to most of the...