The Protectors

Harry Rule leads a network of private operatives who protect people in danger and take on cases beyond the reach of conventional help. His closest colleagues are the Contessa Caroline di Contini and Paul Buchet. Their assignments lead through contemporary Britain and Europe, from city streets to isolated estates and unfamiliar borders.

The premise gives the series room to vary: one episode may be a pursuit, another a mystery, a political thriller or a story built around a difficult relationship. The three leads can work together or carry separate assignments.

First broadcast from 1972 to 1974, The Protectors ran for two seasons and 52 episodes. It occupies the period between UFO and Space: 1999, but takes place in the present-day world of its production.

The initial brief came from Lew Grade. Gerry Anderson and his colleagues developed it into a series that used many familiar members of the Anderson production team, including Reg Hill, Bob Bell and Tony Barwick. Location filming replaced the need to construct an entire future world, while maintaining the pace and visual ambition of an action programme.

Read an appreciation of The Protectors for a fuller account of its place in Gerry’s work.

Robert Vaughn plays Harry Rule, bringing an established international screen presence to the leader of the organisation. Nyree Dawn Porter’s Contessa combines independence, resourcefulness and glamour; Tony Anholt’s Paul Buchet completes the central partnership.

Their chemistry lets the stories shift emphasis from week to week. Supporting and guest performers include familiar Anderson collaborators as well as notable faces from British television. Shane Rimmer contributes both scripts and a performance, while Ed Bishop appears in the particularly intense The First Circle.

The series makes real locations part of its identity. Rome, Venice, Malta and Salzburg provide settings that feel different from one another, alongside the London streets and British landscapes of other episodes.

Its approximately 25-minute running time gives the stories a compressed pace. A case must establish its danger quickly, leaving little room for the extended subplots common to hour-long dramas. That short form connects it to the rhythm of earlier Anderson adventure series even when the surroundings are entirely different.

The five-episode starting guide highlights several sides of the programme. The Big Hit puts the organisation itself under attack, Shadbolt builds a dangerous encounter around Harry and an assassin, and Zeke’s Blues centres on an old friend played by Shane Rimmer.

The First Circle offers a more disturbing character drama, with Ed Bishop playing a traumatised war veteran. These examples show why the series deserves to be explored as part of Gerry’s wider career, alongside the better-known futuristic productions.

John Cameron’s score supports the action, while Tony Christie performs the closing song Avenues and Alleyways, written by Mitch Murray and Peter Callander. The song has a life beyond the series and remains one of its most familiar connections with popular culture.

Group Three / ITC. Two seasons; 52 episodes of approximately 25 minutes. First broadcast 1972–74.

Producers: Gerry Anderson and Reg Hill
Directors: John Hough, Don Chaffey, Jeremy Summers, Roy Ward Baker,
Cyril Frankel, Harry Booth, Michael Lindsay-Hogg & Robert Vaughn
Director of Photography: Brendan J. Stafford BSC & Frank Watts BSC
Art Director: Bob Bell
Script Editor: Tony Barwick
Music Composed and Directed by John Cameron
Theme Music & Lyrics by Mitch Murray & Peter Callender

Cast:
Robert Vaughn, Anthony Chinn, Nyree Dawn Porter, Yasuko Nagazumi, Tony Anholt