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Production: GB, 1968 Cast: Stuart Damon, Alexandra Bastedo, William Gaunt, Anthony Nichols. Another cult series from the Lew Grade’s ITC. The plot was half spy-story half science-fiction: three agents from secret organization “Nemesis” (its purpose is, of course, crime enforcement everywhere in the world) have a plane crash on the Himalaya mountains. |
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The inhabitants rescue and cure them and give super-human powers:
extra-sensorial perceptions, mighty strength and all senses
over-powered. “Nemesis” will take advantage from its super-agents,
despite they will never expose their super-powers. The various villains were very stereotyped: mad scientists, dictators intentioned to rule the world, irreducible Nazis and similar… Agent Craig Sterling was American actor Stuart Damon: as sometimes happened, ITC thought an American actor was necessary to sell in the USA, a very important market. Later, Damon appeared in a U.F.O. episode (Mindbender), and in two episodes from “Space: 1999”, where he had, initially, a chance for the role of Commander Koenig. He is best remembered for his role in the American soap opera “General Hospital”. |
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Agent Sharon Macready was actress Alexandra
Bastedo. Very young and not so experienced, she was one of the most
beautiful television actresses of her time, for a long time she had to
struggle to defend herself from fans crazy for her, and still today she
walks in the streets together with a giant Doberman dog for her
security… oddly, in the show there isn’t any love interest between her
and anyone of her male colleagues, who treat her just like a younger
sister. British actor Richard Barrett was agent William Gaunt. He was a very well-known face for British viewers, he had appeared in series like “The Saint” or “The Avengers”, and starred in “Sergeant Cork” series. After “The Champions” he did theatre, almost forced by the typecasting in which he had found himself, which prevented him to have other television roles |
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for a couple of years… The fourth star of the series (with very brief apparitions) was Nemesis’ chief W. L. Tremayne (Antony Nicholls). As usual, the series was filmed in a very rush, so that actors did not have time to improve their performances and give more deep personality to their characters (and so they were often accused to be bad actors); sometimes several episodes were shot at the same time if the same background was needed, for technicians and directors were satisfied if the scene was technically correct, and did not care if recitation was not at the best possible. Production budget was as low as possible: the series took place all around the world, but was always shot in England (and often it could be easily noticed), a particularly well-done stunt scene was re-used in almost other |
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four series, and one episode was shot with the lone Stuart Damon,
re-using other episodes’ scenes (a typical trick in ITC’s series:
despite that, it was one of the best episode, due to directors and
writers skillness…). “The Champions” was a success in all countries, except where it would have been necessary, the USA. The real problem was that in those years American television was really full of action and spy series, and viewers were rather fed up with them. So, as usual, a second season was not made (but, due to the hard work and the low pay, actors were not so disappointed for that…) 30 episodes, color, 60' |
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| 1) The Beginning 2) The Invisible Man 3) Reply Box N.666 4) The Experiment 5) Happening 6) Operation Deep-freeze 7) The Survivors 8) To Trap a Rat 9) The Iron Man 10) The Ghost Plane 11) The Dark Island |
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12) The Fanatics |
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23) The Night People |
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