CI5: The New Professionals (1999)
Plot.
Where to Watch.
Currently CI5: The New Professionals is available for streaming online, rent, buy or watch for free on: Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV, Xumo Play
Streaming in:🇺🇸 United States
Cast & Crew.
Edward Woodward
Harry Malone
Lexa Doig
Tina Backus
Colin Wells
Sam Curtis
Kal Weber
Chris Keel
Adrian Irvine
Spencer
Brian Clemens
Creator / Writer
Emma Woollard
Abigail Prentice
David Threlfall
Radovan Pradic
Ray Austin
Director
Sean Graham
Richards
JoAnna García Swisher
Michael Brandon
Paul Whitby
Gerald Kyd
Barry Bell
Mike Pniewski
Timothy Ackroyd
Michael Genevie
J.C. Quinn
Katharine Levy
Nick Searcy
Rupert Vansittart
Mike Harding
Charlotte Cornwell
Details.
Release DateSeptember 19, 1999
StatusEnded
Seasons1
Episodes13
Running Time50m
Genres
Last updated:
This TV Show Is About.
Wiki.
CI5: The New Professionals is a British television action crime drama series, created and principally written by Brian Clemens, that first broadcast on Sky One on 19 September 1999. Billed as an updated version of the 1970s terrestrial television series The Professionals, the series is set in a fictional government agency known as CI5 (Criminal Intelligence Department 5). The original group of three men - Doyle, Bodie and their boss Cowley - are replaced by a team consisting of Harry Malone (Edward Woodward), Chris Keel (Kal Weber), Sam Curtis (Colin Wells) and Tina Backus (Lexa Doig). In a similar manner to The Professionals, the series included a number of high-budget impressive action sequences, often filmed in a James Bond-esque style.
An initial thirteen episode series was offered to all major British broadcasters. At one time, it was suggested that ITV would broadcast the series, but after attempting to secure a cheaper deal for broadcast rights, producer David Wickes told The Daily Mail that he "would sooner lock it away in a vault than hand it over to ITV for next to nothing." Sky chose to invest in the series, after considerable editing which removed a number of sequences deemed "excessively violent or disturbing".
Sky provided the show with considerable pre-publicity, but viewer response to the show was extremely poor, with the low production values and perceived low-quality acting being widely mocked among those who watched it. The inevitable comparisons to the original series were uniformly negative, also the series was not a success in the ratings. The overall reaction was that Sky, which normally aimed to maximise its value from any of its programming by repeating it extensively, chose never to re-broadcast it after its premiere run. Subsequently, the series was not repeated on any other satellite television channel until 2012. The series, in its original, uncut form, was eventually released on Region 2 DVD on August 8, 2016.