THE RISE AND FALL OF ADAM ADAMANT

Introduction by Nick Cooper © 1989

Adam Adamant Lives! started so well. But it only lasted 29 episodes - more than many ITC series, except that only seventeen have now survived. Reviews back in '66 started wary, but well, with The Listener's J.C. Trewin saying of A Vintage Year For Scoundrels: "... this proved to be out of the melodramatic mainstream. It was easy to enjoy... Anybody who enjoys Harrison Ainsworth's Auriol - and there must be a few left - will be on terms with Adam immediately; but, for that matter, anybody in the mood for a filmed rough-house, for the romatically glowering (but dignified) method of Gerald Harper, and the swift direction of William Slater and David Proudfoot, can accept the business without asking too many questions." And later ofd Death by Appointment Only (Season 1 Episode 11): "Though, before long, a flood of 'repeats' must subside, we have to cling hopefully to various series that are like rafts on the surface. Adam Adamant Lives! is a fairly stout raft if we trust ourselves to it: a moment's indecision and it sinks."

The last review in The Listener, though, was for Tunnel of Death (Season 2 Episode 9), in which Trewin observed: "Basically, the programme gives the appearance of lacking confidence in itself. It's heavy-handed where it should be gay, and even first-class direction and photography cannot save excellent actors like Jack May, T.P.McKenna and Frances Cuka from floundering in the verbiage: so much talent employed to so little effect."

So what exactly did go wrong? Probably we shall never know, since - like Doctor Who before and after it - Adam Adamant Lives! suffered heavily in the purges of the 1970s. Of season 2, when those who were around at the time attest things fell apart, there are only two episodes left. The earliest, Black Echo, is actually one of the best, so it is difficult to understand what is said about the season. Only a viewing of the recently-recovered (it was found with the four Ice Warriors episodes) A Sinister Sort of Service (Season 2 Episode 13)¹ could shed light on this, but the BBC have kept it (and the other remaining episodes, for that matter) close to their chest. Even in the case of what one can definitely identify as the excellent Season 1 episodes, BBC Enterprises don't know what video release-worthy material they're sitting on.²

The archive status of the series is as follows:

Season 1:
23/06/66	A Vintage Year For Scoundrels	b/wTR35
30/06/66	Death Has a Thousand Faces...	b/wTR16
07/07/66	More Deadly Than the Sword	b/wTR35
14/07/89	The Sweet Smell of Disaster	b/wTR25
21/07/66	Allah is Not Always With You	b/wTR35
04/08/66	The Terribly Happy Embalmers	b/wTR35
11/08/66	To Set a Deadly Fashion	b/wTR35
18/08/66	The Last Sacrifice	b/wTR35
25/08/66	Sing a Song of Murder	b/wTR35
01/09/66	The Doomsday Plan	b/wTR35
08/09/66	Death by Appointment Only	b/wTR35
15/09/66	Beauty is an Ugly Word	b/wTR35
22/09/66	The League of Uncharitable Ladies	b/wTR35
29/09/66	Ticket to Terror	n/e
06/10/66	The Village of Evil	b/wTR35
13/10/66	D for Destruction	b/wTR163
Season 2:
31/12/66	A Slight Case of Reincarnation	n/e
07/01/67	Black Echo	b/wTR16
14/01/67	Conspiracy of Death	n/e
21/01/67	The Basardi Affair	a/o4
28/01/67	The Survivors	n/e
04/02/67	Face in the Mirror	n/e
11/02/67	Another Little Drink	n/e
18/02/67	Death Begins as Seventy	n/e
25/02/67	Tunnel of Death	n/e
04/03/67	The Deadly Bullet	n/e
11/03/67	The Resurrectionists	n/e
18/03/67	Wish You Were Here	n/e1
25/03/67	A Sinister Sort of Service	b/wTR161
Key:	b/wTR16 = b/w 16mm telerecording b/wTR35 = b/w 35mm telerecording a/o = audio only exists n/e = does not exist

REFERENCES:
The Listener 30/06/66, 22/09/66, 30/03/67
Time Screen #7 (September 1986)

1. At the time it was reported that the recovered episode was Wish You Were Here (Season 2 Episode 12), and it only later came to light that it was actually A Sinister Sort of Service. Both the main text and the Archive Guide have been amended here accordingly.
2. Somewhat contrary to this observation, BBC Video released A Vintage Year for Scoundrels and Death Has a Thousand Faces on VHS in June 1991, but it seems sales were not sufficient to merit any more. The entire series was released on DVD in July 2006, containing all seventeen extant episodes, and scripts of the missing ones.
3. Found in a mis-labelled film film can at the BBC Archives in 2003. Whoops!
4. Recovered in 2017.

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