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alt title(s): Adam Adamant Lives
"It appears that 1966 has a great deal of capacity for a man of my talents."
Adam Adamant Lives! was the BBC's answer to
The Avengers, but less successful. Produced in black and white, it ran for two seasons from 1966 to 1967. Repeats have been rare, but BBC 4 now shows the occasional episode.
In the pilot, the titular
Edwardian gentleman adventurer (played by Gerald Harper) was frozen in a block of ice by his nemesis The Face. 64 years later he was dug up by some workmen and thawed out, not much the worse for wear but very disoriented. Georgina Jones (Juliet Harmer), a swinging chick and dedicated Adamant fan, found him wandering around central London and took him home. Saving her from a murderous protection racket was his first step in resuming his adventuring career.
Subsequent episodes established more of a formula. Either Adam or Georgina would stumble upon a plot, usually involving some technofantasy element (clothes that kill their wearers, washing powder with an addictive scent, etc.). Adam would forbid Georgina to investigate, but she would anyway. Then he would have to rescue her as well as solving the case. In the better stories they would solve it together.
There was never much romance between the two leads. Georgina hero-worshipped Adam to the point of stalking him (in one episode she followed him all the way to Japan and disguised herself as a geisha to get near him) but his attitude to her was always more paternal. He would, however, frequently be attracted to female villains. His blind spot was that he could never believe a woman to be capable of evil, no matter how many evil women he met.
