THE EQUALIZER UK VHS TAPE

From the VHS age: One-third of an EQUALIZER 3-tape boxset, issued in the UK by Universal-Playback during the dying days of the tape format.  

I've always thought this one-time ITV mainstay (partly because of the CALLAN connection) was one of the best of the 1980s adventure shows, breaking free of the production line nature of Universal's west Coast TV factory by making New York much more than a location... it was an essential character.  Indeed, maybe even more so than Robert McCall himself thanks to Woodward's extended absence from the latter seasons after suffering a heart attack during the filming of swanky international Cold War pot boiler CODENAME: KYRIL in July 1987.

1987: THE EQUALIZER 2: TO EVEN THE ODDS (Target Books)

From 1987: The second and, as far as I know, final in the brief series of novelizations of the Universal series THE EQUALIZER.  

This one adapts The Defector (episode 3) and Back Home (the 13th), both from the show's first (of four) seasons. 

1986: THE EQUALIZER BOOK 1 by DAVID DEUTSCH (Target Books)

From 1986: Another entry in the Target/ Star TV tie-in stakes: the first of two novelizations derived from Universal's THE EQUALIZER, starring the late Edward Woodward.

This one adapts the show's standard-length opener and The Children's Song, the seventh episode aired during the first season.

I think this show is, without doubt, one of the best action shows to emerge from the Eighties.  And I think it is a tribute to both the studio and CBS that they were willing to rework the DEATH WISH formula for the small screen... and make the star a ready-for-retirement Brit rather than (as the not-too-bad almost-in-name-only movie proved) a dashing young actor in his action-ready prime.  

Of course, CBS' audience at this time did skew older (and more rural) so this was appealing the net's core audience.  This was probably an older audience, sitting and watching the evening news every day, convinced that America's cities had slipped into urban anarchy... and wishing someone (with a nice wardrobe or sensible cardigans) would do something about it.  

In the UK, ITV (once the home of Woodward's CALLEN) was the obvious home for the show.  Although their predilection for heavy editing and erratic scheduling hardly treated the show with respect.  At one point it was possible to watch several episodes per week thanks to the show enjoying both a prime time network slot AND a berth in the overnight schedules if you lived in the right regions.  Nowadays, with wall-to-wall sitcom repeats cluttering the digital schedules, this doesn't sound odd but... at the time... it was unusual.   

1985: ADAM ANT MEETS THE EQUALIZER

I found this online yesterday, a copy of a 1985 ADAM AND THE ANTS fanzine (love the title!) with THE EQUALIZER on the cover!  And a Christmas message too.

Adam Ant (or Stuart Leslie Goddard) branched out into acting in the mid-eighties and turned in a creditable performance, as a ruthless anything-goes brothel boss, in the first season episode The Lock Box.

Another notable performance is in another Starlogged favourite: SLEDGE HAMMER!

1987: MAD MAGAZINE SPOOFS THE EQUALIZER

I've long-maintained that THE EQUALIZER was the best of the action/ adventure/ crime shows to emerge from the Universal Television Factory of the seventies and eighties so I don't need much of an excuse to rerun this spoof from MAD MAGAZINE (UK edition 302, June 1987).

The show was a mainstay of ITV's eighties schedules, although it did fall foul of the network's usual shenanigans of airing episodes in a random order, running different episodes in different regions (or not-at-all, depending on the whims of local schedulers) and generally treating American shows with disdain.