VHS: THE 'BANNED' EPISODE OF THE PROFESSIONALS

From the VHS age: An unusual retail release of LWT's THE PROFESSIONALS because it included an episode that was never shown on British 'terrestrial' telly.

London Weekend became very nervous about the strong violent racist content in the episode and, after the edit was completed, decided not to screen it on ITV.  Which is rather surprising as their drama department was bankrolling the show and must have had sign-off at every stage of the process... one wonders at which point someone piped up and said 'maybe not chaps'.

That didn't stop them recouping some of their investment by including the episode when the show was sold overseas.  It was also omitted from the run of episodes (which were often cut to make them suitable for pre-watershed slots) on GRANADA PLUS.  Needless to say, it has also turned-up on the DVD and BR releases.

Repeats of the whole series have been few-and-far between on terrestrial TV (I recall seeing one episode as part of a season of reruns celebrating the 21st birthdays of Thames and LWT... although I think the celebrations were limited to the London region and the rest of the network carried an alternative schedule) allegedly because of a contractual wrangle between Martin Shaw and LWT.

TV SUPER HITS ISSUE 4: THE PROFESSIONALS POSTER MAGAZINE

From sometime after 1977: THE PROFESSIONALS OFFICIAL POSTER MAGAZINE, part of the TV SUPER HITS series, based on the LWT production for ITV.

This is Number 4 is the series but I suspect the numbering belongs to TV SUPER HITS rather than specifically the fourth issue dedicated to this series. I'm sure I've seen issues devoted to other shows (the edition I spotted on display, for a price I wasn't willing to pay, featured THE DUKES OF HAZZARD) so I suspect this was a flexible umbrella title that allowed the publisher to target whatever show looked hot at that moment.

Network are currently releasing the show on Blu Ray disc... and the season box sets are well worth snapping up. Not only do the shop-on-film episodes look gorgeous in their fully restored glory (I doubt the prints have ever looked so fine... the restoration work is amazing) but each set also comes with an incredibly detailed book by Andrew Pixley devoted to the making of each season. Londoners will also delight in some gosh-hasn't-it-changed location spotting as well.

1990: BIZARRE ISSUE 1: THE AVENGERS, THE NEW AVENGERS AND THE PROFESSIONALS

From July 1990: the first issue of BIZARRE, a British AVENGERS (of the TV, not comics, variety) fanzine named after the show's last episode.

As the cover design suggests, it also devoted space to THE NEW AVENGERS and THE PROFESSIONALS: two Seventies action shows from the same creative stable.