The Saint

Things being what they are, there is very little room for originality on television, and when it happens it is quickly plundered to give a billion variations on the same theme, each one becoming a little like that photocopier that is running out of ink and producing copies that are just a little more faded than the one before. Of course, in truth, very little is ever original and The Saint is no exception, based on the book series that began in 1928 by author Leslie Chateris.

When talking about the Saint, most people think either of the 1960's television series with the impossibly suave Roger Moore playing the part, or the rather dull 1997 movie which saw Val Kilmer play a character so far removed from either the novel Saint or Moore's Saint it wasn't funny. Some people may remember Ian Ogilvy's turn in the 70's revival Return Of The Saint, but sadly very few remember the 1989 series starring Simon Dutton.

The series is six 90 minute episodes, all of varying quality and, due to a decision to see the series get oversees financing, all filmed in a variety of locations. Rather interestingly, a lot of very series themes feature in the episodes. Simon Dutton plays the Saint as more faithful to the Chateris version; though smooth and suave, he is not a joker and has a somewhat harder edge to him than his two predecessors. In fact, he is a little to the Saint as Timothy Dalton is to James Bond, perhaps reflecting a sign of the times.

The Brazilian Connection kicks the series off with a story about smuggling babies from Brazil and illegally adopting them out in England. This story is one of two episodes featuring Inspector Teal, the only other character from the novels, and sets up a very curious relationship between Teal and the Saint. It's entertaining to watch Teal ordered to arrest the Saint when he knows that Templar is the best investigating tool they have.

The Software Murders attempts to get real and gritty by showing us computer crime, and rather entertainingly at the beginning of the episode, the Saint instant messaging his friend in South America. I'm not sure if they were just lucky by showing this, or actually did some proper research, but it's quite good all the same. The majority of the episode is set in the English countryside, and this probably gives Dutton the best chance to shine as the Saint, even though the episode itself is quite straight forward.

The Big Bang is the first of the foreign location episodes, and has the Saint escorting a prisoner who is the only person that can testify against a much larger criminal who is attempting a corporate takeover, and getting his men to throw people out of windows a lot. This is one of the episodes that has the Saint not only helping the police by bringing down the big bad guy, but also shows his less savoury side as he happily steals from the rich to give to, well to the person he feels most inclined to give it to. It's the thief aspect to the character that makes the Saint somewhat different to other heroes of the time, and it's nice to see it used more often than was done in previous versions.

The Blue Dulac is easily the worst of the episodes, and one can't help but feel sorry for Simon Dutton, who looks as though as soon as each scene is finished he's going to be on the phone to his agent demanding to know how he ended up with such a terrible gig. Set in France, the story revolves around jewel thiefs and a pair of twins, and the Saint trying to find the villain responsible for the murder of two of his friends. While it's the lightest story of the group, Dutton looks uncomfortable dealing with corny, and the actual production values of the episode are appalling. The dubbing is particularly bad.

Wrong Number sees Simon Templar accidentally receiving a phone call that his curiousity can't resist and, after finding a dead body, he becomes embroiled in a spy ring in Germany, brokering deals between the West Germans, East Germans, French, English and Americans. It's all a little mundane, but does have some great fight sequences and, of course, the true villain turns out to be an American who is planning on selling weapons to an arms dealer. Perhaps the best part of the episode is trying to work out who is stabbing who in the back.

Fear In Fun Park is the episode set in Australia, and sees a great use of Australian actors, and despite the fact they don't exaggerate their accents, they do seem to exaggerate the slang - by the end the Saint is actually have shrimp on the barbie, of all things. This episode centers around the sale of Luna Park to a Hong Kong triad, although the Australian owners wish to keep it, little realising there is a traitor in their midst. As a side note, the Saint is actually tracking down a girl who he believes has been sold into prostitution. A girl actually is during the episode, and ultimately never meets the Saint, finally hanging herself rather than go on. It's a grim turn of events in the episode, and easily the darkest moment of the series. Richard Roxburgh guest stars in the episode, and there is a cameo appearance by Ernie Dingo of all people.

The DVD set has no extra material, and the transfer to DVD is not particularly good. It seems that someone has used their personal home copy of the stories to make the DVDs and as such, every so often there seems to be video interference on screen. It seems sad that so little care has been taken on the set, almost as though releasing it has been an afterthought; a sort of "well, we've done the other two television series, guess we should do this one to". Simon Dutton is not well served by the scripts for this series...it would have been nice if the DVD could have made up for that.