Season 1
The Persuaders! is a British action/adventure series created by Robert S. Baker and produced by ITC Entertainment and starring Tony Curtis and Roger Moore as two international playboys from different backgrounds who reluctantly team together to solve cases which the courts cannot.
The series aired in the UK on ITV from 17 September, 1971 to 25 February, 1972. There are 24 hour-long episodes in one season.
The Persuaders! premiered in South Africa on Top TV's Fox Retro channel on Thursday 15 July 2010, at 17h35. New episodes broadcast daily, on weekdays.
Repeats
Tues-Sat: 01h30, 10h05
Synopsis
The Persuaders! are two equally-matched men from different backgrounds who reluctantly team together to solve cases which the courts cannot.
Danny Wilde (Tony Curtis) is a rough diamond, educated and moulded in the back slums of New York City, who escaped by enlisting in the U.S. Navy. He later became a millionaire in the oil business.
Lord Brett Sinclair (Roger Moore) is a polished Harrow and Oxford educated English aristocrat; an ex-racing car driver, who addresses his comrade-in-arms as "Daniel".
Now globe-trotting playboys, the men meet on holiday in the French Riviera, instantly disliking each other and destroying a hotel bar with their fist-fight.
Arrested, they are delivered to retired Judge Fulton (Laurence Naismith) who offers them the choice of spending ninety days in jail or helping him right errors of impunity.
Grudgingly, Wilde and Sinclair agree to help solve Fulton's initial case. He then releases them from any threat of jail.
The men develop a sparing affection for each other and are soon stumbling into more adventures: sometimes by chance, sometimes due again to Judge Fulton.
Although the Judge recurs in the series, he has no formal relationship with his two agents. Several episodes depict his finding a way to convince Wilde and Sinclair to act on his behalf.
For instance, in Angie, Angie he easily convinces one of the pair. In The Man in the Middle he endangers his agents, so that they must act in his behalf. When they are short of cash, he lures them with money. In Powerswitch he manipulates events from the shadows, with Sinclair and Wilde not knowing of the Judge's involvement.
In episode 12, That's Me Over There, it appears that Sinclair has had a longstanding interest in crime-fighting, as he has had installed a dedicated telephone line for an informer on a master criminal.
In episode 17, Five Miles to Midnight, he tells Joan Collins's character that he personally works for the Judge because it has given him something worthwhile to do after his failed motor racing career; Wilde never reveals nor explains his reasons.