It doesn’t quite feel like an episode of The Adventurer unless it opens with Gene and Mr Parminter getting into a heated argument. Honestly, these two are like an old married couple at times. Although in fairness, few married couples have probably got into a row over an elderly Russian scientist, one whose innovative work in early Russian cinema has both played an important role in the development of the cinematic medium and caused him to be hunted and persecuted by the Russian authorities. A failed attempt to defect to the West has recently seen the scientist/filmmaker in question, Andrei Korony, trapped somewhere “on the wrong side” of the Austrian border. Gene, being a movie actor, feels he owes Korony a debt due to Korony’s work having advanced the techniques of modern filmmaking. Parminter however feels that Korony is now too old and unimportant to risk venturing behind the Iron Curtain to rescue. Naturally, Gene completely ignores Parminter’s advice and is soon piloting a glider behind enemy lines. Before doing that however Gene manages to throw the obligatory insult in Parminter’s direction, claiming that Korony has “been making motion pictures since I was in the cradle…I’ll change that..since you were in the cradle…if you ever were”. Really, Parminter does put up with so much shit from Gene.
Counterstrike seems to have lodged in my memory as the “green polo neck jumper” episode. A piece of camouflage-esque apparel that Gene wears at length during this episode. For once Gene’s dress sense is actually appropriate to his surroundings, this episode having a particularly rural feel, with a backdrop of dense woodlands and mountain ranges. I’m guessing the setting for Counterstrike episode is meant to be somewhere in Bavaria. Although the episode is politely vague as to the specifics, probably because the residents of the small village this episode is set around are depicted as a bunch of uncivilised, beer drinking, lederhosen wearing thugs. Counterstrike does get a fair amount of mileage out of the culture shock between smart, jet setting Gene and these backwards, Bavarian yokels. I imagine its fairly offensive stuff if you happen to live near or come from where this episode is meant to be set. Despite Counterstrike taking place in the 1970s, the Inn that Gene visits and stays at during this episode feels as if it belongs in a period piece Hammer Horror movie, you half expect to see Michael Ripper behind the bar, or Gene to start asking for directions to Castle Dracula. My favourite line in this episode occurs Gene asks for a toothbrush for his room, only for the innkeeper to reply “I got just the toothbrush for you sir, my own”…we sure as hell aren’t in the Cote D'Azur anymore.
Counterstrike often puts me in mind of a relatively obscure horror film from the period called ‘The Legend of Spider Forrest’ (1971) which features a similar Bavarian setting and likewise drops a foreigner amongst some hostile and secretive villagers. Although I’m sure there was no direct influence there, both The Legend of Spider Forrest and Counterstrike could only have really been made by British crews working in Bavaria. Both have this ‘outsider’ viewpoint of Bavaria as an enchanting yet alien and dangerous territory, and succeed in milking the fear and mystery of such a landscape for all its worth. Counterstrike is the first Adventurer episode that gives the impression of not entirely being smitten by its surroundings. Whereas the French Rivera and Amsterdam episodes have quite the love affair going on with these settings, Counterstrike seems to be erring on the side of caution when contemplating Bavaria as a future holiday destination. The non-existent book ‘Gene Bradley’s Guide to Europe’ would probably chalk this place up as “nice place, shame about the people…although on the plus side at least none of these hicks appear to be taller than I am”.
By Adventurer standards Counterstrike is a relatively coherent Gene Bradley outing. At its heart it is basically a run-around episode with Gene gliding into energy territory, making contact with the missing scientist and then being pursued on foot and on motorcycle across the Bavarian landscape. Somehow the episode manages to dig itself out of a typically confused opening, with the unnecessary backstory about the scientist’s film work being quickly forgotten about. A potential subplot about Gene dressing up as a gendarme, which threatens to turn this into yet another ‘Gene, the master of disguise’ episode, is also wisely disregarded at the first available opportunity.
The vast majority of Adventurer episodes were the work of either Cyril Frankel, Val Guest or Paul Dickson. Three veteran directors whose careers stretched back decades, and whose efficient, professional ‘director for hire’ work on the series means that their Adventurer episodes are near indistinguishable from each other’s. For the record Counterstrike was directed by Dickson, a Welsh filmmaker who is now undoubtedly the least remembered of this Adventurer directing trio. His work being largely confined to shorts, TV episodes and commercials, with little in the way of the well-remembered big screen outings that distinguishes Guest and Frankel’s careers. For a director whose work was mostly centred around the small screen, Counterstrike is surprisingly cinematic and action packed. Motorbike chases, a fight scene in a beer cellar, and the episode’s piece de résistance… Gene using a pair of rockets to modify his glider into a super charged getaway machine, do little to mask The Adventurer’s naked ambition to muscle in on Bond territory.
Realistically, The Adventurer was never going to match Bond movies in terms of spectacle and budgets, but as a small screen alternative that the public didn’t need to go out to the cinema to see, I can’t imagine people felt too short changed by episodes like this. It is probably no coincidence that The Adventurer originally aired in 1972-73, a time during a temporary drought in Bond movies between Diamonds are Forever and Live and Let Die. It is also probably no coincidence that the series was repeated in 1975 (not long after the release of The Man with the Golden Gun) and again in early 1977 (just before the release of The Spy Who Loved Me) in further attempts to grab an audience hungry for some 007-style thrills.
Counterstrike might be the most straightforward and least eccentric episode of The Adventurer so far. One that only leaves a slightly nasty taste in the mouth due to the usual side-lining of Gene’s co-stars. The Adventurer is still a very Gene-ccentric show at this point, with characters like Mr Parminter and Diane barely getting a look in. Considering the exposure Nyree Dawn Porter and Tony Anholt were simultaneously receiving over in The Protectors, Gene’s co-stars would have been right to feel hard done by. Catherine Schell in particular is wasted here, a subplot about her character Diane working undercover as a schoolteacher in the Bavarian village goes absolutely nowhere, and with the emphasis being on Gene’s escape from Bavaria, Diane’s fate appears to have been a low- priority. Indeed, Counterstrike near enough forgets that Diane is still behind enemy territory at the end of the episode, with a quick cutaway to her reassuring Gene “don’t worry about me, I’ll be out of here within the hour” coming across as a hastily shot afterthought. For now at least this is a series that isn’t about to let its co-stars forget that they’re acting in a show called The Adventurer and not The Adventurers.
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