The Champions: The Complete Series
01/07/2004 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 

pub: DVD. pub: Carlton 37115 05843. 30 * 50minute episodes plus assorted extras. Price: varies from £50 to £30 so shop around for the best deal) stars: William Gaunt, Stuart Damon, Alexandra Bastedo and Anthony Nicholls.

Buy The Champions in the USA - or Buy The Champions in the UK

check out website: www.carlton.tv

This series has come up for review from time to time as well as my disappointment that on video there were always a few episodes that always seemed to missed a release. Now, on DVD, that is no longer the case cos they’re altogether in this boxset.

For those who aren’t familiar with this 1968 ITV series. Three Nemesis agents, Richard Barrett (actor William Gaunt), Craig Sterling (actor Stuart Damon) and Sharon Macready (actress Alexandra Bastedo), stealing a grub carried virus from China, crash in Tibet where their bodies are restored by a hidden civilisation there.

More than restored, as they discover, as they have been endowed with super-human abilities and ability to communicate telepathically between themselves. We then follow their adventures in this low-budget but well-scripted TV series that has still got a cult following after all these years. The guest cast list has a who’s who of British talent that you can freeze-frame and pick out in the end credits.

It’s a shame that there aren’t that many extras. If anything, the biggest disappointment was only showing the cover of the rare colouring book as I’m sure many fans would have loved to have seen the pictures within as well as some information about the story itself.

My only memory of it stems from looking at it in a bookstore in my early teens and seeing the colouring pictures built up a story of the Champions returning to the lost Tibetan civilisation to help them.

Whatever, this is the definitive collection of this series and if you haven’t got it by now, then you won’t be far off owning your own a set.

GF Willmetts