Department S

[Steve F]

Having spent months making figures to represent characters from a hokey old 1960s TV series, I thought I'd have a change, and instead make some figures to represent characters from a hokey old 1960s TV series.



For those unfamiliar with it, Department S concerned an Interpol team charged with finding explanations for bizarre events, such as:
- The crew and passengers of an airliner think that they've reached their destination half an hour early; they're actually four days late.
- A man in a spacesuit drops dead of suffocation in a London street.
- An estate agent showing a client a supposedly empty warehouse finds it contains a barred and locked replica of a Georgian drawing room; inside are a corpse and a man so deep in shock that he cannot talk.

So who is going to sort out those mysteries?




Stuart Sullivan, head of Department S.  A standard issue investigator-hero of the period.  If he had been freelance and a few inches taller, he could have been the lead in one of those forgettable series that tried to copy the success of The Saint.

Sir Curtis Seretse, Sullivan's boss, drops by to deliver some exposition while on his way to yet another conference.




Annabelle Hurst, data analyst.  Usually to be found "feeding the facts into the computer", when it isn't her turn to be held hostage.  Enjoys scoffing at the more outlandish theories of ...

Jason King, crime novelist and bon viveur and, later, star of his own spin-off series.


Department S was created by writer Dennis Spooner and producer Monty Berman, who also came up with Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) and The Champions.  Like those series, it was made for Lew Grade's ITC productions, which also spent the Sixties turning out The Saint, The Baron, Man in a Suitcase and Strange Report as well as all of Gerry Anderson's sci-fi shows.  Heady days.

[uti long smile]

Unsurprisingly, I like this a lot

[shadowking1957]

very good as usual your talents are amazing

[Arlequín]

They don't make them like they used to... 

A well done selection there Steve!

[Brummie Thug]

These are ace nice work sir! 

[Steve F]

Thanks, chaps.

Sources:

Stuart Sullivan is one of the Journalist figures from RAFM's Call of Cthulhu range.  I cut away the hat and sculpted on some hair.  The relative shortness of this older figure suited the subject very nicely.

Sir Curtis Seretse has the head of a Wargames Factory Zulu on the body of a Musketeer Miniatures interwar civilian.  I also cut away the map the original was holding and replaced it with a dossier made from blister pack plastic, as well as sculpting on a tie.

Annabel Hurst is made from a Doctor Who figure from Black Tree - Liz Shaw.  I turned her coat and skirt into a minidress and resculpted her hair.  My sculpting is pretty rough here, but so was that on the original figure - she didn't even have fingers.

Jason King is Crooked Dice's Hugo Solomon.  The only change I made was to remove the flower from his buttonhole - King didn't wear one in any of the dozen episodes I watched as research (arduous work, that was).

[Legion1963]

I think they were on Dutch TV in the late '60's and i remember them vaguely as i was to young to watch on a regular basis. But once in a while my parents let me and my older brother see one. My eldest brother was a regular viewer and quite a fan of Jason King. Nowadays there's even a clothingbrand that is called Jason King and it sells in a small shop in a town near to me.

[itchy]

well done I remember watching them when I was younger ,my mum had a huge crush on peter wyngarde until the public toilet incident 

[Michka]

These look great. I've never seen the show. I did see a couple minutes of one on Youtube though, and it was interesting. From your description it sounds a bit like Fringe, which I say as a compliment.

Now please don't tell me you plan to re-create each episode in order from the very beginning. I don't want to wait that long for my next Doctor Who fix. 

[Steve F]

Now please don't tell me you plan to re-create each episode in order from the very beginning. I don't want to wait that long for my next Doctor Who fix. 

No, no, that's my lot for Department S.  Other mini-projects (mini-mini projects?) may crop up from time to time, but I'm labouring away at "The Impossible Astronaut" now.  I've almost got to the end of the pre-credits sequence ...

[odd duck]

I remember watching this series and the king spin off as a kid,mostly remember Jason Kings hair and his suits which typify the fashion excesses of the late 60s early 70sAlso one of the king shows had him playing a nap.wargame with a girlfriend
first time I saw wargaming on T.V

[forrester]

I remember this... I'd forgotten their names except for Jason King.
I remember a comic strip adaptation in TV Comic ?

All the inspiration for 7TV revealed!

[Steve F]

I remember a comic strip adaptation in TV Comic ?

The only comics adaptation I've seen was in the 1971 Thunderbirds Annual.  See this entry on my comics blog:
http://gadsircomics.blogspot.co.uk/2007/07/beyond-borehamwood-champions.html

I couldn't find any mention of a regular comic strip in Andrew Pixley's "Listing of British Telefantasy in Comics"  (an invaluable special issue of Time Screen magazine from 1985, accompanying the long article in issue 21), but it may be that Department S didn't fit the magazine's definition of "telefantasy", being relentlessly Scooby-Doo-ish in giving everything a rational explanation.