Hmmmmm - My problem with that list was he included a few 'off' spies and far too many modern guys.
I think my list would be pretty similar to Tatia's
1 - Kelly and Scotty
2 - John Drake aka No. 6
3 - Steed and Mrs. Peel. (Though I have nothign against Tara King or Cathy Gale)
4 - Season 2/3 IMF Team: Jim Phelps, Barney Collier, Rollin hand, Cinnamon Carter and Willy Armitage.
5 - Napoleon Solo and Illya Kurykin
6 - James West and Artmus Gordon (being a western hybrid they go a bit lower)
7 - Alexander Mundy from it Takes a Thief. That show did have its charm.
I'll give an honorable mention to Maxwell Smart and Agent 99 - but seeing as the show was a parody of all things spy- it's hard to really compare. It would be better to throw them on a different list with The Man With One Red Shoe, Leslie Neilsen from Spy Hard, Austin Powers, Matt Helm etc. but now we're drifting into films.
I'm also a fan of the ITC catalog of heroes: The Saint, The Persuaders!, The Protectors, Jason King, Dept. S, The New Avengers, Randall and Hopkirk: Deceased etc. but most of them are freelancers, Govt. investigaotrs (but not spies), PI's, etc.
If we we to include more modern spies along with ex-spy turned PI or vigilante on a seperate list (I don't think it'a fair to comapre 60's cold war spies with modern takes:
1 - Neil Burnside and Willy from The Sandbaggers (fantastic UK Spy series like john le carre)
2 - McGill aka Man in a Suitcase
3 - McCall - The Equilizer
4 - MacGyver (it was a fun show it just doens't seem to date as well)
5 - Jack Bauer from 24 (he's a little more Supercop but he counts)
6 - The Champions trio - Super powered secret Agents - not quite good enough to make the first list but here they are.)
7 - Sydney Bristow - I never got into Alias- but she is definately a successor to the kind of Spy-Fi show UNCLE started.
It' hard to count most of the rest that are TV only. Either because they were short lived or parodies or...just not memorable. The Agency, The Exile, Spy Games, Three, Bugs, MI: 5/Spooks, UPN's Secret Agent Man, The New Adventures of Beans Baxter, Fortune Hunter, maybe even Nowhere Man (a modern esque prisoner) or Hustle or Dark Justice (both are modernesque Mission: Impossibles in a way) ... etc. But they just aren't up to snuff with the previous guys.
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