A Man Called Sloane

A Man Called Sloane
Genre	Drama
Created by	Cliff Gould
Starring	Robert Conrad Dan O'Herlihy Ji-Tu Cumbuka
Voices of	Michele Carey
Theme music composer	Patrick Williams
Country of origin	USA
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	12
Production
Executive producer(s)	Philip Saltzman
Producer(s)	Gerald Sanford
Production company(s)	Woodruff Productions QM Productions
Release
Original network	NBC
Original release	September 22 – December 22, 1979

A Man Called Sloane is an American secret agent adventure television series that aired on NBC during the 1979-1980 television season. It was a Woodruff Production in association with QM Productions, and became the final series produced by Quinn Martin's company to debut (Barnaby Jones was the last remaining QM program to be cancelled, in 1980). It is also one of only three QM series not to have an announcer accompanying the opening titles (the others are Most Wanted and Quinn Martin's Tales Of The Unexpected) and the only one not to have a "Tonight's Episode" card or the "Act I/II/III/IV/Epilog" formatting (although the episode titles still appear onscreen, they appear as part of the episode credits rather than during the standard opening).

The series starred Robert Conrad as Thomas R. Sloane III, a freelance spy who takes on occasional assignments for UNIT, a secret American intelligence operation run by "The Director", played by Dan O'Herlihy. (Unlike nearly all the other stars of series produced by QM Productions, Conrad was billed above the title - Robert Forster was the only other person to receive such an honor as Banyon.) The secret entrance to UNIT headquarters was through a toy store. KARTEL was the evil secret organization that was UNIT's nemesis. Aiding Sloane's missions was Torque, his deadly right-hand man played by Ji-Tu Cumbuka. Torque had a mechanical hand with interchangeable parts (drill, saw blade, etc.) that often helped during their assignments. The pair was also assisted by "Effie", a computer voiced by Michele Carey.

A Man Called Sloane was an amalgam of elements from numerous spy series of the previous 15 years, including The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Mission: Impossible, and Conrad's own The Wild Wild West (on which Michele Carey had previously appeared as a guest star). One of the more expensive series produced during the season, it failed to gain an audience and was cancelled after 12 episodes were broadcast.

On March 5, 1981, NBC aired a TV movie entitled Death Ray 2000, which was actually the original pilot for the series. The movie starred Robert Logan as Sloane. Cumbuka also appears as Torque, but in the pilot film, the character was a villain (footage of this version of Torque attacking Sloane was included in the opening credits of the TV series). Logan was originally supposed to play Sloane on the series, but Fred Silverman stated he did not like Logan and wanted Robert Conrad.^[1]

Episode list

1. Night of the Wizard
2. The Seduction Squad
3. Tuned For Destruction
4. Masquerade of Terror
5. Demon's Triangle
6. The Venus Microbe
7. Collision Course
8. Samurai
9. Sweethearts of Disaster
10. Lady Bug
11. Architect of Evil
12. The Shangri-la Syndrome

References

1. p.188 Britton, Wesley A. Spy Television Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004

External links

• A Man Called Sloane at the Internet Movie Database
• A Man Called Sloane at TV.com
• Death Ray 2000 at the Internet Movie Database (original pilot film)