The XYY Man
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The XYY Man is a British television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network.
The series was based around the exploits of reformed cat burglar William "Spider" Scott (Stephen Yardley), who is persuaded to undertake assignments by British Intelligence that make special use of his talents. Scott has an extra "y" chromosome that gives him a criminal predisposition - although he tries to go straight, he is genetically incapable of doing so.
A brief three-part serial was made in 1976, with an ongoing series of ten episodes following in 1977.
The XYY Man is also notable for introducing the character of police sergeant George Bulman (played by Don Henderson) to the screen. The character would later be seen in the series Strangers and Bulman.
Although the series depicts someone with XYY syndrome as having criminal tendencies, in actual fact there is no connection. This was reported by an early academic paper as a result of the conditional probability fallacy, and may have become conventional wisdom in the 1970s, but subsequent research has not found any evidence for it.
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