| "Double Agent" | |||
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| Joe 90 episode | |||
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 16 |
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| Directed by | Ken Turner | ||
| Written by | Tony Barwick | ||
| Production code | 12 | ||
| Original air date | January 12, 1969 | ||
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| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of Joe 90 episodes | |||
"Double Agent" is the 16th episode of the British Supermarionation television series Joe 90. It was first broadcast on January 12, 1969 on ATV Midlands.
Contents |
When three of WIN's couriers are killed, Shane Weston believes that there is a double agent in the organisation. Joe is given the brain pattern of the courier chief to deliver top-secret cipher codes – but when his behaviour becomes suspicious, the worst is feared: could the traitor be closer than was first thought?
WIN courier A14 is killed in a car crash after two criminals, Miller and Sherman, pursue his vehicle and shoot out one of his tyres. The assailants recover a briefcase that they know contains top-secret cipher codes, only to die themselves when they open it without authorisation and plastic explosive hidden inside the case detonates. Nevertheless, the security breach is worrying, since A14 is the third WIN courier to have been killed in the last month. At WIN Headquarters in London, Shane Weston meetings Sam Loover and head of the Courier Division, Harry Sloane, informing them of his suspicions that a double agent is at work in the organisation and that the next mission - to deliver codes for WIN's Eastern Network to Tehran - has been cancelled.
Unknown to Sloane, his brain impulses have been recorded and transmitted to the BIG RAT at the McClaine cottage in Dorset. The Tehran assignment is still due to go ahead; however, fearing that Sloane's cover may be broken if he were to ship the codes himself, Weston has re-assigned it to Joe 90, who will carry out the mission using the other agent's knowledge and experience. Equipped with Sloane's brain impulses and a new, improved model of dispatch case, Joe is driven to the airport by Professor McClaine. However, after putting on his BIG RAT spectacles, he surprises Mac by stating that he will be flying to Paris instead of Tehran. Mac assumes that his son is simply following orders, but Weston and Loover deny altering them. From Paris, Joe flies to Copenhagen. His actions prompt WIN Supreme Headquarters in Washington, D.C. to issue a C38 notice - all WIN agents are ordered to shoot to kill on sight.
In Copenhagen, Joe arrives at the clinic of Dr Newman, who is secretly a member of the group responsible for the courier attacks. Although Newman's telephone contact cannot believe that the latest WIN cipher codes have been entrusted to a child, he orders Newman to launch a speedboat and rendezvous with him in the English Channel, where the case will change hands. In London, Mac proposes that Joe's failure to obey orders can only be attributed to the brain impulses of Harry Sloane. Indeed, the double agent is none other than Sloane himself, whose loyalty has never been doubted - yet who is currently flying over the Channel in a helijet.
With Sloane fast approaching the speedboat, Newman, deciding that Joe cannot be trusted, lashes out and the boy's spectacles fall onto the deck. In the shootout that follows, Joe's gun is blasted out of hand, and he can only watch helplessly as Sloane airlifts Newman, carrying the case, into the helijet and flies away. Mac, Weston and Loover reach the scene in the Jet-Air Car. Joe, no longer under the influence of Sloane's brain impulses, reports that he has lost the cipher codes, but Loover has been carrying a remote control to detonate the case the whole time - on activation, the concealed plastic explosive detonates and Sloane and Newman are killed in the explosion. Loover assures Mac that he would never have done the same to Joe, since the boy is undeniably WIN's most special agent.
The character of Dr. Newman was originally written as Dr. Nieuwenhoff in Tony Barwick's original script.[1] It also featured a note from Barwick stating, "Please amend throughout script: Nieuwenhoff to Newman" on the cast page.[2] A newspaper prop, used in the Thunderbirds episode Edge of Impact was reused.[1] It can be seen being held by Mac featuring the headline "Red Arrow Test Flight Cancelled".[1] The establishing shot of the London airport was reused footage from the Thunderbirds episode Trapped in the Sky, while shots used for the Paris airport is from Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.[1] The establishing shot is from the episode Treble Cross and the tannoy speaker is from Winged Assassin. The music feautred at the start of the episode on A14's radio was recorded on 12th May 1968 at Barry Gray Studio from 7 - 11pm.[3]
The ITV website page on Joe 90 puts the episode description in the "Memorable Moments" section.[4]
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