Callan (TV series) is run by Colonel Hunter. ("Hunter" is a pseudonym for the current Section Chief, like the C of SIS.) The Section removes those who pose a danger to the "innocent" by persuasion, blackmail, extortion or death. David Callan had been the Section's top operator but he had become too curious about his targets and the rationale for their removal. The Section considered him vulnerable, volatile and dangerous and had laid him off to a dead-end book-keeping job for an ungrateful employer. ABC then commissioned a series of six episodes in 1967. In the first episode Callan rejoins the section in
Callan (TV series) Meres' younger, brasher, edgier and unpredictable replacement, James Cross (played by Patrick Mower), Hunter concocts a scenario whereby Callan's energies are incited into real emotion that can be turned against the enemy. The remaining eight episodes see the revitalised yet ever-more world-weary assassin cover more ground, including one episode where love comes unexpectedly into his life, and which has the (expected) unexpected ending. The final set of thirteen episodes was broadcast in 1972. This saw Callan develop further than before. An unsuccessful mission meant Callan is being interrogated in a Russian prison, but is exchanged with the Russians for one