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
Michael Feeney Callan Wells. Callan's first screenplay was the crime series "The Burke Enigma", a six-hour film production for RTÉ, which starred Ray McAnally and Donal McCann, and went forward as RTÉ's drama entry for the 1979 Prix Italia. According to Callan, this work was "influenced by the film noir I loved as a kid, and by Robert Altman's (filming) style." Subsequently, Callan joined BBC television drama in London, where he story-edited the detective series "Shoestring". Simultaneously, at ITV, he wrote for the action series "The Professionals". In the 1980s, Callan collaborated with Frederick Forsyth on Public Broadcasting Service-aired adaptations of Forsyth's stories