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) has ever presented a Western government agency in so sinister a light as "Callan". Despite being an assassin who stays in the socially isolating job because it is the only thing he is good at, Callan is a sympathetic character by comparison to his sadistic upper-class colleagues and implacable superior. The downbeat cover for the Section's headquarters was the scrap metal business of "Charlie Hunter" (a reference to the Richardson Gang). Produced by ABC Weekend Television and Thames Television, the programme proved extremely popular; as well as four series between 1967 and 1972, there was a film in 1974 and