''Adderly'' is a Canadian television adventure-drama series which aired from 1986 to 1988. It was broadcast on both Canadian TV and on CBS in the United States. It starred Vancouver-born Winston Rekert as "charming and witty V. H. Adderly," an operative working for an obscure government intelligence agency.

Background

''Adderly'' was based on series creator

Elliott Baker Elliott Baker (December 15, 1922 – February 9, 2007), born Elliot Joseph Cohen, was a screenwriter and novelist. He died from cancer in 2007 at the age of 84. Baker was born in Buffalo, New York, and graduated from Indiana University. He w ...

's novel, ''Pocock & Pitt''.

Cast

* Winston Rekert as V. H. (Virgil Homer) Adderly * Jonathan Welsh as Melville Greenspan *

Dixie Seatle Dixie Seatle is a Canadian actress and faculty member in the Acting for Film and Television program at Humber College's School of Creative and Performing Arts in Toronto, Ontario. Her first film credit was a supporting role in the 1978 production ...

as Mona Ellerby * Ken Pogue as Major Jonathan B. Clack Occasional: * Mairlyn Smith as Debbie Greenspan * Jack Leitch as Victor Barinov

Plot

V. H. Adderly (Rekert) is a secret agent for an organization known as the I.S.I (International Security and Intelligence). Before the series begins, an enemy agent, Victor Barinov, crushes Adderly's left hand with a medieval mace during an interrogation in East Germany. Adderly loses the use of the hand, and since he is no longer considered useful as an active agent, he is reassigned to the I.S.I.'s tiny Department of Miscellaneous Affairs, located in a small basement office. This is meant to be a sort of "good service" reward for Adderly, as his supposedly cushy Miscellaneous Affairs job is mostly concerned with mundane in-house administrative paperwork. During the series, Adderly consistently finds ways to use his vague, non-specific status as a representative of "Miscellaneous Affairs" to actively investigate anything the I.S.I. has overlooked, and regularly goes above and beyond his mundane duties to uncover and neutralize dread plots that the larger organization has failed to investigate.Terrace, Vincent (2009). ''Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 through 2007'' (Volume 1). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. . Miscellaneous Affairs is officially run by Melville Greenspan (Welsh), a man fastidiously devoted to bureaucracy and unwilling to allow Adderly the freedom to pursue his outside interests. The only other departmental staff member is Mona Ellerby (Seatle), Greenspan's over-qualified secretary who is addicted to adventure and romance novels. Greenspan's superior is Major Jonathan B. Clack (Pogue), who is in charge of the I.S.I. as a whole, and is responsible for Adderly's reassignment from active field operations to Miscellaneous Affairs. Through the course of the 44-episode run, Adderly repeatedly demonstrates his ability to perform the duties of an active field agent, even saving the life of Major Clack himself. This only confirms to Clack that Adderly is an important asset at his current post. It is implied that Clack may have created the Department of Miscellaneous Affairs to allow Adderly the freedom and flexibility to pursue various cases which the I.S.I. couldn't normally handle.

Episodes

Season 1 (1986–87)

Season 2 (1987–88)

Broadcast history

''Adderly'' aired from September 1986 through May 1987 (its first season) in the 11:30pm '' CBS Late Night'' slot on the

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

network. For the second season (beginning in August 1987), the show's popularity prompted CBS to run episodes in prime time at 10:00pm on Fridays, but there was little promotion and the show didn't do well in the ratings. CBS moved the show back to the 11:30pm time slot in September 1987 where it remained until the series ended. That following summer the series was rerun on Mondays/Wednesdays at 1:00am. Canadian broadcasts of the series did not commence until January 1987.

References

External links

* * {{epguides, Adderly Global Television Network original programming CBS original programming 1980s Canadian comedy-drama television series 1986 Canadian television series debuts 1988 Canadian television series endings Television shows based on American novels Television series by Corus Entertainment Television series by MGM Television