C.A.T.S Eyes is a British television drama written and created by screenwriter, playwright and author Terence Feeley.
After the success of his previous drama “The Gentle Touch” a ground breaking drama, (notable for being the first British police series with a female lead character in Det. Inspector Maggie Forbes, played by Jill Gascoine) he wrote and produced C.A.T.S Eyes in 1985.
Filmed on location at Chatham Dockyard, Medway towns and Maidstone, with all post production and editing being carried out at the Television South (TVS) Television Centre in Maidstone. It is believed that the idea behind location shooting was to show the newly acquired south east region given to TVS in its franchise win.
The first season was shown on Friday nights with the second and third series being moved to a more popular Saturday evening slot and remained a healthy viewer pull throughout its run, regularly appearing in the top 20 ratings.
The Series centres around a team of female private investigators who covertly work for the British Home Office under the guise of the ”EYES” private detective agency, which is based in Kent. The C.A.T.S portion of the title standing for “Covert Activities Thames Section”.
Initially lead by Prudence Standfast, a refined Oxford Graduate (Rosalyn Landor) the team are soon joined by Maggie Forbes (Jill Gascoine, reprising her role from the Gentle Touch, having now left the Police force to join the agency , by Nigel’s appointment) and Frederica Smith a young and streetwise computer expert (Leslie Ash).
Under the watchful eye of Ministry contact Nigel Beaumont (Don Warrington) the team deal with various cases from theft, blackmail, murder and espionage.
Series Information
Series One consisted of 12 Episodes.
(see "Episodes" section for detailed information on each episode)
The Series premier "Goodbye Jenny Wren" was the pilot episode running 90 mins. The remaining episodes all ran at 60 mins inc advert breaks and ran from April 12th until June 28th 1985.
Creator Terence Feely wrote three of the episodes for the first series:
Goodbye Jenny Wren, Something Nasty Down Below and My Father Knew Lloyd Mbotu.
Guest stars that featured in this series include:
Anthony Head, Philip Jackson, George Sewell, Peter Vaughan, John Bird, George Innes and Alfred Molina husband of Jill Gascoine.
The theme tune for the first series was written by John Kongos and is considered by many to be the better of the two versions that were used. The theme was released as a vinyl single with the full version of the theme. The B side contained a vocal version, sung by Louise Burton.
Series Two contained 11 Episodes, one less than Series One, but with the first episode being classed as a pilot, it could simply have been that each series was intended to contain 11 episodes, however there is an account that a couple of additional episodes had been written that never made it to production. The first of these being titled "Sweet Toothed Barracuda". The storyline apparently involved a business man who finds cocaine in a consignment of sugar imported from the Caribbean, which leads Maggie to an island in the area where she uncovers a secret organisation steeped in voodoo and black magic, which in turn, puts her life in danger.
The episode was written for production by Jeffrey Caine, who had also worked on such shows as Bergerac and Dempsey & Makepeace (as well as later writing the screenplay for the 1995 Bond movie Goldeneye)
There appears to be some confusion as to whether it actually made it to production with some sources claiming it was Jill Gascoine's unhappiness with the drug references in the plotline, leading her to air her dissatisfaction and subsequently it was pulled from the series and never made. However others claim that somewhere in the series vaults there exists the opening credits for "Sweet Toothed Barracuda" leading to speculation that it may have been made after all.....?
Apparently author Jeffrey Caine was said to have explained that due to costs involved in the filming and "special effects" required for the episode, it was shelved along with a further episode he had penned entitled "X=Y", which had also been deemed too expensive to film as this story had a specific sequence shot at night at a fairground.
Creator Terence Feely wrote three of the episodes for the first series:
Powerline (joint writer with Gerry O’Hara), Freezeheat and Honeytrap.
Series Two saw the arrival of Tracy-Louise Ward to the team in the role of Tessa Robertson (as well as the unexplained departure of Rosalyn Landor's "Pru").
Guest stars that featured in this series include:
Ray Winstone, Peter Capaldi, Gavin Richards, Penelope Wilton, Neil Morrissey, Ian McNiece and Lionel Jefferies.
The opening credits and theme tune changed for this series.
Barbara Thompson’s saxophone fuelled score was an attention grabbing change to the previous theme, but seemed to be met with less enthusiasm than its predecessor.
Series Three was considerable shorter than the previous two seasons having only 7 episodes in total.
Guest stars that featured in this series include:
Tony Selby, Jeffery Bateman, Christopher Timothy, Geoffrey Hinsliff, John Fortune and John Challis.
VHS / DVD
With the current trend of classic TV shows being released onto DVD it had been hoped that CATS would follow suit (in light of the success of The Gentle Touch), but sadly this was not to be.
After Television South (the production Company) ceased broadcasting at the end of Dec 1992, The company (and all shows and effects) was sold to International Family Entertainment Inc. Which in turn was passed onto ABC Family Worldwide Inc. a subsiduary company of Disney.
Despite the series being shown on The Famiily Channel in the 1990's it has not been shown since.
It seems that due to vast amounts of paperwork going missing (presumadly binned) from TVS during its closedown, there are varying issues over the rights to the show. This combined with the problem that its current owners probably have no idea they even own it, let alone what it is. So it seems unlikely that we will ever have a proper release available........ However....
The series was made on actual roll film, which apparently was not destroyed or lost and currently still resides in the archives at the Maidstone Studios. Although this has not been verified, it stands to reason that the entire material would not have been shipped, simply the ownership of such and storage of the physical material would exist.
Furthermore at some point in the late 80's episodes were released on VHS in Germany. Whilst it is not sure which ones, the fact remains that it was actually released by a distribution Company called Tower. With this in mind there may be (and it's a very small maybe) a record with this Company regards rights, ownership etc as they were permitted to produce and release it.
I guess the bottom line is, that until someone looks to actually release the series and starts the process off, we will just have to make do with the digital copies that there are out there, from tv recording etc, either shared amongst fans or streamed on sites like You Tube.
But we can hope and keep our fingers crossed !!
Character Profiles
Prudence Standfast
Age 28
Birthplace
Bombay, India
Background
The daughter of a Major General.
Speaks fluent Urdu, Hindi, French, German, Spanish and some Arabic.
Oxford University Graduate. President of Student Union. On leaving college, joined the British Council and was posted to Iran, based in Tehran, following the downfall of the Shah.
Her coolness provoked an enthusiastic report from the British Ambassador in Iran and she was chosen to lead the new C.A.T.S. unit
Assets
Organisational ability, leadership, enormous energy and establishment contacts.
Defects
A short fuse, a caustic tongue and a tendency to be patronising.
Maggie Forbes
Age 36
Birthplace
London, England
Background
Joined the Metropolitan Police as a rookie cadet, straight from school.
Spent 18 years with the police rising to Detective Inspector, before retiring and joining C.A.T.S. Having been put through several refresher courses including weaponry, martial arts and driving.
Finding it a bit hard adjusting to her new role.
She has one son, Steven.
Assets
Hard working, experienced, police trained, basic toughness, good contacts.
Defects
Quick temper, tendency to follow rules too rigidly and let her heart rule her head.
Frederica “Fred” Smith
Age 19
Birthplace
Croydon, England
Background
Brilliant computer studies at her south London comprehensive.
Began writing programs at an early age and was snapped up after school by a software company.
A year later Civil Service Headquarters offered her double her salary to work for the Ministry of Defence. While there her details landed on Pru’s desk. Impressed by her being a sprint champion, she shortlisted her as a potential unit member.
Following an extensive three month training course, she was recruited.
Assets
Bluntness, humour and ability to see through nonsense.
Defects
Bluntness, partiality for romance novels and low boredom threshold.
