Danger 5

Note: This review contains spoilers for all seasons of Danger 5

Jackson (series co-creator and writer David Ashby), Pierre (Aldo Mignone), Claire (Amanda Simons), Colonel Chestbridge (Tilman Vogler), Ilsa (Natsa Ristic) and Tucker (Sean James Murphy).

Danger 5 is an Australian web and TV series parodying 1960s action serials and satirising the attitudes of the time. Danger 5 are the top Allied action spy team of WWII, tasked (repeatedly) with two missions: Stop the latest Nazi superweapon and for God's sake, kill Hitler. The fact that the war appears to still be going on in the mid-1960s suggests that they are having some problems with this task, but the whole thing is played so straight that the blatant anachronism only occasionally trips you up.

"Now I have a machine gun. Ho, ho, ho."

The team consists of: American action man Jackson, a volatile man to whom emotions - especially his feelings for D5's Russian amazon - are an alien force and waiting is the hardest thing to do; miscellaneously European smoothy Pierre, with his web of contacts (all of whom know him by a different name and most of whom are traitors) and vast array of cocktail recipes imparted by dying friends; British bombshell Claire, reserved, competent and blonde catnip to most Nazis; angry Russian Ilsa, never seen without a cigarette, speaking only Russian, and certain she'll die of alcohol poisoning; and Tucker, an almost impossibly mild Australian who gives Claire a run for her money in the stiff upper lip department. Their boss is Colonel Chestbridge, who has the head of an eagle, just because, okay.

... Look, I don't know, okay.

Over the course of the first season, Danger 5 battle Hitler's indestructible diamond-skinned female bodyguards, dinosaur army, talking German shepherds, guns made of gold and sexually transmitted nazism, before finally destroying the Fuhrer in mecha-to-mecha combat and winning WWII even in the face of kaiju assault. At the end of each episode there is an advert for an imaginary smooth lifestyle accessory - drink, cigarettes, Swiss army guitar - and the entire cast - including lizard men, dogs and Hitler (played by Carmine Russo, notable primarily as series co-creator and writer Dario Russo's dad) is seen relaxing at a party in Danger 5's base.

Holly (Elizabeth Hay), Ilsa, McKenzie (Fumito Arai), Tucker, Pierre (Pacharo Mzembe) and Jackson.

In series 2, it's the 1980s (established as being 18 years after the end of WWII) and things have moved on for Danger 5. Tucker and Claire are getting married, Pierre is an internationally famous singer, playboy and entrepreneur with a lion-headed Japanese bodyguard called McKenzie, Jackson is a cop on the edge with Nam and Korea flashbacks, and Ilsa is a raddled KGB superspy. Oh, and Pierre is black.

Hitler - still setting trends 40 years after The Tomorrow
People.

The band is reunited after the Colonel is gunned down in a London department store by Hitler in a Santa suit and his lieutenant Carlos (who has the head of a wolf, as you do,) and a less than successful first encounter leaves Tucker carrying his wife's severed head for the rest of the season, with Claire's place sort-of-taken by Holly, an indestructible high school senior sought by both Hitler and Nikita Kruschev, King of USSR-Land.

Amazingly, season 2 is even weirder than season 1, as Hitler infiltrates a high school intent on becoming the coolest kid on campus and Christmas King (all episodes have the sub-mission 'save Christmas',) then sets himself up as an FBI agent, tries to take over the Vatican with luchador cardinals, and finally travels through time and becomes a robot. Or some fucking thing.

I wasn't as fond of season 2 as I was of season 1, largely because I always liked campy old 60s action series better than their macho 80s counterparts, and Danger 5 does very well at aping its source material, with everything from the costumes to the lighting and the film quality so note-perfect that it is easy to forget that the show isn't from the 60s or 80s. If anything doesn't quite fit, it's that the obvious miniatures used for exteriors and cars suit the first season better, but are still used in the second for practical and budgetary reasons. The second season lays on heavy with the 80s style gore, and is decidedly heavy-handed with the sex and nudity to distinguish it from the more innocent chain-smoking, coke-snorting, casually racist and sexist antics of the first.

Danger 5 is likely to be something of a Marmite show. Some people will love it, others will just shake their heads in bewilderment. I also suspect that, like me, most people will prefer one season or the other depending on their feelings about the original products.