29 August (1975-08-29) – 28 November 1975 (1975-11-28)
Quiller is a British drama television series starring Michael Jayston. The series premièred with the episode The Price of Violence on 29 August 1975 on BBC One. Quiller is the alias of a fictional spy created by English novelist Elleston Trevor who featured in a series of Cold Warthrillers written under the pseudonym "Adam Hall".
The second episode's script - Tango Briefing - was written by "Adam Hall", adapted from his own novel of the same name. All the other episodes were written for the series.
Although all episodes survived destruction, the series has never been repeated on the BBC or other channels since its original transmission nor is it currently available online, on Blu-ray or DVD[1] but in 2022 surfaced on YouTube and Telegram.
Background
Quiller (Michael Jayston) works for a British secret organisation known simply as "The Bureau". This organisation dispatches Quiller on various missions across the globe to retrieve missing documentation, prevent secrets from falling into the hands of the enemy, rescue "sleepers", safely repatriate defecting agents or eliminate those whom Her Majesty's Government wishes to disappear. His controller at "The Bureau" is Angus Kinloch (Moray Watson) and the only other series regular is Rosalind (Sinéad Cusack).
Production
The series adhered to the typical format of BBC dramas from that era, using 16mm film for outdoor locations and studio videotape for interior scenes. Notably, many episodes included foreign location shoots, with Malta (doubling for various countries) and Germany among the settings. Additionally, the production made extensive use of library stock footage, which was uncommon for BBC dramas.