The Professor

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The Professor
TheProfessorLogo.png
The Professor logo since 2018
GenreScience-fiction
Drama
Created byPatrick Jackson
M.J. Robinson
Written byVarious
Directed byVarious
StarringAlexis Smith
Sarah Grey
Country of originGandoor
No. of programmes41 (1958 - 1997)
18 (2011 - present)
No. of episodes1089 (104 missing)
Production
Running timeRegular Episodes:
  • 25 minutes (1958 - 1980)
  • 45 minutes (1981 - present)
Specials:
  • Various: 60-150 minutes
Release
Original networkGBN
Picture format480i (1958 - 2008)
1080i HDTV (2011 - present)
Audio formatMono (1958 - 1987)
Stereo (1987 - 1997)
5.1 Surround Sound (2008 - present)
Original release13 September 1958 (1958-09-13) – present (present)

The Professor is a long-running Gandoorese science-fiction television program that has been produced by the GBC since 1958. The series originally focused on the adventures of the titular character and his close friend, Jo, who claimed to be the last survivors of a destroyed civilization that had no planet to call home. The two would recruit the assistance of various humans and help defend Earth and the universe from threats.

Considered a major piece of Gandoorese popular culture, the program originally ran from 1958 to 1997 on GBN. A 50th anniversary special was broadcast in 2008 and the series would resume airing in 2011.

The title role of The Professor was played by Tom Williamson from the series debut in 1958 until 2019, when the character passed the title on to his close partner Jo, played by Alexis Smith since 1958.

History

Planning for The Professor began in mid-1957 while Gandoor was in the midst of The Great TV Crash and when most new programming on GBN consisted of low-budget quiz shows and anthology series that showed low-cost or public domain films. Conceived as a science-fiction series in response to the popularity of the genre in movie theaters at the time, budget constraints forced them to write the show as being entirely set on contemporary Earth, enabling the reusing of existing sets. While story outlines for twenty episodes in the 1st programme were planned, the GBC's Head of Scripted Programming, Marcus Berry, only commissioned five episodes for the 1st programme of the series.

The programme 1 of The Professor debuted at 6.30 PM on 13 September 1958 and concluded with a cliffhanger episode on 11 October 1958, in an attempt to spark interest from viewers who would want to see the conclusion of the story. This would ultimately prove unnecessary as the series was renewed by the GBC for a second programme of 25 episodes after the broadcast of the series' fourth episode.

In July 1967, during the broadcast of the series' twelfth programme, it was announced that The Professor would be going on hiatus following the programme's conclusion, citing the budget issues that the series had been facing since the tenth programme in 1965 as the reason for the hiatus, with the GBC stating that 'At this time, we feel it best to give The Professor a temporary rest until we are able to give it the budget we feel it deserves.'

Despite the hiatus, a tenth anniversary special was produced and broadcast in September 1968, the only episode of The Professor to air that year. The special was the debut of the series in colour and immediately following its premiere, it was announced that The Professor had resumed production and would return as a regularly scheduled program at the start of 1969.

Starting with programme 25 in 1981, the episode length for the series was increased from approximately 25 minutes to 45 minutes - a change which remained until the end of the original run of the program in 1997 and continued with the series' revival in 2011.

In 1996, the GBC would announce that, due to several years of declining ratings, the then-upcoming 41st programme would be the final programme of The Professor for the foreseeable future. In May 1997, the thirteenth and final episode of programme 41 would air, concluding the series nearly 39 year run on television. In early 1998, series star Tom Williamson gave an interview with The Gandoor Times where he confirmed rumours that the series had been at risk of cancellation for 'several years', with him stating that 'effectively every programme of the series since the 38th one could have been the final one', he also stated that it was 'incredibly unlikely for the series to resume production'. In the same interview, he also dismissed rumours that the GBC had commissioned a special 40th anniversary episode for the series that year, stating 'The GBC hasn't planned any form of special episode for The Professor's 40th anniversary, at least to my knowledge. I've heard talk that they're planning on producing a new documentary to air for the anniversary and it's likely they'll repeat past episodes to celebrate, but that's all I've heard so far.'

A 50th anniversary special was broadcast in September 2008, the first new televised production for The Professor in over ten years. Despite having 77% audience share on the night of broadcast, the GBC announced that this was a one-off production and the series was not planned on being revived.

In June 2010, the GBC officially announced the production of a new programme for The Professor, featuring Tom Williamson and Alexis Smith reprising their roles as The Professor and Jo. The series would return to television on 6 August 2011. The revival has aired for sixteen programmes since 2011, with a sixteenth programme having debuted in May 2026. The revival also introduced Christmas specials to the series, with fifteen having aired since the revival began. The revival series is considered a continuation of the original 1958-1997 run, although it was decided by the producers to restart the count of the programmes, in order to assure viewers that they would not need to watch decades of episodes, about a hundred of which are lost, in order to understand the new series.

On 15 May 2019, the GBC and Tom Williamson announced that he would be leaving the role of The Professor in the then-upcoming ninth programme of the revival series. Despite rumours that the series would do something similar to regeneration in the series Doctor Who, by having his character being rejuvenated to a younger form, the character ultimately died and passed his title on to Jo during the 2019 Christmas special.

The revival series The Professor has aired internationally on GBN International since the channel began broadcasting in 2019 with the original series having been aired since 2023, under the title of The Professor Classic.

On 8 October 2022, during programme 12 of the series, the 1000th episode of the series premiered.

Starting with programme 15, which premiered in March 2025, The Professor will have its programmes divided into two halves, with the first half airing early in the year and the second half airing at the end of the year. This was done in order to accommodate Alexis Smith, who plays the character of Jo, who was in her late 70s at the time of this change.

Episodes

The Professor originally aired for 41 programmes from 13 September 1958 to 27 May 1997, the revival has aired for 16 programmes since 6 August 2011.

With the exceptions of programme 1 in 1958, which ran for only five episodes, and programme 21 in 1977, which ran for thirteen episodes due to a strike at the GBC leading to production on the programme ending during the production of the planned two-parter that would've made up episodes 14 and 15, programmes of The Professor generally aired for about 25 episodes between 1958 and 1980, with the longest programme being programme 15, which ran for 27 episodes.

Starting with programme 25 in 1981, the series episode count became much more fluid, with programmes running for between twelve and twenty-five episodes until the conclusion of the seventeen episode programme 37 in 1993.

Programmes of The Professor have consistently aired for thirteen episodes since programme 38 in 1994, with programmes during the revival series also including an annual Christmas special alongside the thirteen standard episodes.

Episode length has varied as well. Episodes of The Professor have aired in lengths of: 25 minutes (programme 1 through programme 24), 45 minutes (programme 25 through programme 41 and the revival series), and 90 minutes (20th anniversary episode[1]). In addition, the various specials have had lengths ranging from 60 minutes to 150 minutes.

The series is notable for almost consistently having aired new episodes on Saturday evenings since it debuted, with the only instances of new episodes not airing on Saturday being: the 10th anniversary special, the 30th anniversary special, the 60th anniversary special, the 70th anniversary special and every Christmas special, with the exception of the 2021 Christmas special.

As of 5 January 2029, there have been 1089 television stories of The Professor aired on Gandoorese television with 1066 airing as individual episodes and 23 as special broadcasts.

Missing Episodes

104 of 327 episodes of The Professor broadcast between 1958 and 1970 are considered missing, with programme 1 being the only programme to exist completely within the GBN's archives.

63 of the missing episodes are from programmes 2 to 5, which aired prior to the establishment of the GBN's archives in 1962, and 41 missing episodes are from programmes 6 to 14, prior to archival being made mandatory in the Gandoorese Television and Film Archives in September 1970, after the conclusion of programme 14 in May of that year.

Of the thirteen programmes of The Professor to contain missing episodes, programme 4 is the most affected by episode loss, with twenty-one out of twenty-six episodes being lost. In contrast, programme 11 is the least affected, with only two out of twenty-six episodes being lost.

Broadcast

Gandoor

Original Series

The Professor premiered in the 6.30 PM Saturday evening timeslot on 13 September 1958 on GBN. The series was broadcast between the GBN Evening News and the Saturday evening movie anthology series Science-Fiction Theater, which had previously started in the 6.30 PM timeslot before being moved to 7.00 PM to accommodate The Professor.

With the exception of the 10th anniversary special, which was instead broadcast at 6.30 PM on Friday evening in order to air on the day and date of the anniversary of the series' debut, The Professor would remain in its half-hour 6.30 PM Saturday timeslot through the conclusion of programme 24 in June 1980. Starting with programme 25 in February 1981, the series was moved to a forty-five minute timeslot at 8.00 PM on Saturdays, where it would remain until the series aired its final episode in May 1997.

Following the series' conclusion, GBN would continue to air repeats of The Professor in the 8.00 PM Saturday timeslot throughout the rest of 1997. Starting in 1998, the GBC moved repeats of the series from GBN to GBN Classics.

Repeats would air on GBN Classics from 1 January 1998 until 15 March 2004, one day before GBN Classics would be replaced with GBN Alt, which would not broadcast repeats of The Professor as the series was stated to 'not fit GBN Alt's mission to air alternative, non-mainstream, and experimental programming aimed at a young adult audience'. During the six years that GBN Classics would air The Professor, the series was primarily broadcast in an hour-long timeslot at 5.00 PM from Monday to Friday, which enabled GBN Classics to either air two 25 minute episodes of the series from programmes 1 to 24 or a single 45 minute episode from programmes 25 to 41.

In mid-2002, the pay television channel Cosmos, which focused on the airing of science-fiction series and movies, acquired rebroadcast rights to programmes 30 to 41 of the series. This marked the first time that The Professor would be broadcast on commercial television in Gandoor. Cosmos broadcast the series every Thursday at 11.00 PM in an hour-long timeslot and aired the show through October 2008.

Despite the series being removed from regular broadcast on GBN after 1997, the series would occasionally return to the channel. For the series' 40th anniversary in 1998, a marathon of the top 50 episodes of the series, as voted by fans on GBN's official website for The Professor, was broadcast on the channel, only interrupted by news and sporting events. GBN would also rebroadcast the previously missing episodes 'The Creators' and 'The Silver People' for the first time since their original airings in the 1960s when the episodes were recovered and returned to the GBC in 2001 and 2003 respectively.

Repeats of The Professor would ultimately move back to GBN full-time starting in November 2004, with repeats being broadcast from 11.00 AM to 12.00 PM on Saturday mornings and from 3.30 PM to 4.30 PM on Sundays. The Saturday morning timeslot was somewhat controversial amongst some fans of the program at first, as the 11.00 AM Saturday morning timeslot was part of GBN's Saturday morning children's programming block Chiddies. The GBC confirmed that this scheduling was deliberate as 'The Professor is a program that is considered by the GBC to be a family show, and we feel that airing repeats of this program during a time when children will be watching will help introduce the series to a new generation of fans'.

Revival Series

The series' 50th anniversary special, 'Memories', premiered at 6.30 PM on 13 September 2008, it was simulcast on GBN, GBN Alt, and Chiddies, marking the first time that The Professor was broadcast on the latter two channels.

On 6 August 2011, The Professor officially returned as a regularly scheduled series on GBN, airing in the same 8.00 PM Saturday evening timeslot that it had previously occupied from 1981 until 1997. The sole exceptions to this Saturday evening timeslot would be the newly established Christmas specials which, as their name would indicate, instead aired on Christmas, irrespective of which day of the week that occurred on.

Starting with programme 15 of the revival series, which premiered in March 2025, programmes have been split into two halves for broadcast, referred to as Part A and Part B. Part A of a programme, which consists of the first 6 episodes, are broadcast from March to April and Part B of a programme, which consists of the remaining 7 episodes, are broadcast from October to November, followed a couple of weeks later by the annual Christmas special.

The series would air its 60th anniversary special on 13 September 2018 and its 70th anniversary special on 13 September 2028.

International

Original Series

The GBC began offering The Professor for sale to foreign broadcasters in its 1961 Program Catalogue, published in December 1960, with the series being described in the catalogue as:

'Science-fiction drama series about a young man and a young girl who are escapees from a destroyed alien civilization. Trapped on Earth with their disabled spaceship, the two protagonists recruit ordinary humans to assist them in defending the Earth from alien invasions and other threats - Series in-production, 9 episodes available at time of publication, 26 to be available for the whole season'

Despite the series having already broadcast three programmes at the time in Gandoor, the GBC offered only programme 4, which was airing at the time, to foreign broadcasters, as programmes 1 through 3 were already incomplete and missing episodes due to the GBC's junking policies of the time.

The series would first be sold to the United States, where it would air in syndication on a variety of independent stations starting in March 1961. It would later be sold to CTV in Canada, which began airing the series in December 1961; the ABC in Australia, which began airing the series in April 1962; and finally the NZBC in New Zealand, which began airing the series in June 1962.

As The Professor was recorded onto 2-inch videotape, this affected the format that the show was distributed on. Since the United States, Canada, and Gandoor all utilized the same television standards, the American and Canadian broadcasters were provided with NTSC-format videotapes copied from the original NTSC master tapes. Meanwhile, the Australian and New Zealand broadcasters were provided with 16 mm kinescope recordings of the episodes, to account for the differing television standard used in those countries.

At the time, the GBC would ultimately only offer programmes 4 through 12 for sale and foreign broadcast, but at no point did they ever offer all of those programmes for sale at the same time, as the GBC would gradually withdraw the older programmes from sale (Although, as no broadcasters other than the ones in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand ever purchased the series during this time, this affected very little as they would naturally be interested in purchasing newer episodes of the series and not old episodes).

In December 1968, the page for The Professor in the GBC's 1969 Program Catalogue stated the following:

'The science-fiction drama series The Professor will be withdrawn from sale after this year (1969). Foreign broadcasters will be able to purchase or renew their broadcasting rights for the program until 31 December 1969 and all foreign broadcasters which are already airing the program will continue to be able to do so until their rights to broadcast The Professor expire.'

Accordingly, the series would gradually cease broadcasting during the early to mid-1970s in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, with the latest confirmed foreign broadcast occurring in August 1973 in New Zealand.

While only being aired in international markets for 13 years, these broadcasts would prove invaluable for the recovery of lost episodes of the series, with 24 of 34 recovered episodes being returned from overseas broadcasters.

For whatever reason, the GBC would not offer The Professor for foreign broadcast again until the GBC's 1977 Program Catalogue, published in December 1976. In this instance, the GBC described the series as:

'A science-fiction adventure and drama series about the titular character and his assistant Jo, two survivors from an otherwise lost alien civilization, who travel across Gandoor and to other worlds in their faster-than-light spaceship to fight against aliens and other threats. - Series in-production, 67 episodes across three seasons available for purchase at time of publication.'

These 67 episodes that were offered corresponded to the 24 episodes of programme 18, the 21 episodes of programme 19, and the 22 episodes of programme 20. While it has never been confirmed, it is theorized that the GBC only offered these three programmes of The Professor for sale as programme 18 was the first programme to utilize the format change of only having The Professor and Jo as the main cast of the series.

Unlike their original offering of the series in the 1960s, the GBC would not withdraw older programmes of The Professor from sale as newer programmes were made available for foreign sale and broadcast.

Starting in 1981, the GBC began to offer programmes 13 to 17 of The Professor for sale in its Program Catalogue. In said catalogues, the GBC made note that these were 'archival seasons' of the series that were 'originally broadcast in Gandoor between 1969 and 1973', they also noted that 'as a result of policies once practiced by the Gandoor Broadcasting Corporation, a total of eight episodes across seasons 13 and 14 are unavailable for purchase or broadcast'. This marked the first time that these programmes were made available for foreign broadcast. The GBC would continue to reissue older programmes of The Professor for sale and foreign broadcast until 1985, when all extant episodes from the 1950s and 1960s were made available. Upon the recovery of previously missing episodes, the GBC would offer them for sale for foreign broadcast following a release of the recovered episode(s) in the Gandoorese market.

The GBC would continue to offer The Professor for foreign broadcast following the end of the series in 1997 and into the 2000s. Following the premiere of the revival series in 2011, the GBC would begin to specify the original run of the series in their Program Catalogues as The Professor (1958-1997).

While the GBC continues to offer the series for sale in its Program Catalogues into the 2020s, they have de-emphasized this method of international distribution of the series in favour of video on-demand. The GBC launched its own free and ad-supported streaming platform, known as GBC Stream, in international markets in 2019, with The Professor being promoted as one of the flagship series of the service. All extant episodes of the 1958 to 1997 run of the series have been available on the platform since launch.

Revival Series

Characters

Main Characters

The Professor

Tom Williamson, who played The Professor from the series debut until 2019

The Professor (played by Tom Williamson from 1958 to 2019) was the titular character of The Professor from the series premiere in 1958 until 2019. He appeared in all but one episode of the series until his death in the 2019 Christmas Special, the lone episode not featuring his character being the episode 'Deep Trouble', aired in 1964.

The character was originally a young man in his early 20s who was accompanied by a young preteen named Jo. The two of them claimed to be the survivors of a destroyed alien civilization and recruited the assistance of Harry Hardwick, who would become the first of many assistants on the show, in the second episode in order to help defend their disabled spaceship from attack from the lizardmen, the first of many monsters faced by The Professor and his friends.

In May 2019, the then-79 year old Tom Williamson announced that he was retiring from the role of The Professor and his final programme would be the then-upcoming 9th programme. While the GBC would later confirm that they did, in the early stages, consider having the character being made younger, it was decided that the role was too inherently tied to the actor to recast him. The Professor would ultimately pass away during the 2019 Christmas special, passing his title on to his companion Jo.

Despite the character's passing, Williamson would return to the series in the 70th anniversary special in 2028, playing an aged spiritual version of The Professor who helps Jo and her assistants during the special.

Jo

Jo (played by Alexis Smith from 1958 to 1962 and from 1968 to the present) was the travelling companion of The Professor from the series beginning. While The Professor passed the title on her during his death, the character is still referred to as simply Jo, although she has periodically referred to herself as Professor Jo.

When the series premiered, Jo was a twelve year old girl who had fled from her homeworld with The Professor. Despite much information about their civilization being unanswered to this day, it was established early on that Jo had no familial relations with The Professor and he had simply rescued her.

She left the show in the final episode of the 5th programme in 1962, with the in-story reasoning being that the character had decided that is was better for her to try to live a normal life on Earth with Harry Hardwick (the first assistant to the two) rather than continue to travel with The Professor.

Jo would reappear in the tenth anniversary special in 1968, where she would resume travelling with The Professor and his then-assistant Alexis Kabyka. She has been part of the main cast of the series ever since.

During the 19th programme of the original run, it was famously revealed that Jo was a lesbian. While she wasn't the first lesbian character on Gandoorese television series, she was the first one to be a main cast member. Jo's coming out was somewhat controversial at the time, with several prominent conservative groups declaring a boycott of the GBC in response, with the Gandoor Family Foundation famously burning a large pile of merchandise featuring the character near the GBC's headquarters in Gandoor City.

Assistants

Starting with the second episode of The Professor, The Professor and Jo would recruit the assistance of various people who would travel with them and help defend the Earth from threats. However, the concept of the 'assistant' during the original series run would end following the departure of Alexis Kabyka during the 17th programme and it would not return to the series until the revival in 2011.

Harry Hardwick

Harry Hardwick (played by Archibald Blake from 1958 to 1962) was the first assistant to travel with The Professor and Jo. He debuted during the 1st programme in 1958.

Hardwick, when he first appeared, was a 16 year old who had lost both his parents during the recent Gandoor Civil War. Completely orphaned, he quickly took to The Professor and eagerly took up the chance to travel with him and Jo when he was given the offer in the second episode of the series. He was a crafty pickpocket and could easily hold his own against many of the monsters faced by the three of them.

The character left the show, along with Jo, at the end of the 5th programme. This would ultimately be the character's final appearance as Archibald Blake would be involved in a fatal car crash two weeks after his final episode aired. During the 10th anniversary special, Jo would inform The Professor and Alexis that Harry had passed away prior to the events of the special.

Percy James

Percy James (played by Nicholas Thompson from 1962 to 1964) the second assistant who began travelling with The Professor in the 6th programme in 1962.

He was a thirty-three year old physician when he first appeared on the show, making him the first assistant to be older than The Professor himself. He was also the first assistant to face both the Skals and the Robomen, the series two most famous monsters, in the same episode.

James would leave the show in the middle of the 8th programme, during the episode 'Child', where his wife revealed to him that she was pregnant and he decided to stay with her and raise their child rather than continue to travel with The Professor. The character would reappear during the 20th anniversary episode and the 30th anniversary special.

Nicholas Thompson would pass away in 2008 at the age of 81.

Alexis Kabyka

Alexis Kabyka (played by Mae Floyd from 1960 to 1973) was the third assistant who began travelling with The Professor in the 8th programme in 1964.

The character, considered by many to be the most famous assistant to The Professor and Jo, first appeared during the 3rd programme, in 1960. She was originally a mysterious woman who seemed to be an expert at fighting alien creatures. She would be a recurring character for several years, with it being revealed during the 6th programme that she worked for a then-unnamed organization dedicated to protecting the Earth against alien threats.

She would begin to travel with The Professor following the departure of Percy James in the 8th programme in 1964, stating that her organization had assigned her to help him combat aliens. The organization she worked for would be revealed to be the Alien Defence Ministry during the 12th programme in 1967.

Kabyka would leave the show during the 17th programme in 1973, having decided to return to the Alien Defence Ministry full-time. While she no longer travelled with The Professor and Jo, she remained a recurring character throughout the original series run, making her final appearance during the 35th programme in 1991. She would later return to the role during the 4th programme of the revived series in 2014, her final appearance as the character.

Mae Floyd would pass away in 2015 at the age of 83.

Akane Matsumoto

Akane Matsumoto (played by Masumi Saeki from 2011 to 2013) was the fourth assistant who began travelling with The Professor and Jo in the 1st programme of the revival series.

Matsumoto was a 23 year old college student who accidentally found herself involved with The Professor and Jo during an investigation of alien duplicates of the teachers at her college. After helping the two of them uncover and defeat the alien duplicates, she decided to continue to assist them in their adventures.

She left the show during the 3rd programme of the revival series in 2013. Matsumoto would reappear in the 60th anniversary special in 2018.

Maxwell Fish

Maxwell Fish (played by Kenneth Adams from 2013 to 2017) was the fifth assistant who began travelling with The Professor and Jo in the 3rd programme of the revival series in 2013.

Fish was a 47 year old scientist who had been captured by the Skals and was rescued by The Professor, Jo, and Akane in the episode 'Genesis of the Skals'. Feeling that he owed a debt to them, and knowing that his family had been killed by the Skals when he was captured, he vowed to help The Professor and Jo fight against the Skals and other threats to the Earth after Akane left in the same episode he debuted in.

Fish's final appearance in the show was in the 7th programme of the revival series in 2017. Notably, his character was killed by a Skal, making him the first assistant to die on-screen in the show's then-59 year history.

Danielle Archer

Danielle Archer (played by Sarah Grey from 2016 to present) is the sixth and current assistant to Jo and, formerly, The Professor, who began travelling with them (and Maxwell Fish) in the 6th programme of the revival series.

Archer is a member of the Alien Defense Ministry who first appeared in the episode 'Roboman'. In a mirror of the classic series assistant Alexis Kabyka, she had been assigned to help them combat alien threats. Although it would later be revealed that she had effectively begged to be assigned to the position, having a great admiration for The Professor and Jo before ever having met them.

With the premiere of Programme 15 in 2025, Sarah Grey has become the longest serving assistant in the series history, having played the role for ten programmes, beating out previous record-holder Mae Floyd, who's character Alexis Kabyka served as an assistant to The Professor and Jo for nine programmes from 1964 until 1973. (Floyd had still played the role of Alexis Kabyka for longer than Grey has played the role of Archer, however, as Kabyka made her debut appearance in 1960 and, even with her departure as a main character, continued to be a recurring character until 1991 and played the role once again in 2014 during the revival)

Adversaries

Throughout the years, many foes and monsters have been faced by The Professor and Jo. For the purpose of this article, however, this will only list the most iconic enemies that have opposed the main characters.

Individuals

General Arthur McAdamson

General Arthur McAdamson (played by Gregory Stephens from 1970 to 1992 and Thomas Sanger from 2015 to present) is considered the most famous individual adversary of The Professor and Jo during the series run. He debuted during the 14th programme in 1970.

General McAdamson was the commander of the Alien Defense Ministry who held a complete and total hatred of all alien life and was disgusted when he discovered that The Professor and Jo were aliens themselves. He resigned from the ADM in disgust at them allowing two aliens to work with them and vowed to eliminate the two of them. A recurring adversary during the 70s, he would make more sporadic appearances throughout the 80s, predominantly because many episodes during that decade were set on worlds other than Earth, before making his final appearance during the classic run in the 36th programme in 1992. His final appearance in the original series seemingly ended with his death in an explosion.

McAdamson would return during the 5th programme of the revival series, now played by Thomas Sanger (replacing Gregory Stephens, who died in 2001), where it was revealed that he had barely managed survived the explosion that had seemingly killed him and, due to severe injuries he had sustained, had been forcibly converted into cyborg with an artificial skin, explaining his different appearance in the revival.

Jin

Jin (played by Isaac Sokolov from 1988 to present) is currently the only other member of The Professor and Jo's species to have appeared on-screen during the program. The character appeared, unnamed and as a background character, during all twenty episodes of the 32nd programme in 1988 before making their full debut in the 30th anniversary special.

Another survivor from the planet that The Professor and Jo came from, Jin is depicted as a mentally unstable individual who wants nothing more than for the universe to bow to his rule. Considered extremely dangerous to those who confront him, due to him being willing to kill others and think nothing of it, the character also maintains a façade of proper behaviour, such as offering to make Jo a cup of tea before killing her[2]. With the exception of his twenty uncredited background appearances during the 32nd programme, Jin made seven appearances during the original run of the series, with his last appearance occurring in the 41st programme in 1997.

The character would reappear during the 2nd programme of the revival series and has made nine appearances in the revival thus far.

The Mechani-Queen

The Mechani-Queen (voiced by Kumiko Shimura from 2014 to present) is the first recurring villain to appear in the revival series. The character is portrayed by a performer donning the costume for filming and the actual voice actress dubbing in her lines after filming.

The ruler of the Machine Empire, the Mechani-Queen has conquered over three hundred worlds and has converted billions of lifeforms into obedient robotic citizens. She has targeted and attempted to conquer Earth several times throughout her appearances, but has been stopped each time by The Professor, Jo, and their assistants and allies. The Mechani-Queen first appeared in the 4th programme of the revival series, in 2014, and has made eight appearances since then.

Species

Skals

The Skals are considered to be the most iconic monster faced by The Professor, Jo, and their allies, debuting in the first episode of the 2nd programme in 1958. A non-humanoid species of robot, Skals are unrelenting in their goal of complete domination of the universe. Despite having first appeared in 1958, the origin of the Skals wouldn't be revealed until the revival series in 2013, which revealed that they were the creation of a militaristic alien species of the same name, who designed the Skals in order to aid them in their conquest of worlds. However, as the Skals were specifically programmed to completely destroy any species that got in the way of their conquest, they ultimately turned against their creators and wiped them out.

The Skals made numerous appearances throughout the original run of the series, making their final appearance during the 41st programme, and returned in the 1st series of the revival.

Robomen

The Robomen are a race of robots from the planet Tekno that debuted during the 4th programme in 1960. The Robomen view organic life as inferior to robotic life and desire to kill off all non-robotic lifeforms in the universe in order for them, along with other entirely mechanical species, to live in, what they believe will be, a harmonious universe, free of conflict.

They have notably teamed up with the Skals several times throughout the years, although these partnerships have always been short-lived, as the Robomen are well aware that the Skals would not hesitate to destroy them. Conversely, they consider the Mechani-Queen and her Machine Empire one of their greatest enemies, as they view the conversion of organic life into machine to be completely antithetical to what it means to be a machine and have, on occasion, partnered with non-robotic life in order to defend themselves from the Machine Empire.

Other Media

Film

There have been several attempts to produce a film adaption of The Professor. The earliest attempt was in the early 1970s, when a film tentatively titled The Professor vs the Skals began pre-production. Despite having a script written, the film was cancelled in 1973 without formally going into production, due to a combination of budgetary reasons and fears that production on the film would interrupt production on the television series. The planned film's script was later novelized and published in 1985.

Following the series cancellation in 1997, there were numerous planned television and theatrical films that reached various stages of planning and production in an attempt to revive the series.

In 2018, the 60th anniversary special was given a one-month limited theatrical run, marking the first time The Professor had been seen in movie theaters.

Stage Plays

There have been three stage plays based upon The Professor. The first, The Professor in an Adventure with the Dastardly Skals, ran for six weeks shortly following the conclusion of the 5th programme in February 1962 and featured Tom Williamson reprising his role of The Professor. The second, The Menace of the Robomen ran for five weeks in 1976 and featured Jacob Harris as The Professor. The third, The Professor - The Grand Adventure ran for six weeks in 1992 and featured both Tom Williamson and Alexis Smith reprising their roles as The Professor and Jo.

  1. Split into three episodes for repeat airings, although the episode is officially one 90 minute episode, not three 30 minute ones
  2. 'The Traveller', originally aired 15 September 2012