History Series / AdamAdamantLives

''Adam Adamant Lives!'' was Creator/TheBBC's answer to ''Series/TheAvengers'', but less successful. Produced in black and white, it ran for two seasons from 1966 to 1967. Repeats have been rare, but BBC 4 now shows the occasional episode. All of the surviving episodes were released on DVD in 2006, with script [=PDFs=] for the missing ones.

In 2019 Creator/BigFinish (Famous for their [[AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho Doctor Who audio dramas]]) announced a ContinuityReboot of the series set to be released in January 2020.

* CoolCar: Semi-averted. Adam drives a Mini, a fairly humdrum compact car albeit a bit of a '60s icon, but it's the very sporty Cooper S model, and it has an expensively remodelled interior.

* DescriptionCut: Adam refers to Georgina as a 'poor, frail, defenceless girl.' Immediate cut to her smashing a teapot over her captor's head and making her escape.

* DidNotThinkThisThrough: "The Last Sacrifice" and "Allah Is Not Always With You" both revolve around blackmail schemes that the blackmailer cannot possibly pull off, since they would have to actually confess to murder themselves in the process.

* HollywoodSatanism: In "The Last Sacrifice", Adam battles a British lord who is running a satanist cult complete with hooded robes, orgies and human sacrifice. He is mostly using it as a source of blackmail, but Adam mentions that his family has a history of satanism cropping up every third generation.
* HumanPopsicle: The main concept. [[spoiler:Later we discover that The Face had himself frozen after Adam.]]

* PuttingOnTheReich: The private security form Surveillance Services make deliberate use of Nazi imagery, down to the salutes, black uniforms and SS collar flashes.

* TheSlowPath: [[spoiler:Louise]] meets Adam again in "Black Echo", having lived through all the sixty-five years since he was frozen.

* ValuesDissonance: An InUniverse part of the show of the show is that, unlike other characters who have been transported to the future, Adam dislikes the 60s and never fully adjusts to it.

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: In "Black Echo", [[spoiler:Louise very literally outlives her usefulness to the Face. Her sixty-five years of faithful service count for nothing with him; he leaves her to die in Adamant's arms while he makes his getaway with his new, younger sidekick.]]
* YoureInsane: Adam, to the villain of "Beauty is an Ugly Word": "You do realise that you are completely insane?" He is promptly proved right, as shortly afterwards the villain has reached the point of claiming that [[AGodAmI A God He Is]].

* AdaptationPersonalityChange: Rather than being a LoonyFan Georgina Jones is an Everyman short of character who is more of a fan of the Edwardian time period in general rather than just Adamant, with dreams of one day becoming a writer. Adam himself is more or less the same as the original, but is a bit of a StepfordSmiler and doesn’t share his classic counterpart’s blind spot regarding woman.
* AmbiguousSituation: Unlike the original, it is not entirely clear how Adam Adamant got transported to the 60’s. The first episode opens with a confused and delirious Adamant getting hit by a car and he can’t remember how he got there. There is even the possibility that he is actually a VERY delusional man and is not actually Adam Adamant.
* CliffHanger: Volume 1 ends with a depressed Adam [[spoiler: leaving Georgina’s funeral]] and deciding to retire, believing there is no place for him in the 60’s. [[spoiler: Meanwhile a very much alive Georgina is being held captive by a man claiming to be the Face.]]
* ShoutOut: Simms at one point turns on the radio and the song playing is by [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho1781963FanfareForTheCommonMen John Smith and the Coman Men]].

* BrownNote: Aside from developing MindControlMusic, the evil sound engineer Carson in "Sing a Song of Danger" is developing a sound bomb that will kill through applied sonics. He attempts to test it on Adam, Georgina and Simms.

* DeathByDisfigurement: [[EnforcedTrope Enforced]] in-universe by the villain of "Beauty is an Ugly Word". If any of his 'perfect' humans is injured badly enough to leave a scar, he has them killed.

* FakedRipVanWinkle: Done in reverse in the episode "A Slight Case Of Reincarnation".

* GetAHoldOfYourselfMan: When Georgie falls victim to the hypnotic music in "Sing a Song of Danger", Adam has to slap her face to free her.

* HighVoltageDeath: Happens to at least two villains. Melville in "Sing a Song of Danger" is killed when he spears a high voltage cable with his sword cane, and Dr. Mort collides with a generator while attempting to wrestle Adam in "The Doomsday Plan".

* MindControlMusic: The villains in "Sing a Song of Danger" plan to use a subliminal message embedded in records to cause fans to rob banks and deliver the money to them through fan clubs. They use another album to try to compel Adam to murder Georgina.

* CoolCar: Semi-averted. Adam drives a Mini Cooper S, a fairly humdrum compact car, but with an expensively remodelled interior.

* AsTheGoodBookSays: Some of the villains do this, especially if they're the WellIntentionedExtremist.

** SealedEvilInACan: The Face has himself frozen at some point after he froze Adam, when he had better perfected his technique and after his plans to throw the world into utter self-destructive chaos (implied to be the World Wars) is thwarted seals himself away only to be permanently woken a year after Adam is freed.

* TheSixties

* DeadpanSnarker: Adam's valet Simms, usually toward Georgina.

* FakedRipVanWinkle: Done in reverse in the episode "A Slight Case Of Reincarnation"

* FemmeFatale: Initially, Louise with The Face. Also applies to almost all of the women Adam meets in the sixties, with the exception of Georgina. His belief in the purity of womanhood, despite Louise's betrayal, always allows them to get the better of him.

* TheFutureIsShocking: one of the first things that happens to Edwardian adventurer Adam when he awakes in the swinging Sixties is that he stumbles into the London Underground where he is confronted by billboards advertising lingerie.

* GenkiGirl: Georgina

* HumanPopsicle: the main concept. [[spoiler:Later we discover that The Face had himself frozen after Adam.]]

* {{Irony}}: In the Japan episode, Georgina is found out by the Madam of a geisha house after mugging a geisha for her clothes. The Madam chastises her for dishonoring their profession, and angrily tells her that the first step to becoming a geisha is to actually be Japanese. Neither the Madam (Mary Webster) nor the geisha Georgina mugged (Mona Chong) were played by actors of Japanese descent.

* ItWillNeverCatchOn: Adam was friends with Winston Churchill when they were children. He "never thought [Churchill] would amount to anything."

* MsFanservice: Georgina
* MuggedForDisguise: Georgina mugs a geisha for her kimono in one episode.

Subsequent episodes established more of a formula. Either Adam or Georgina would stumble upon a plot, usually involving some technofantasy element (clothes that kill their wearers, washing powder with an addictive scent, etc.). Adam would forbid Georgina to investigate, but she would anyway. Then he would have to rescue her as well as solving the case. In the better stories they would solve it together. In episode 2 Adam employed a former seaside entertainer William Simms (Jack May) as a valet. One of the show's highlights was the constant bickering between Simms and Georgina.

* AsTheGoodBookSays: some of the villains do this, especially if they're the WellIntentionedExtremist.

* ANaziByAnyOtherName: The private security form Surveillance Services make deliberate use of Nazi imagery, down to the salutes, black uniforms and SS collar flashes.

Subsequent episodes established more of a formula. Either Adam or Georgina would stumble upon a plot, usually involving some technofantasy element (clothes that kill their wearers, washing powder with an addictive scent, etc.). Adam would forbid Georgina to investigate, but she would anyway. Then he would have to rescue her as well as solving the case. In the better stories they would solve it together. In episode 2 Adam employed a former seaside entertainer Willaim Simms (Jack May) as a valet. One of the show's highlights was the constant bickering between Simms and Georgina.

* CelibateHero: Between his code of chivalry and a bad romantic past, Adam consistently avoids the advances women, and the few times he is interested in someone they are working for the villain in the episode.

* DeathByDisfigurement: [[EnforcedTrope Enforced]] in-universe by the villain of "Beauty is an Ugly Word". If any of his 'perfect' humans is injured badly enouugh to leave a scar, he has them killed.

* MissingEpisode: most of the second season and part of the first were lost in a BBC archive purge.

* YoureInsane: Adam, to the villain of "Beauty is an Ugly Word": "You do realise that you are completely insane?"