Thriller (TV Series) The Specialists (1962) User Reviews

The End

[AaronCapenBanner · 5/10 · 2 November 2014]

Last episode of the series is, as many have noted, a most inappropriate finale, since this series was at its best with Gothic horror, which gave viewers some of the finest hours of horror in television history, which most certainly doesn't describe this competent but unmemorable episode about an international team of "specialists" who target jewel thieves in Canada and the U.S. Cast with previous actors of the series like Lin McCarthy, Ronald Howard, and Sean McClory, this was in fact an unsold pilot for a TV series inserted into "Thriller", like when 'Cavender Is Coming' was forced onto "The Twilight Zone".

This now classic series deserved a better send-off...

"If we stay together, we shall improve the odds for our survival."

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 15 March 2012]

Considering that for most of it's series run 'Thriller' was a horror anthology show, it seemed odd that it would end by featuring an international crime mystery. As much as I could gather from the story, a team of law enforcement specialists was assembled to bring down a global diamond smuggling operation with the action moving from Montreal to London. It played out much like a cat and mouse game beginning with a murder intended to look like a suicide, the victim being the brother of a woman (Suzanne Lloyd) who's in love with the killer (Ronald Howard). It probably sounds a bit more suspenseful than the way it actually turned out. The good guys track their quarry to a London flat, specialist Duncan (Lin McCarthy) makes contact with Helen Coleman (Lyoyd), they narrowly escape a bombing attempt by Howard's character, and that's all she wrote. Somewhat of a letdown if you ask me, with no suspense and a rather bland cast of characters. If I had to stretch to make a recommendation it would be to see Suzanne Lloyd in a bathing suit. You could pause the story right there.

Well made but where's the horror?

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 19 December 2017]

"Thriller", despite having Boris Karloff as a host, was a problematic program as it never seemed to have found its voice, so to speak. Some shows were amazingly good and thrilling while many others seemed flat and out of place. So, it seems fitting that perhaps the most out of place, "The Specialists", ended the series.

"The Specialists" is not a bad hour of programming...though it seems to have nothing to do with the series. Instead, it appears to be a possible TV pilot that the network was trying out on a series that was on its last legs. This sort of thing happened a lot back in the day...when the network would try out a concept by running it first on an established show.

The program is about international jewel thieves. Unfortunately for the authorities, this is a brilliantly run group as they don't leave any loose threads. In other words, they kill anyone who could talk and divulge the identities of these scum. Unfortunately for them, however, one of the members is sentimental and has fallen in love with someone...and that might just be the one loose thread that can bring them all down.

This episode is taut, has a great fight scene at the end and is entertaining....just not at all appropriate for an inclusion in "Thriller".

Final episode begins with a bang, the series ends with a whimper

[kevinolzak · 3/10 · 7 May 2008]

The last of THRILLER's 67 episodes is "The Specialists," a watchable but highly inappropriate finale to an often terrifying series. A tale of terrorists in Canada and the 'specialists' who track them, this was intended to be the pilot for an crime-adventure show that producer Hubbell Robinson couldn't sell so he absorbed the cost by shifting it to THRILLER. This series was canceled after only 2 seasons because Alfred Hitchcock was suitably impressed and made certain the key personnel and writers were picked up for his show, which then expanded to an hour once THRILLER left the prime time airwaves. This final episode features as many as 10 actors who had appeared in previous shows, a lot of familiar faces with unfamiliar names, such as Lin McCarthy ("Rose's Last Summer") and Alan Caillou, who both scripted and acted in "Hay Fork and Bill-Hook." David Frankham and Ronald Howard (son of Leslie Howard) were also solid if under-appreciated, and equally effective as hero or villain. At least they cast a native Canadian, lovely Suzanne Lloyd, who did more extensive work in Britain, like THE AVENGERS ("The Murder Market") and the 1965 feature "The Return of Mr. Moto." After BORIS KARLOFF PRESENTS in 1949, COLONEL MARCH OF SCOTLAND YARD in 1954, and THE VEIL in 1958-59 (which never aired at the time), Karloff did one more anthology series in 1962, OUT OF THIS WORLD, before returning to the screen with 1963's "The Raven." Incidentally, the very last performance he ever gave was in the November 30 1968 episode of THE NAME OF THE GAME, "The White Birch," which co-starred Roddy McDowall, Susan St. James, and series regular Gene Barry.

Cop Drama for Last Episode or Why Do They All Wear the Same Hat?

[Hitchcoc · 5/10 · 15 December 2016]

The final episode of what was a pretty good series is not very interesting. I still don't quite understand who all the bad guys are and exactly what they were up to. Apparently, jewels were being smuggled inside works of art. Anyone who got in the way of the process did so at the risk of their lives. These guys were bad news. One of them has hooked up with a beautiful girl who he wants around. It's obvious that he has used women in the past and would kill this girl who dotes on him if she gets in the way. Her brother has been killed by these guys without any sense of guilt. The ending is quite weak and seemed much like a weekly crime drama. Finally, why did everyone wear the same hat?

Looks like Untouchables more than Thriller

[searchanddestroy-1 · 25 September 2015]

After all the THRILLER series was mostly eclectic, and not only focused on horror or haunted mansions as we could expect for such a TV show. But, remember, the first episodes were not terror nor fright stories, but rather drama. Fright schemes only arrived after four or five episodes. This episode could easily have been shown in another show, and I don't speak of Alfred Hitchcock's Hour or Presents. Now I have finished this whole show, I think it's different from AH series, you have here no real twists endings, no real common scheme among the episodes, except the authentic terror stories as DOCTOR MARKENSEN, the best of the show. This last episode is closer to UNTOUCHABLES with a character who looks like Robert Stack. I won't regret this series.

an impeccable policier

[Kirpianuscus · 29 September 2022]

Jewels, murders, bombs, a vulnerable young woman and the good work of cops . Well crafted in each detail, inspired fight scenes and a story who seems not very closed by Thrill spirit but, like each episode, interesting made and proposing a nice policier , fair in each piece defining it.

In short, a merituous work, especially for the scenes of return at home and the call about new level of mission and, sure, for the job of Suzanne Lloyd .

Not being a fan of crime genre, I admitt, I was seduced by the impeccable craft of story and about fight scenes, mark of a lost period in which the colors were more than precise defined and the acting was real good.