The idea for Danger Man originated with Ralph Smart, an associate of Lew Grade, head of ITC Entertainment.

[2] Like James Bond, the main character is a globetrotting spy who works at first for NATO, in series one, and then for the fictional British intelligence service M9 for the remainder of the show's run.

The first series of 39 episodes ran 24–25 minutes each and portrayed John Drake as working for a Washington, D.C.–based intelligence organisation, on behalf of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), whose assignments frequently took him to Africa, Latin America, and the Far East.

The second unit director on the pilot, according to Clemens:[6] ... shot some location and background stuff and sent the dailies back to the editing room at Elstree.

After a two-year hiatus, two things had changed; Danger Man had subsequently been resold all around the world, with repeat showings creating a public clamour for new ones.

Danger Man's creator, Ralph Smart, rethought the concept; the second series' (1964) episodes were 49 minutes long and had a new musical theme, Edwin Astley's "High Wire".

These two separate but related episodes were recut together as a feature for cinemas in Europe and for American broadcast, as done with two-parters from other ITC series such as The Baron and The Saint.

[8] Whilst "Koroshi" retains a strong plot-line and sharp characterisations, "Shinda Shima" drew heavily on contemporary Bond movies, principally Dr. No.

When the episodes were completed, McGoohan announced he was resigning from the series to create, produce, and star in a project titled The Prisoner, with David Tomblin as co-producer and George Markstein as script editor.

[9] The two colour episodes aired (in black and white) in the UK in the time slot of The Prisoner, which could not make its scheduled broadcast dates.

The European cinema film feature version, Koroshi, did not receive theatrical release in the US, but instead aired on network television as a TV movie in 1968.

[citation needed] Unlike the James Bond films, Danger Man strove for realism, dramatising credible Cold War tensions.

As in the earlier series, Drake finds himself in danger with not always happy outcomes; sometimes duty forces him to decisions that lead to good people suffering unfair consequences.

Despite the lack of firearm violence, The Encyclopedia of 20th-Century American Television by Ron Lackmann inexplicably describes Danger Man as one of the most violent series ever produced.

He usually plays a role to infiltrate a situation, for example, scout for a travel agency, naive soldier, embittered ex-convict, brainless playboy, imperious physician, opportunistic journalist, bumbling tourist, cold-blooded mercenary, bland diplomat, smarmy pop disc-jockey, precise clerk, compulsive gambler or impeccable butler.

Among the more frequently seen are a small spy camera hidden in a cigarette lighter and activated by flicking the lighter, a miniature reel-to-reel tape recorder hidden inside the head of an electric shaver or a pack of cigarettes, and a microphone, which could be embedded in a wall near the target via a shotgun-like apparatus, that used soda siphon cartridges containing CO2 as the propellant, allowing Drake to eavesdrop on conversations from a safe distance.

John Drake, unlike Bond, never romanced any of the series' female characters, as McGoohan was determined to create a family-friendly show.

In the second series, Drake displays an increasingly resentful attitude towards his superiors at M9,[11] first answering unwillingly to "Gorton" (Raymond Adamson) and later to "The Admiral" or Hobbs (Peter Madden).

Guest stars included Donald Pleasence (who was Blofeld in a James Bond movie), Howard Marion Crawford, Charles Gray, (who also appeared in two James Bond movies), Donald Houston, Maurice Denham, Joan Greenwood, John Le Mesurier, Sylvia Syms, Paul Eddington, William Marshall, Patsy Ann Noble, Lois Maxwell (she, too, featured in a James Bond movie as Miss Moneypenny), Burt Kwouk, and Peter Sallis.

The three-ringed 'target' revolves round in time to the three-note orchestra hits to obscure McGoohan's photo as it reveals the programme logo on a pure black background.

The first segment is filmed, comprising a full-length McGoohan in stark negative, menacingly taking a few paces towards the camera, before he then stops.

Christopher Benjamin portrayed the character in both series, with the episode also featuring an actor named John Drake in a small, non-speaking role.

[14] The first Danger Man season includes four episodes which use footage filmed in the Welsh resort of Portmeirion, which later became the primary shooting location of the Village in The Prisoner.

Vincent Terrace's The Complete Encyclopedia of Television Programs 1947–1979 postulates that John Drake's resignation reason is revealed in the "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling" episode, which is a follow-up to a mission assigned to Number Six before he was sent to The Village.

Nigel Stock (who played "The Colonel" in "Do Not Forsake Me...") also guest-starred in the Danger Man episode "A Little Loyalty Always Pays", as Major Bert Barrington.

Extra features include the edited-together movie version of "Koroshi" and "Shinda Shima", the US Secret Agent opening and closing titles, image galleries for each episode, and a specially written 170-page book on the making of the one-hour series.

Network Distributing Ltd Home Entertainment released the 1st (24 min) series in January 2010 on a 6-disc set with a commemorative booklet by Andrew Pixley.

To date, no North American DVD release has occurred of the Koroshi TV movie edit of the two fourth-season episodes.

It depicted Drake as having red hair, a trait shared with Patrick McGoohan, but which was unseen as Danger Man had been made only in monochrome at that time.

CBS broadcast some of the original format's episodes of the programme in 1961 under the Danger Man title as a summer replacement for the Western series Wanted: Dead or Alive.