Ward Fuller, Jason Hart, and Amelia Cole make up the Silent Force, a team of U.S. government agents assigned to work undercover to infiltrate organized crime in Southern California. Their various operations involve them with companies and individuals victimized by or taking part in organized crime.[1][2][3]
Each episode of The Silent Force opens with this narrative: "'If you do not, on a national scale, attack organized criminals with weapons and techniques as effective as their own, they will destroy us'...Robert F. Kennedy. An attack has been mounted from Washington; an undercover team of federal agents is the spearhead of that attack: The Silent Force."[3]
The Silent Force bore similarities to the hit CBS series Mission: Impossible.[3] Coincidentally, Lynda Day (billed as Lynda Day George after her 1970 marriage to actor Christopher George)[3] joined the cast of Mission: Impossible in 1971 after the cancellation of The Silent Force, and both Percy Rodriguez and Ed Nelson made guest appearances on the series (Rodriguez in season four's "Chico" and Nelson in season seven's "The Western").
A "novelization" of the series, also entitled The Silent Force and written by Harry Goddard, was published in 1971.[5]
Broadcast history
The Silent Force premiered on ABC on September 21, 1970.[2] It was cancelled after the broadcast of its fifteenth episode on January 11, 1971.[1][2][3] It aired on Monday at 8:30 p.m. throughout its run.[2]
After gangsters threaten the owner of a dry cleaning firm, he becomes the key to agents' efforts to smash a crime organization. Tom Bosley, Paul Lambert, Paul Harris, Aspa Nakapoulou, Del Monroe, and Carmen Zapata guest-star. This episode was originally scheduled for broadcast on November 2, 1970, but was postponed for three weeks.
November 23, 1970
1
10
"Take As Directed For Death"
After the murder of a doctor, the agents investigate the theft of U.S. government medical care funds by organized crime. Steve Ihnat, Arthur Batanides, and Michael Bell guest-star.
John Vernon, Paul Stewart, Robert Pine, and Carla Borelli guest-star.
January 11, 1971
Notes
^ abAccording to The Classic TV Archive, Bruce Geller may have been an executive producer for The Silent Force in addition to or instead of Walter Grauman.
^ abcMcNeil, Alex, Total Television: The Comprehensive Guide to Programming From 1948 to the Present, New York: Penguin Books, 1996, p. 754.
^ abcdefBrooks, Tim, and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime-Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946–Present, Sixth Edition, New York: Ballantine Books, 1995, ISBN0-345-39736-3, p. 932.
