The Saint (TV series)

The Saint is a British crime television series that aired in the United Kingdom on ITV between 1962 and 1969. It was based on the literary character Simon Templar created by Leslie Charteris in the 1920s and featured in many novels over the years. In the television series, Templar was played by Roger Moore. Templar helps those whom conventional agencies are powerless or unwilling to protect, often using methods that skirt the law. Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal is his nominal nemesis who considers Templar a common criminal, but often grudgingly tolerates his actions for the greater good.

NBC picked up the show as a summer replacement in its evening schedule in 1966 because of the strong performance in the United States of the first two series in first-run syndication. The programme, therefore, ended its run with both trans-Atlantic primetime scheduling and colour episodes. It also proved popular beyond the United Kingdom and United States, eventually airing in over 60 countries, and made a profit in excess of £350m for ITC. With almost 120 episodes, the programme is exceeded only by The Avengers as the most productive show of its genre produced in the United Kingdom. As with The Avengers, the colour episodes were originally broadcast in the United Kingdom in black and white before the advent of colour transmissions on ITV.