Bodie/Doyle (The Professionals) - Part 2/2
Title: The Bisto Kids
Author: justacat
Email: justacat66@yahoo.com
Spoilers: various episodes
Website: The Circuit Archive
...continued from Part 1
~ Never Far Apart ~
MAGGIE: Yes? [sees Doyle] Oh, it's you.
BODIE: Hallo, Maggie.
MAGGIE: [sees Bodie] And you.
DOYLE: Never far apart.
-From "Rogue"
So there it is. And it is all there, wide open, for the taking - but many a show with just as much fodder for slash, on paper at least, has failed to birth a fandom spanning decades. Whence does the enduring appeal of Bodie and Doyle arise?
Well, the purely physical aspects should not be minimized: Bodie with his broody pout and remarkable eyes, Doyle with that perfect, perfectly gorgeously sinful mouth, that fallen-angel face, that … arse! These are incredibly sexy guys in really, really, really tight trousers - truly bordering on the obscene at times - incredibly fit and equally dangerous, running and fighting and wielding high-powered weapons with exceptional competence, exhibiting fierce joy in their physical prowess (and total faith in each other's). The pure physicality of the show, and the characters, is a great part of their appeal, and it certainly doesn't require a big stretch of the imagination to picture them in bed together!
Beyond the physical appeal is the emotional intensity that characterizes their on-screen relationship. It's easy to quote dialogue; it's far more difficult, impossible in fact, to convey in writing the chemistry between them, the spark.
The deep, meaningful looks, the emotional outbursts on each other's behalf, the flashes of intimacy - these give the odd impression of being unscripted, even unintentional, and the emotion they reveal is often surprisingly, almost unnervingly, raw, sometimes leaving you with an uneasily voyeuristic feeling, as if you've inadvertently witnessed, overheard, what was intended to be a supremely private moment. There's no good way to describe this: you simply have to watch, to see the way Ray looks at Bodie after Bodie saves him in Backtrack, or as he's disarming the telephone bomb in Bodie's flat in The Purging of CI5, or when he tells Bodie about what it feels like to lose a partner in When the Heat Cools Off; the way Bodie looks at Ray in The Rack as they sit knee-to-knee, or in Man Without a Past when he finds Ray alive, or in The Ojuka Situation after Ray saves him; you have to hear Bodie's outburst at Cowley in Slush Fund and Ray's outburst in Klansmen, to appreciate the intensity and intimacy of these moments. And once you have, it becomes easier to see why this is a pairing that inspires such enduring devotion, such deep emotional investment, in its fans.
But even beyond all this, beyond the appeal of what's there on the screen, is the appeal of the idea of Bodie and Doyle: the idea of brothers-in-arms, of big, huge, indestructible love between tough fighting men, killers who would kill for each other - and die for each other. One is reminded of the Sacred Band of Thebes (and perhaps Achilles and his Myrmidons): an army of lovers, each a better soldier because he fights at the side of his beloved, who in turn is fighting for him. As here, no bond could be truer; they might never betray affection by more than a grunt and a slap on the shoulder and a quick glance, but if a bullet needs stopping….
And also, there is the appeal of the idea that Bodie and Doyle are tough, hard, ruthless, violent men, even sometimes with each other (hardly a Pros vid has been made that doesn't feature the scene in Involvement when Ray punches Bodie) - no cream puffs they, as Bodie tells Cowley in A Hiding to Nothing - but when it comes down to it, they need each other on every level - and, in the end, have no one but each other. Bodie and Doyle are entrenched in a job that isolates them from the "regular" world almost more than any other occupation imaginable. They are like cops in some ways - they are "good" guys, fighting on the side of right. But they're more than mere cops - they are the "elite crime fighters," the ones whose job is to protect society from the greatest evil, from the worst, most vicious and vile criminal and terrorist activity, things that even cops don't have to confront.
It seems almost inevitable that in order to do this they must become a little evil themselves, or at least come really, really, really close to evil; what they must do to protect society may at times seem indistinguishable from what the "bad guys" do to destroy it - they must be killers in order to be protectors. In Close Quarters the bad guy taunts Bodie, saying "we aren't so very different, are we?" and Bodie's girlfriend agrees. "You live by violence, just like him!" she accuses. "I'm doing this to protect you - people like you!" Bodie replies, "you have to fight fire with fire in this job" - but the question remains: if you have to be able and willing to kill in order to protect, how do you stop yourself from becoming a killer? In Heroes, Bodie calls fellow agent Crazy Tommy McKay a killer, and Ray asks what makes him (Bodie) so different. Bodie says he's different because he doesn't enjoy the killing - but that's always the risk, isn't it, that the good guys will slip over the line from having to do it to wanting to do it; that they will become, or become indistinguishable from, the very thing they're fighting. And even if they don't, even if their intent remains good - given the methods that they use, are they still in the end no better than the bad guys?
When you take on the baddest of the baddies, as Bodie and Doyle do, those questions are always lurking, because becoming hardened, skirting the line between good and bad, is unavoidable. Paradoxically, the result is to isolate them from the very people they're protecting. CI5's mandate is to combat "anarchy, terrorism, crimes against the public," so that the "public" can go about their business unaware of the evil that threatens them, believing they are secure - but the agents couldn't accomplish this if they themselves were one of the "public." They confront evil, fight it, so that those they are protecting do not have to, and that inevitably sets them apart almost insurmountably from the rest of the world.
This, then, is why it's so easy to believe that there's no way Bodie and Doyle could ever have a real connection with one of their "birds." The women they date are part of the "rest of the world" - they have normal everyday concerns, they're annoyed by Bodie and Doyle's unpredictable schedules and frequent absences, they don't understand why Bodie and Doyle have to do the things they do (in Involvement, Ann Holly ultimately leaves Doyle because she can't accept the violence of his life - and perhaps the violence that is part of his character) - to the extent they even know what Bodie and Doyle do, that is, since presumably most of it is classified. Bodie and Doyle simply live in a different world, a grittier, uglier, more dangerous world where they have to be prepared to kill - or be killed - at any moment, and where, by necessity, they perhaps are not entirely sane, where insanity becomes normality: as Bodie says in Everest Is Also Conquered, "you have to be mad in this job or you'd go insane."
Who, then, can they turn to, given that this is the nature of their lives? The answer is obvious - each other, and no one but each other, because who else but their partner could understand the danger, the isolation, the temptation and the risk; could help them stay on the right side of that line between good guy and bad guy, help them hang on to their humanity? Who else could understand and accept the killer that is, that has to be, part of them? Who else knows what it's like to face death as a matter of course, to confront regularly the unspeakable horrors that humans are capable of inflicting upon each other? Who else could laugh about it with them, laugh in the teeth of the greatest risk and danger? One is tempted to imagine that Crazy Tommy McKay got that way because he didn't have a partner to help keep him on the right side of that line.
There is simply enormous appeal to the idea of two tough, hardened guys coming together in the context of their dangerous, gritty, soul-threatening, violent job, a job that virtually requires them to rely on each other, turn to each other, need each other for everything - for sanity, for companionship, for a moral compass, and of course for life itself.
And of course, there is great appeal to the idea of two such hard, emotionally-well-defended and independent men, in such a "macho" occupation, open to blackmail, at risk of losing one another every single day as an occupational hazard, finding love together. It's difficult to resist the idea that the bantering, the fun, the black humor, and the occasional almost shy tenderness they share with each other - and with no one else - are the few rays of light in their uniquely bleak world; that their relationship with each other is what saves their lives from being dark and empty - that without each other they'd have no one, they'd be truly alone.
In No Stone, the pregnant wife of a young CI5 agent who has just been killed sobs furiously at Doyle, "it's OK for you, you don't have anyone." And one can't help but feel that if they didn't have each other she might be right, that without each other their lives would be devoid of love and caring and connection, they'd be alone. But they do have each other - for hope, for salvation, for comfort in the face of a thankless job with few rewards and little ultimate chance of success, for understanding, for acceptance of even their darker sides - for love.
They have each other, and we have them - the beauty and power and understated intensity of their bond, the obvious depth of their devotion to each other, the humor and affection and tenderness they show toward each other, so unexpected between two such hardened, tough-as-nails men, and all the more moving for that. To those - like me - who are drawn to this sort of thing, their appeal is timeless, utterly irresistible, and unrivaled by any other fandom or pairing.
Which, in a nutshell, is why Bodie and Doyle have captured - no, stolen - the hearts and imaginations of countless slashergirls for two decades and counting.
Resources
All 57 Pros episodes have been released on DVD. The DVDs, which are available from Amazon UK and other British sources, have Region 2 protections and are in PAL format; non-UK fans must have proper equipment to play them.
Not surprisingly for such an old fandom, Pros has a vast body of fanfic, a significant percentage of which was published originally in zines. However, the amount of fiction available online is substantial and ever increasing.
The Circuit Archive is the largest online repository of Pros fanfic, with over 1200 stories, including a large number that were originally published in zines, as well as an increasing amount of Pros fan art. The Resources section of the site contains links to a number of essential Pros resources, and the About the Archive section gives a brief history of the fandom. Updates to the Circuit Archive are announced on circuit_archive.
The Hatstand has an archive of Pros fic, as well as some excellent resources for Pros fans, including transcripts of all 57 episodes and the two Bullshitters spoofs, exhaustive lists of Pros stories broken down into various categories by subject matter or type of story, and a list of Pros songvids and links to vidders' websites. Updates to the Hatstand are announced on hatstander.
The Pros Library CD contains hundreds of stories, including some that are not available online. It is available through the owner of the Proslib Yahoo group mailing list, which is not a discussion list, but rather is solely a forum for the list owner to make Pros-related announcements, particularly regarding additions to the Proslib CD (which are posted to the list). The Files and Links sections of the group site contain all sorts of essential Pros-related information and resources.
Many stories remain available only in zines. The Files and Links sections of the Proslib mailing list site includes information about zine publishers and lists of all Pros zines (and multifandom zines with Pros content) and their contents.
Pros-lit is the main Pros slash discussion list, and the_safehouse is the Pros livejournal community.
Author: justacat
Email: justacat66@yahoo.com
Spoilers: various episodes
Website: The Circuit Archive
...continued from Part 1
~ Never Far Apart ~
MAGGIE: Yes? [sees Doyle] Oh, it's you.
BODIE: Hallo, Maggie.
MAGGIE: [sees Bodie] And you.
DOYLE: Never far apart.
-From "Rogue"
So there it is. And it is all there, wide open, for the taking - but many a show with just as much fodder for slash, on paper at least, has failed to birth a fandom spanning decades. Whence does the enduring appeal of Bodie and Doyle arise?
Well, the purely physical aspects should not be minimized: Bodie with his broody pout and remarkable eyes, Doyle with that perfect, perfectly gorgeously sinful mouth, that fallen-angel face, that … arse! These are incredibly sexy guys in really, really, really tight trousers - truly bordering on the obscene at times - incredibly fit and equally dangerous, running and fighting and wielding high-powered weapons with exceptional competence, exhibiting fierce joy in their physical prowess (and total faith in each other's). The pure physicality of the show, and the characters, is a great part of their appeal, and it certainly doesn't require a big stretch of the imagination to picture them in bed together!
Beyond the physical appeal is the emotional intensity that characterizes their on-screen relationship. It's easy to quote dialogue; it's far more difficult, impossible in fact, to convey in writing the chemistry between them, the spark.
The deep, meaningful looks, the emotional outbursts on each other's behalf, the flashes of intimacy - these give the odd impression of being unscripted, even unintentional, and the emotion they reveal is often surprisingly, almost unnervingly, raw, sometimes leaving you with an uneasily voyeuristic feeling, as if you've inadvertently witnessed, overheard, what was intended to be a supremely private moment. There's no good way to describe this: you simply have to watch, to see the way Ray looks at Bodie after Bodie saves him in Backtrack, or as he's disarming the telephone bomb in Bodie's flat in The Purging of CI5, or when he tells Bodie about what it feels like to lose a partner in When the Heat Cools Off; the way Bodie looks at Ray in The Rack as they sit knee-to-knee, or in Man Without a Past when he finds Ray alive, or in The Ojuka Situation after Ray saves him; you have to hear Bodie's outburst at Cowley in Slush Fund and Ray's outburst in Klansmen, to appreciate the intensity and intimacy of these moments. And once you have, it becomes easier to see why this is a pairing that inspires such enduring devotion, such deep emotional investment, in its fans.
But even beyond all this, beyond the appeal of what's there on the screen, is the appeal of the idea of Bodie and Doyle: the idea of brothers-in-arms, of big, huge, indestructible love between tough fighting men, killers who would kill for each other - and die for each other. One is reminded of the Sacred Band of Thebes (and perhaps Achilles and his Myrmidons): an army of lovers, each a better soldier because he fights at the side of his beloved, who in turn is fighting for him. As here, no bond could be truer; they might never betray affection by more than a grunt and a slap on the shoulder and a quick glance, but if a bullet needs stopping….
And also, there is the appeal of the idea that Bodie and Doyle are tough, hard, ruthless, violent men, even sometimes with each other (hardly a Pros vid has been made that doesn't feature the scene in Involvement when Ray punches Bodie) - no cream puffs they, as Bodie tells Cowley in A Hiding to Nothing - but when it comes down to it, they need each other on every level - and, in the end, have no one but each other. Bodie and Doyle are entrenched in a job that isolates them from the "regular" world almost more than any other occupation imaginable. They are like cops in some ways - they are "good" guys, fighting on the side of right. But they're more than mere cops - they are the "elite crime fighters," the ones whose job is to protect society from the greatest evil, from the worst, most vicious and vile criminal and terrorist activity, things that even cops don't have to confront.
It seems almost inevitable that in order to do this they must become a little evil themselves, or at least come really, really, really close to evil; what they must do to protect society may at times seem indistinguishable from what the "bad guys" do to destroy it - they must be killers in order to be protectors. In Close Quarters the bad guy taunts Bodie, saying "we aren't so very different, are we?" and Bodie's girlfriend agrees. "You live by violence, just like him!" she accuses. "I'm doing this to protect you - people like you!" Bodie replies, "you have to fight fire with fire in this job" - but the question remains: if you have to be able and willing to kill in order to protect, how do you stop yourself from becoming a killer? In Heroes, Bodie calls fellow agent Crazy Tommy McKay a killer, and Ray asks what makes him (Bodie) so different. Bodie says he's different because he doesn't enjoy the killing - but that's always the risk, isn't it, that the good guys will slip over the line from having to do it to wanting to do it; that they will become, or become indistinguishable from, the very thing they're fighting. And even if they don't, even if their intent remains good - given the methods that they use, are they still in the end no better than the bad guys?
When you take on the baddest of the baddies, as Bodie and Doyle do, those questions are always lurking, because becoming hardened, skirting the line between good and bad, is unavoidable. Paradoxically, the result is to isolate them from the very people they're protecting. CI5's mandate is to combat "anarchy, terrorism, crimes against the public," so that the "public" can go about their business unaware of the evil that threatens them, believing they are secure - but the agents couldn't accomplish this if they themselves were one of the "public." They confront evil, fight it, so that those they are protecting do not have to, and that inevitably sets them apart almost insurmountably from the rest of the world.
This, then, is why it's so easy to believe that there's no way Bodie and Doyle could ever have a real connection with one of their "birds." The women they date are part of the "rest of the world" - they have normal everyday concerns, they're annoyed by Bodie and Doyle's unpredictable schedules and frequent absences, they don't understand why Bodie and Doyle have to do the things they do (in Involvement, Ann Holly ultimately leaves Doyle because she can't accept the violence of his life - and perhaps the violence that is part of his character) - to the extent they even know what Bodie and Doyle do, that is, since presumably most of it is classified. Bodie and Doyle simply live in a different world, a grittier, uglier, more dangerous world where they have to be prepared to kill - or be killed - at any moment, and where, by necessity, they perhaps are not entirely sane, where insanity becomes normality: as Bodie says in Everest Is Also Conquered, "you have to be mad in this job or you'd go insane."
Who, then, can they turn to, given that this is the nature of their lives? The answer is obvious - each other, and no one but each other, because who else but their partner could understand the danger, the isolation, the temptation and the risk; could help them stay on the right side of that line between good guy and bad guy, help them hang on to their humanity? Who else could understand and accept the killer that is, that has to be, part of them? Who else knows what it's like to face death as a matter of course, to confront regularly the unspeakable horrors that humans are capable of inflicting upon each other? Who else could laugh about it with them, laugh in the teeth of the greatest risk and danger? One is tempted to imagine that Crazy Tommy McKay got that way because he didn't have a partner to help keep him on the right side of that line.
There is simply enormous appeal to the idea of two tough, hardened guys coming together in the context of their dangerous, gritty, soul-threatening, violent job, a job that virtually requires them to rely on each other, turn to each other, need each other for everything - for sanity, for companionship, for a moral compass, and of course for life itself.
And of course, there is great appeal to the idea of two such hard, emotionally-well-defended and independent men, in such a "macho" occupation, open to blackmail, at risk of losing one another every single day as an occupational hazard, finding love together. It's difficult to resist the idea that the bantering, the fun, the black humor, and the occasional almost shy tenderness they share with each other - and with no one else - are the few rays of light in their uniquely bleak world; that their relationship with each other is what saves their lives from being dark and empty - that without each other they'd have no one, they'd be truly alone.
In No Stone, the pregnant wife of a young CI5 agent who has just been killed sobs furiously at Doyle, "it's OK for you, you don't have anyone." And one can't help but feel that if they didn't have each other she might be right, that without each other their lives would be devoid of love and caring and connection, they'd be alone. But they do have each other - for hope, for salvation, for comfort in the face of a thankless job with few rewards and little ultimate chance of success, for understanding, for acceptance of even their darker sides - for love.
They have each other, and we have them - the beauty and power and understated intensity of their bond, the obvious depth of their devotion to each other, the humor and affection and tenderness they show toward each other, so unexpected between two such hardened, tough-as-nails men, and all the more moving for that. To those - like me - who are drawn to this sort of thing, their appeal is timeless, utterly irresistible, and unrivaled by any other fandom or pairing.
Which, in a nutshell, is why Bodie and Doyle have captured - no, stolen - the hearts and imaginations of countless slashergirls for two decades and counting.
Resources
All 57 Pros episodes have been released on DVD. The DVDs, which are available from Amazon UK and other British sources, have Region 2 protections and are in PAL format; non-UK fans must have proper equipment to play them.
Not surprisingly for such an old fandom, Pros has a vast body of fanfic, a significant percentage of which was published originally in zines. However, the amount of fiction available online is substantial and ever increasing.
The Circuit Archive is the largest online repository of Pros fanfic, with over 1200 stories, including a large number that were originally published in zines, as well as an increasing amount of Pros fan art. The Resources section of the site contains links to a number of essential Pros resources, and the About the Archive section gives a brief history of the fandom. Updates to the Circuit Archive are announced on circuit_archive.
The Hatstand has an archive of Pros fic, as well as some excellent resources for Pros fans, including transcripts of all 57 episodes and the two Bullshitters spoofs, exhaustive lists of Pros stories broken down into various categories by subject matter or type of story, and a list of Pros songvids and links to vidders' websites. Updates to the Hatstand are announced on hatstander.
The Pros Library CD contains hundreds of stories, including some that are not available online. It is available through the owner of the Proslib Yahoo group mailing list, which is not a discussion list, but rather is solely a forum for the list owner to make Pros-related announcements, particularly regarding additions to the Proslib CD (which are posted to the list). The Files and Links sections of the group site contain all sorts of essential Pros-related information and resources.
Many stories remain available only in zines. The Files and Links sections of the Proslib mailing list site includes information about zine publishers and lists of all Pros zines (and multifandom zines with Pros content) and their contents.
Pros-lit is the main Pros slash discussion list, and the_safehouse is the Pros livejournal community.