The entire series was regularly screened on the now-defunct Granada Plus channel from 1997, where it was consistently the channel's highest-rated show, initially achieving close to one million viewers. The episodes shown were heavily edited to make them suitable for daytime viewing and it is these same prints that are being used for transmission on ITV4. Neither station screened the "Klansmen" episode, stating that London Weekend Television continued to forbid its transmission. In 1987, ITV was re-running some episodes. After the Hungerford shooting incident the particular episode that was to be aired, "Lawson's Last Stand", had a theme that was deemed insensitive and was replaced by the less violent "The Untouchables". Legacy After the series ended, ITV produced Dempsey and Makepeace as its replacement, while Raymond Menmuir produced Special Squad for Australia's Network Ten in the mid-1980s, following The Professionals' format. A revival series, CI5: The New Professionals was produced for Sky in the late 1990s and starred Edward Woodward, but it was not a success. The BBC introduced Spender in the early 1990s, which featured several Professionals influenced themes. Remake CI5: The New Professionals was a crime drama that aired on the Sky 1 satellite channel from 19 September to 19 December 1999. An updating of the original show, the series is set in a fictional government agency CI5 (Civilian Intelligence department 5 as opposed to MI5, Military Intelligence). The original group of three men (Doyle, Bodie and their boss Cowley) were replaced by a new group of three men and a woman: Harry Malone (played by Edward Woodward) Sam Curtis (played by Colin Wells) Chris Keel (Kal Weber) Tina Backus (Lexa Doig) The team were responsible to a minister, played by Charlotte Cornwell. In a similar manner to the original series the show included action sequences, often in a James Bond style. However, the show was not a ratings success and only ran for one series. It did not transfer to terrestrial television in the UK. In popular culture In the popular TV comedy series The Two Ronnies, Ronnie Corbett played a bungling version of Martin Shaw's Doyle in a sketch called Tinker Tailor Smiley Doyle (Series 11; broadcast February 1985 – March 1985). This was a joint send-up of The Professionals and the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy TV drama, with Ronnie Barker playing George Smiley along the lines of Alec Guinness' portrayal in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.