Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2020: Week 37

The Professionals is a show about William Bodie and Ray Doyle, two hard men doing a hard job, under the gimlet eye of their boss, George Cowley, the head of CI5, a semi-secret government agency that battled organized crime and terrorism in 1970s-1980s Britain.

The Professionals fandom has a long and involved history, beginning in the UK shortly after the show aired and spreading to the United States.

The Professionals is known for long-running and extensive Circuit Library, its Alternative Universes, often fantasy-based including the much loved, and maligned, fanworks portraying its two lead characters (usually Ray Doyle) as elves.

It is also a fandom that began with, and was heavily populated, by slash fanworks.

For a complete timeline of the fandom, see The Professionals/Timeline.