''Fortune Hunter'' is an American action-adventure

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

series that was shown on

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from September 4 to October 2, 1994, starring Mark Frankel as the super-

spy Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...

Carlton Dial. In the United States, ''Fortune Hunter'' aired on Fox from September 4, 1994 to October 2, 1994. Of the 13 episodes produced, only five were aired for the North American audience. The decision to schedule the series immediately after football on Sundays at 7:00 pm was a factor in the dismissal of

Sandy Grushow Sandy Grushow (born April 3, 1960) is an American businessman, and the CEO of Phase 2 Media, a board member for The Weather Company (parent company of The Weather Channel) and works with MediaLink in the role of senior media advisor. He is the f ...

, president of

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, by chairman

Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...

. The show has aired in its entirety in other countries. It was well liked and generally received high ratings.

Plot

The series was a high paced, action and adventure based show that followed the exploits of Carlton Dial ( Mark Frankel). Dial is an ex-government agent whose high-risk assignments take him to exotic locales and into extreme

danger Danger is a lack of safety and may refer to: Places * Danger Cave, an archaeological site in Utah * Danger Island, Great Chagos Bank, Indian Ocean * Danger Island, alternate name of Pukapuka Atoll in the Cook Islands, Pacific Ocean * Danger Isla ...

, all in the name of recovering some of the world's most sought-after items – classified information, complex weapons systems, and the occasional endangered species, which have fallen into the wrong hands – for a handsome

fee A fee is the price one pays as remuneration for rights or services. Fees usually allow for overhead, wages, costs, and markup. Traditionally, professionals in the United Kingdom (and previously the Republic of Ireland) receive a fee in cont ...

. Dial is now working as a master agent for the Intercept Corporation, a high-tech global recovery organization based in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. Dial and his partner, the affable Harry Flack (

John Robert Hoffman John Robert Hoffman, most often known simply as John Hoffman, is an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He wrote and co-starred in the Disney Channel original film '' Northern Lights'' (1997) and has written many unproduced scree ...

) execute incredibly complex plans to retrieve these valuable items, depending on split-second timing and an astounding array of sophisticated electronic gadgetry. Dial is portrayed as a suave, charming and self-assured spy, similar in style, dressing and witty remarks to

James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...

, who uses his quick wit and sense of humor to get him out of many precarious situations. Dial performs his high-risk assignments with deadly seriousness. Determined to keep his perfect success record intact, he depends upon split-second timing and an astounding array of sophisticated electronic gadgetry – not to mention his partner, Harry. Dial wears a special contact lens with a built-in

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and an electronic

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, so Harry can see and hear everything that Dial does. This also allows Harry to speak with Dial, relaying information to the agent immediately, from the safety of the home office. As Dial travels the globe, Harry shares dangerous missions with Dial while linked to him by computer. He is in charge of the technological end, seeing and hearing everything Dial sees and hears, and providing the information not readily available to the average person. But much is left to Harry's imagination as the details of Dial's private life remain – well, private. The humor in their pairing is that each man believes that he is the one in charge. Dial is the agent with "the perfect recovery record," the one who is always in danger, while Flack, the technological wizard, sees himself as "the brains," and lives vicariously through his partner, which often can get Dial into trouble.

Cast

* Mark Frankel as Carlton Dial *

as Harry Flack

Episodes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fortune Hunter (TV Series) 1990s American drama television series 1994 American television series debuts 1994 American television series endings Fox Broadcasting Company original programming American adventure television series English-language television shows Television series by Sony Pictures Television