The Most Special Agent
"The Most Special Agent" is the first episode of "Joe 90", a British Supermarionation television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed by their production company Century 21 for ITC Entertainment. Written by the Andersons and David Lane and directed by Desmond Saunders, it was first broadcast on 29 September 1968 on Associated Television and Tyne Tees Television.

Set in the future, the series follows the adventures of nine-year-old schoolboy Joe McClaine, who becomes the "Most Special Agent" of the spy organisation World Intelligence Network (WIN). With the help of the Brain Impulse Galvanoscope Record And Transfer (BIG RAT), a mind uploading device created by his adoptive father Professor "Mac" McClaine, Joe takes on the expertise of leading specialists to carry out dangerous missions for WIN, his youth and innocence allowing him to perform espionage without arousing the enemy's suspicion.

In the first episode of the series, Mac transfers his knowledge and experience to Joe to demonstrate the BIG RAT's potential to his friend Sam Loover, a WIN agent. In a meeting at WIN's London headquarters, Shane Weston, Loover's superior, describes a speculative scenario to explain how Joe and the BIG RAT could be valuable assets in the fight for world peace. Critical responses to "The Most Special Agent" have been mixed: while the episode has been praised for its technical direction, some commentators have questioned the use of a Cold War-influenced hypothetical mission as a way of explaining the series' concept.
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Joe 90
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Supermarionation
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Gerry
PER
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Sylvia Anderson
PER
None
Century 21
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ITC Entertainment
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David Lane
PER
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Desmond Saunders
PER
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Associated Television
ORG
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Tyne Tees Television
ORG
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mind uploading
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Cold War
EVE
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The Most Special Agent
MEDIA
Q7752381
The Most Special Agent
MEDIA
1968-09-29T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
29 September 1968
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90
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21
NUMBER
part of the series
screenwriter
screenwriter
director
date of first performance
creator
distributed by