| The series is set in a dystopian future in which Britain is under the grip of the Home Office's Department of Public Control (PCD), a tyrannically oppressive bureaucracy riding roughshod over the population's civil liberties. Edward Woodward plays Jim Kyle, a journalist on the last independent newspaper called The Star, who turns renegade and begins to fight the PCD covertly. The officials of the PCD, in turn, try to provide proof of Kyle's subversive activities. |
| Name | Character | Episodes |
|---|---|---|
| Edward Woodward | Jim Kyle | 16 |
| Tony Doyle | Dave Brett | 16 |
| Paul Hardwick | Faceless | 16 |
| Robert Lang | Herbert Skardon | 16 |
| John Savident | Dan Mellor | 8 |
| Clifton Jones | Henry Tasker | 8 |
| Barbara Kellerman | Delly Lomas | 8 |
| George Murcell | Tiny | 8 |
| Yvonne Mitchell | Kate Smith | 8 |
| Lisa Harrow | Lynn Blake | 8 |
| Victor Maddern | 2 | |
| John Rhys-Davies | 1 | |
| Lyndon Brook | 1 | |
| John Bennett | 1 | |
| Damien Thomas | 1 | |
| Norman Eshley | 1 | |
| Michael Cashman | 1 | |
| David Rintoul | 1 | |
| Jim Norton | 1 | |
| John Savident | 1 | |
| Colin Douglas | 1 | |
| George Pravda | 1 | |
| James Greene | 1 | |
| John Nolan | 1 | |
| Ed Bishop | 1 | |
| John Castle | 1 | |
| David Buck | 1 | |
| James Murray | 1 | |
| Jenny Laird | 1 | |
| Simon Chandler | 1 | |
| Esmond Knight | 1 | |
| John Paul | 1 | |
| Jonathan Scott-Taylor | 1 | |
| Vernon Dobtcheff | 1 | |
| Graham Crowden | 1 | |
| Edward Judd | 1 | |
| John Ronane | 1 | |
| Olu Jacobs | 1 | |
| Richard Hurndall | 1 | |
| Joyce Carey | 1 | |
| John Phillips | 1 | |
| Fiona Walker | 1 | |
| Anna Cropper | 1 | |
| Edward de Souza | 1 | |
| Ray Smith | 1 | |
| Gillian Raine | 1 | |
| Oscar James | 1 | |
| John Quarmby | 1 | |
| Joseph Brady | 1 | |
| Geoffrey Burridge | 1 | |
| Jonathan Adams | 1 | |
| Claire Davenport | 1 |