The first hint the public had that 007 was finally reaching the end of its TV run came in September of 1968 when Pocket Books canceled its 007 tie-in comic. When the comic had been originally launched back in 1960 its publishers had expected that it might last as long as the TV show it was based on, possibly even outlive that series. But sales of the comic had been steadily tapering off since January, and after a series of frantic gimmicks to try and reverse that slump it was clear to Pocket executives the time had arrived to pull the plug. The final issue of the 007 comic, printed in the first week of October, would go on to become a collector’s item; one copy of that issue would sell for $1.2 million at a 2003 online auction.

With the 007 comic now history, the series itself began to look towards the ultimate end of its TV run. In a writers’ meeting held two weeks after ABC broadcast the show’s 1968-69 season premiere, the main topic of conversation was how the series should conclude what was then a ten-year stint in ABC’s Wednesday night prime time lineup. Among the more outlandish ideas pitched at that meeting was a three-part story arc which would have had the late Rosa Klebb miraculously brought back to life through the miracle of genetic cloning, installed as the new head of SPECTRE, and sent into battle in a final do-or-die clash with her old foe James Bond. That particular concept was quickly(and, some would say, fortunately) shot down.

Another story concept which met a swift death, because it was considered too derivative, would have had Bond getting framed for Q’s murder and going on the run à la Fugitive. Even the writer who’d conceived this particular storyline later conceded it had been a very bad idea. In fact, it became a private joke among the 007 production staff alumni; when the series first came out on home video in the late 1980s one of the bonus segments for the VHS edition of the series was devoted to remembering the jests that the Bond-on-the-lam storyline inspired. It’s questionable whether anyone other than the 007 writing staff alumni would even be aware of the plotline’s existence had one of them not had the foresight to save a copy of the original memo in which it was first suggested.

One series finale concept that wasn’t shot down was an idea for a special 90-minute episode in which Bond temporarily became the new M after the incumbent M was critically injured in the throes of a SMERSH assassination attempt gone badly awry. For Quinn Martin and his production team, who were still looking for opportunities to take the series in new directions even as it was winding down, this idea came as a welcome chance to see how prime-time TV’s most famous undercover counterintelligence officer handled the responsibilities of command in an emergency. Another storyline idea that got plenty of support from the production staff was a two-part episode which featured Bond being reunited with his old friend Felix Leiter to venture into the heart of the Soviet Union to foil a rogue SMERSH agent’s plot to sabotage U.S.- Soviet nuclear arms reduction negotiations.

In the meantime, the show’s cast and crew were doing their utmost to make sure their second-to-last season on ABC would be one to remember. One of the highest-rated episodes of a drama series to air during the ’68-’69 TV season was the 007 two-part saga “Multitudinous Seas”, in which Bond confronted Auric Goldfinger for the final time as Goldfinger tried to flood Sydney using underwater bombs to trigger an earthquake that would send a tidal wave crashing down on the city. The episode was nominated for Primetime Emmys in three categories and won in two of them(special effects and writing).

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Ever since 007 started its run on ABC, the show’s writing staff had sought to tap into the ever-growing rock & roll subculture in America by casting one of the world’s big name rock bands to do a guest shot on the series. So far, those efforts had come to nothing. The bands which might be interested weren’t available, and the bands that were available weren’t interested. But in October of 1968 all of that started to hange when a representative for the Rolling Stones, who were then starting to overtake the Beatles as the world’s biggest British rock ombo, phoned Quinn Martin to let him know they’d be very interested in doing a cameo on the series. Stones lead singer Mick Jagger was especially eager to get on board with the idea-- he’d been a loyal fan of the show for years, and a guest shot on 007 might be just the thing to help further boost the Stones’ profile over in the States. In a pun on the band’s name the episode, originally called“Shadows Of Doom”, was re-titled “Gathering Moss”.

At first ABC understandably had serious reservations about hiring the Stones on for the 007 gig. Even at that early date, the group had a otorious offstage reputation-- and some of the lyrics they sang onstage would have made Hugh Hefner blush. But Quinn Martin was highly persistent in lobbying on their behalf, and eventually the network agreed to let Martin hire them on for the 007 guest stint; the official announcement of the Stones’ appearance on the series was made in early December.

The network ordered a full-fledged publicity blitz to hype the Stones’ upcoming appearance on 007, but it was more or less carrying the proverbial coals to Newcastle. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and the rest of the Stones entourage brought their own portable 24/7 hype machine with them everywhere they went. Even before they’d shot one scene or read a single line of script, Hollywood was buzzing with an overwhelming sense of anticipation about the Stones’ action TV debut. For that matter Fleet Street had taken a lively interest in it too: the tabloid News Of The World alone sent no less than eight reporters and five photographers to the 007 set in its efforts to satisfy its readers’ curiosity about the upcoming merger of old school TV and new school rock.

One aspect of the Stones’ cameo would later be viewed as a tragic harbinger of the carnage that erupted at their 1969 Altamont Speedway concert: midway through “Gathering Moss”, an audience member watching the band’s performance from the back of the concert hall is jumped by three thugs and dragged into an alley before being stabbed through the heart. Even today, when wall-to-wall ultra-violence in TV often seems to pervade every other minute of airtime, the stabbing scene is still regarded as one of the most shocking moments in television history. In some countries the episode has even been banned on the grounds that it might be too violent for viewers under the age of 18; Israel’s Channel One network, where a Hebrew-dubbed version of the 007 series had aired on Thursday nights for nearly two years, pulled the episode from its broadcast schedule after just one airing and considered dropping the series entirely.

But for the most part the Stones’ 007 cameo had mostly positive results for ABC, giving the series a much-needed ratings boost as the Christmas holidays approached and attracting a new generation of fans to the series as well as strengthening the network’s overall bottom line. And as a bonus, the hoopla over the Stones’ guest shot paved the way for the band to tape a 90-minute concert special for ABC less than two months later. From then on, the Stones and 007 would be linked to one another like peanut butter and jelly; Keith Richards even had an uncredited stint as a co-writer for one of the series’ last scripts during its farewell season.

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The Rolling Stones’ cameo on 007 paved the way for other well- known rockers to take their turn in front of Quinn Martin’s cameras-- or behind them in some cases, as happened when guitar legend Dick Dale contributed some of the music to the score for Martin’s follow-up to“Gathering Moss”, titled “Reckless Abandon”. Increasingly in the rock world 007 was starting to be seen as a useful launch platform for acts
looking to take their fame to the next level or to connect with fans who they hadn’t been able to reach yet by other means. The show also offered a way for more established performers to reach out to their audiences; even the Beatles, who in the past had been reluctant to get involved with 007 because of John Lennon’s dislike for the series, had changed their attitude and started negotiating with the Quinn Martin production team for a possible appearance by the band. As it turned out, the Beatles would split up before these negotiations could be concluded, but the buzz they generated helped to strengthen the show’s ratings going into its final season.

Another thing that helped the series’ Nielsen numbers was the two-part action saga “Spider’s Nest” which aired in late February of 1969. “Nest” marked Bond’s final confrontation with SPECTRE as Ernst Stavros Blofeld, his organization collapsing and his cohorts dropping like flies, lured Bond into a face-to-face confrontation in the Sahara Desert in an 11th-hour attempt to destroy his arch-nemesis once and for all. The stunt sequences for the climactic battle between Bond and Blofeld were some of the most dangerous-- and spectacular --ones ever filmed for the series. They were so risky, in fact, that at least one of the stuntmen involved in them took the precaution of updating his last will and testament the day before he reported to the set for his
assigned shoot.

Two weeks after “Nest” made its debut the Apollo program made a cameo appearance on 007 with the episode “T Minus Fifteen Seconds And Dying”, a story which uncannily presages what would happen a year or so later with Apollo 13. In that episode Bond matched wits with a KGB black ops team trying to sabotage a NASA rescue mission being sent to retrieve two stranded astronauts from a capsule stranded in a decaying lunar orbit. “Fifteen” was sufficiently true to life in regard to Cape Canaveral operations that worried NASA security officials were later prompted to tighten the guard cordons surrounding the cape’s launching facilities and industrial centers.

In May of 1969 the series closed out its penultimate season with one final battle of wits between 007 and Tanya Onatova, who by now had
become the Irene Adler to Bond’s Sherlock Holmes. The episode, titled“Silhouette On A Café Wall”, had Onatova and Bond engaged in a game of cat-and-mouse through the streets of Milan; unlike Ms. Adler, Onatova couldn’t elude her Holmes and wound up in an Italian prison after Bond blew the whistle on her plans to assassinate the Pope. But while Bond might have been through with Onatova, the KGB wasn’t through with him, as devoted 007 viewers would discover after the show’s farewell season got underway...

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