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 | The story opens with a great teaser, one of the best but also one of the longest. Big disappointment in the leaping lion, which is clearly culled from the BBC film archives. But then, with a budget that must have gone into the red with all those psychedelic set designs, I guess we will have to settle for some cheesy film clips. Apart from the two instances where the leaping lion is used, the effects and stagecraft are very good, especially for the time. |
"The House That Jack Built" is stylish, claustrophobic, frustrating, and frightening. The set design still looks good, and the music is haunting and eerie. In spite of some major niggles about automation and science, I think this is one of the best of the Avengers stories: a cornerstone. It's one of the set of the "Emma in Danger" stories, and it breaks ground in that Mrs. Peel negotiates all the dangers herself. Five years before Liz Shaw would emerge in Doctor Who as a scientist equal to the Doctor (or as equal as a human can be), Emma Peel was working her way through a maze in the bottom of an isolated mansion, negotiating illusions, hallways that never take a person anywhere, starry skies at midday, and a violent, deranged convict. ( Read more... )Tags: avengers, reviews
Current Location: My office
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 | This is a rare (and welcome) Avengers story in that there is not really a whopper fight scene at the end. In fact, let me start at the very beginning by saying this story has an intriguing opener. A bomber is flying towards London, with a payload under its belly. Doubtless, in the 1960's, this scene carried vivid reminders of that horrible sound of a plane overhead, coming lower towards the rooftops. The viewer, then, would accept the hokey filming of a toy plane, though it's a bit of a clanger to modern eyes. Anyway, the gimmick is that the bomber really is merely a child's model, a replica, equipped with "servos," I believe the word was: what we would call remote control. It drops a note to the boozy Russian ambassador that "Psev" is arriving shortly to take the current situation in hand personally. |
And the current situation is that a secret military conference is about to convene. The Russians want to get info on it, and Steed and his closest cronies must protect it from intruders. In fact, in the story-opener just after the teaser, Steed essentially tells Mrs. Peel what this story will be about. It is an incredibly direct set up. But it works. "Two's a Crowd" is not a complicated story until the two great twists at the end, and it is almost obligatory: an evil twin story. We just can't live without them. But until the final scenes, this plot runs like clockwork as the bumbling, vain, nervous Brodny and his four hard-edged, coldly efficient colleagues from Russia (the alleged attendants of the mysterious Colonel Psev), find, entice, and win over the luxurious, corruptible, languid and loathsome Gordon Webster, a perfect double for Steed. And kudos for Patrick Macnee who did such a good job with Webster. Even when dressed up like Steed, he still comes off as Webster, until he snaps into character. It's a neat bit of acting. ( Read more... )Tags: avengers, reviews
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Current Music: TV in background
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 | Other reviewers have called this story "similar" to those stories that are clearly the best of The Avengers, and one person even considered it an undiscovered gem. Not so for me! I have always thought this was clearly one of the very best Avengers tales ever! It is bursting with the eccentric, slightly ribald characters that we love, includes a few Dickensian whimsy bits, loads of funny lines, and a pace that keeps moving right up to one of the best fight scenes of that season, if not for the entire Emma Peel series. |
This story rests on the illusion factor that underpins so many Avengers adventures: the opener shows an ordinary, middle class man pushing a pram, and as the pram gets away from him and goes careening downhill, we follow along as gullible viewers should. The man is clipped by a car, and the pram overturns. Out spills, not a baby, but a full grown man in formal evening dress, albeit shot full of holes. From this scene of illusion to the dance school that is entirely an illusion (illusions within illusions as Chester Reade is not what he seems and even the hard working Niki is scamming Lucille, though only for a bit of extra money), the story trots along briskly, no less than 25 scenes. As is often the case when Avengers stories are at their funniest, this one also abounds in gore: Willy Fehr (double agent I presume), the un-named tattoo artist, Huggins the sartorial clerk, and Barnard the assistant shoe salesman all bid this world goodbye in short order: Shot in self defense, shot in the head, stabbed, and suffocated in plaster. That's not counting the original Peever or the attempt on the Captain. Some of the gore is slightly minimized by Avengers-whimsy: the men in top hats who lugubriously carry away the body of Huggins (I suppose, when clothiers are stabbed, it is in deference to their last wishes that they are taken away by well-dressed attendants instead of ambulance medics). And, of course, the message in the garlic-bologna lightens up the plot as the bologna is passed around. (It ends up behind some office plants.) ( Read more... )Tags: avengers, reviews
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Current Music: Avengers
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 | This story reminds me of the Doctor Who story "Claws of Axos," not because the storylines are about similar things. Rather, both stories are ambitious and yet hopelessly shot full of holes; but viewers often favor both of them because they both are "a jolly good romp".
For me, all rompiness in "Maneater of Surrey Green" fizzles out by the end, when one of the slowest and dullest Avengers< mandatory fight scenes is launched. But I am getting ahead of myself: I'll review, and you decide. |
Kudos to The Avengers are due because this story opens with a beautiful woman scientist and her handsome scientist fiance' stealing kisses in a greenhouse. Sixties television too often depicted scientists as nerdy, unattractive, and non-passionate. So this is a nice start. The audio/subaudio signal that immediately takes over Laura as she is walking away is problematic. Why are not other people nearby affected? How is the signal being broadcast? (Even if the plant is broadcasting it, it is miles away, so how did it find Laura and home in on her exclusively?)
The big jarring problem of this story (one of them) is that there is such a concept as psychic communication, and there is such a thing as either Ultra High Frequency or Ultra-Low Frequency communication, but psychic is one thing, and audio frequency is another, and they do not mix. They certainly don't mix in this story. |  |
And at the end of the first scene and into the beginning of the next we have one of those rare stories where we realize that Black and White does a disservice to the story. The viewer cannot appreciate the variety of the flowers that Laura tramples as she goes off; neither do Steed's "button holes" (roses) get due credit on a B&W screen. I rarely say it, but this story would have been improved by color. Once Steed snags Mrs. Peel's agreement to work on the case, he goes off to the home of Sir Lyle Peterson. The first jarring thing we see is the array of naked lady mannequins, festooned with vines. Steed doesn't mind, but Sir Lyle's bizarre taste in home decor is lightly passed over. More time is spent on his doddering and doting affection for the Venus Fly Trap in his office. By this time in our culture, such scenes are enough to tell us the guy is ready to sacrifice human beings to plants, but the man who plays Sir Lyle makes a pretty good job of it. ( Read more... )Tags: avengers, reviews
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Dial a Deadly Number is one of the keynote Avengers stories. It embodies one of the two signature plot-types of the series: the brilliant, believable bit of renegade technology that is killing people for power or profit. In this story, high-powered business owners/financiers are dying in droves, sending shock waves into the financial markets. The few people "in the know" are, quite literally, making a killing as they manipulate ahead of time which stocks will rise and which will drop, by murdering investment bankers and CEOs. The killing-device is a "bleep": a pager to the rest of us, that flips a poisoned needle into the heart of the unlucky financier who has it in his breast pocket when it is triggered to go off. This is "Near World Sci-Fi," the type of SF that also made X-Files so popular. The viewer had the sense, back in the 1960's, that the technology depicted in the story was right at hand, the very next step of our techno-progress. It is interesting, 40+ years later, to see how correct the writers were. To the modern viewer, these pen-like devices are old and clunky. In the 60's, they were sleek and modern. It's interesting to see that Emma or Steed or somebody else will repeat the motto that these bleeps are just like the ones that doctors carry: clearly a necessary bit of information to impart to viewers in those days. This is a story all about time: when it is time to buy and when it is time to sell. In his opening, rapid-fire speech to Steed, Yuill advises him of proper timing, and later on, so does Jago. Acting at the right time is the key of good investing, and all the participants in big money: the honest but blind Boardman, the ruthless Jago, the cold hearted Harvey, and the quick-talking Yuill are masters of finding the right moment to act. And so timepieces figure in the story. We see Steed check his watch in his first scene with Mrs. Peel. A watch reappears just a few scenes later when the darkly handsome, ruthless and rich Jago appears to be re-setting Mrs. Boardman's wristwatch in the pub, and reattaches it to her wrist. This subtle intimacy between them lets the reader know that Mrs. Boardman is not much hampered by her marriage vows to Mr. Boardman. Steed again consults his watch just after he and Mrs. Peel find Yuill, and Fitch's secret observation film of Steed and Mrs. Peel in the wine cellar shows Steed checking his watch yet again. | The story also carries some signature Avengers adult themes: an awareness of the sexual realities of life. Mrs. Boardman is the trophy wife who is clearly unfaithful and unabashed about it. She is set against Mrs. Peel. And oddly enough, though I assume as a viewer that Steed and Mrs. Peel are having an affair, Mrs. Boardman comes across as low-class in spite of her fur and jewels, and there is something pure and good about Emma. Perhaps it is that Mrs. Boardman's husband is still alive, and that she wears her opulence broadly displayed; while Emma is much more of a cerebrally refined woman: strikingly beautiful but never seen with such ostentatious adornments (the black jumpsuit, now that's another matter....) But Steed actually mentions that Mrs. Boardman is “promiscuous”, an odd appellation, coming from Steed. |  |
This is a visual story: everything is cast in shadow and darkness: the crowded offices, the darkened dining room of the Boardman penthouse, the midnight shadows of the parking garage where Steed is almost run over, the depths of the wine cellar. Fitch himself operates from a darkened little room, cluttered with clocks and other gadgets. He locks Mrs. Peel in a small cupboard. There is, indeed, a claustrophobic atmosphere to this story: the crowded investors’ pub (or club, if that is what it is), the undertaker’s parlor (where we see Emma’s coffin from a previous episode), and especially the fish-lined room where Yuill rules. Some interesting camera work there, as the fish form a circle around the hapless fellow in the visitor’s chair (and Yuill himself), and are clearly predatory creatures.  | Mrs. Boardman and her husband actually strike a pose during drinks before dinner. It is interesting that after Boardman goes off to make a call, Steed steps exactly where he was standing and strikes the same pose with her. The meaning is obvious: if you have what she wants, Mrs. Boardman will let you fill those shoes of marital rights. But then she breaks the tableaux and walks away from Steed, sending him a cold but clear message. |
The story creaks in a couple places: first, the attack on Steed is clumsy in every way imaginable. I wonder if Mrs. Boardman could have picked two more inept men to carry out a simple task that could have been accomplished by one man creeping up behind Steed with a good crowbar. Instead, Quin and Myers go at him on motorcycles. In a rare instance in Avengers history, Steed draws a gun and uses it. Though he does get one shot off into his first attacker, we immediately see why Steed prefers not to use a gun, as he fires off four or five shots at the second man without hitting anything other than the garage wall. He’d have had better luck whacking at his assailant with his steel-plated bowler. And second, the motivation for killing Yuill is never explained. Clearly, he is in on the bleep secret. Why kill him? We could assume that ruthless Jago is simply cutting out shares from the fortune. But then when it comes time to shoot Boardman, Jago the ruthless robber baron of the investment world, is wide-eyed and shaking, and he pulls out a tiny handgun that may or may not be suitable for killing kittens. The presence of yet another character, Harvey, burdens the story. Peter Bowles, of course, plays him very well, but the story has too many villains all milling around and bumping into each other. They start becoming part of the sense of clutter.  | However, the story is also cracking good in places: the wine tasting party is exquisite Avengers fare at its best: light hearted comedy and wit at the very start as Steed and some crusty old retired Army officer get acquainted, followed by the tension of the “duel” at the end. The wine-tasting duel is the best part of the story, even to the monocle of doughty old Boardman dropping out as Steed asserts that this wine is from the north side of the vineyard. The duel itself does not even contribute to the plot, and yet it is the high point of the story. |
Prior to the wine tasting, we also have a Pickwickian feel for the story, the good-natured undertaker is slightly non-real and yet charming, a whimsy character from the world of The Avengers, and the investment pub itself, with its superstitious refusal to serve any drink “on the rocks” (a pun for a business going broke), and its investment-quoting waiters and chalkboards is another suitable and charming departure from the darker parts of the story. And the story does get quite dark. Fitch’s clearly sexual threat to Mrs. Peel adds a sinister, gritty taste to the danger in this story. He is not an urbane, witty mad scientist, but rather a grotesque little lecher. The story is dotted with witticisms but not laced with them. Indeed, the dark palette of the scenes and the claustrophobic clutter make it want a certain cheery brightness. But then again, it is a nice anchor piece for the series: a brilliant story told in dark tones. However, gloom does not always prevail: the scene where Steed is swinging his booby-trapped, explosive watch in Mrs. Boardman’s sitting room is priceless, and it gets even better when he goes to Fitch and starts banging it on the tabletop. The story does end with Steed’s classic shot with the wine cork. In the closer, Emma’s strategic use of a wine label to beat Steed at his own wine tasting game is a nice chaser to the duel in the wine cellar. Parting Niggles: Would have been nice to see Ruth Boardman more prominent as an adversary to Emma. I would have liked to have seen that: a streak of catty jealousy that makes Emma’s demise a true pleasure to the cold-as-ice Mrs. Boardman. That would have added a more expert touch of villainy to the story. Tags: avengers, reviews
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 In the 60's and 70's, this was certainly one of the most atmospheric AVENGERs stories. In brief, scientists have been disappearing. After some tracing, we realize that they check into room 621 at the Chessman Hotel and are never seen again. On their part, they awaken in a Chinese prison camp, unable to get even a glimpse of daylight, while outside their cells, they hear terrifying executions and beatings, as well as the remorseless marching of soldiers and occasional sounds from a nearby river. Alas! Our world has gotten smaller and the "Red Terror" has diminished, so the frightful quality of a Chinese prison camp somehow existing near London has lost much of its imminent terror. This story has not aged well because a big part of its fear factor depends on the world as it was then. But this is a genuine AVENGERS story in that it relies on the bad guys creating a compelling and jarring illusion that our heros must dispel to get to the truth. Illusion upon illusion, in fact. There is the Chinese prison camp illusion and the illusion of Room 621. And in spite of its age, there are many enigmatic features to the plot: the room that seems normal when one person enters it, and yet it becomes a trap when a different person enters. The play up to actually seeing the room is good as we witness some who go in but do not come out again. Although the horror is somewhat hampered by the fact that both victims we are privileged to see walk right into the gas jet when it is operating (such stupidity is distracting, especially from Mrs. Peel), the room is still frightening when Steed enters. The explanation for this part of the mystery is simple and ingenius, and I will not waste your time giving it. One huge gaff: Steed comments that scientists have been going missing for about a year. But later he says that Wadkin, the physicist whose mind has broken, disappeared two years ago. At some point, somebody is talking about three years. OK, while we are talking about gaffs, two of the three allegedly Chinese characters are not played by Chinese actors. This is another one of those traits that has not aged well. As our world has become smaller, it really stands out that these are Brit stand-ins. Anna Wadkin, the deranged physicist's wife, is beautiful, but Jeanne Roland is not at all Chinese, and the lack of verisimilitude only gets worse when she opens her mouth. Now to balance out the gaffs: the camera work is splendid in some moments. Watch the scene where Emma enters the laundry. Really beautiful to see her cast in silhouette befoe we see her. Amazing that with a busy production schedule the director took the time to get such a good shot. The hotel is magnificently created, and the "business" of moving chess pieces during conversations makes for some nice blending and unspoken commentary.  On the humor side, big plus to Steed as Mr Gourmet. There is not much repartee in this one, but Emma gets into some good verbal give and take with Carter, the hotel day manager. And Varnals, the by-the-book gov't agent assigned to the case, creates some early humor in the first scenes. Again, the humor has not retained its robustness, as the chauvenistic remarks he makes are now dated. But Steed's comment that he has searched Mrs Peel for weapons is worth a laugh. In terms of unintentional humor, both of the action stand ins for Macnee and Rigg are apparent in the mandatory end-of-story fight scene.  For Dr Who spotters, Peter Jeffrey, Philip Latham, and Paul Whitsun-Jones turn in satisfactory performances. Chessman's odd illness of "thin blood" is not entirely convincing, but Whitsun-Jones plays it with absolute belief in it. Regrettably, he is not given enough script room to live up to the role of evil mastermind. Carter, in fact, seems more adept at evil. But he's just doing his job. So the villainy falls a little flat. Roger Marshall's story was brilliant in its day but has not endured the test of time as well as other stories. Still, I do not mean to niggle. If he were writing today, he would be turning out stories that would be innovative and fresh for the current time.  Tags: avengers, reviews
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In spite of some stark similarities to the hushed-up role that agricultural organophosphates have played in the development of "Mad Cow Disease," this story fails to grab. The synopsis: A promising fertilizer has actually backfired disastrously and sterilizes all soil that it reaches (hence the term, "Silent Dust," probably an allusion to a contemporary book, Silent Spring that would have been a hot seller when this episode was produced.) Steed and Mrs, Peel go in to investigate, but we are never sure why. The experimental site that Steed surveys is already well known to the Brit gov't. Nobody ever mentions any real threat of where or how the killer fertilizer might be distributed. Nevertheless, our heroes go searching and soon enough they discover a patch of land where the martins and other birds are disappearing, a sure sign of Silent Dust at work, but also a sign of about two dozen other bird or ecosystem ailments. The greatest flaw in this story is that it tries to tell a serious tale without providing enough real info to bolster its credibility. At the same time, it uses villains who are very un- Avengers,-ish: the methodically efficient and boring Mellors (hat tip to Lady Chatterly's Lover), who will at least warn you once or twice before he starts shooting, and the senselessly brutal farm hand/pig killer, whose name I forget. When Steed is shot, the story descends into a semi-fantasy dream of Emma as an old-West sheriff. When I was young and watched this show, the scene enchanted me. Now it seems that it has been inserted to buy up some extra time. And the story descends to openly beguiling the viewer with sexual suggestion: Emma, posing for the daughter of the disgraced scientist, appears to be posing in the nude but is saved by a sheet, which becomes apparent when she stands. The whip in the final hunt scene is barbaric, kinky, and it was certainly predictable. You knew the moment this pig killer stepped onscreen that he was going to try to have his brutal way with Emma, before the end. Now, I know the Avengers thrives on double-entendre and slightly salacious repartee, but this stuff is crude and heavy-handed. It lacks the light and quick wit of the Avengers at its best. So this story lacks the wit and whimsy that carries many an Avengers episode into being memorable (if not believable) and much loved. It also lacks the clean hard lines, factual underpinning, and quick pace of those Avengers stories that are secret-agent tales in the old style of British thrillers. It tries, at times, to be both. And so it achieves neither. The story is not ghastly; it is simply not engaging. You may like the one or two brief lights of wit that sparkle at times: Steed striking out in the bar while Emma keeps score on him, and Steed's gallant rescue of Emma at the end. But overall it just sort of limps along.    Tags: avengers, reviews
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