The Avengers
3.10: Death
of a Batman
Like the
previous episode, Steed and Cathy become embroiled in Death of a Batman through coincidence rather than express intent;
Steed’s former batman dies, leading to Steed attending the reading of the will
and discovering the deceased had £180k to his name. Rightly suspecting
something is up, they investigate dodgy goings-on involving Andre Morell (the
pit Quatermass) as Lord Basil Teale and the ever-loving Philip Madoc as Van
Doren, bankers undertaking insider trading in order to buy electronics firms.
This is
another episode where the title suggests something slightly more flamboyant the
revealed content. Roger Marshall’s script is rather dry in places, and it takes
Katy Greenwood’s Lady Cynthia (who has shares with the bankers, who have
unbeknownst to her sold and rebought them, making them a profit in the process),
flirting madly with Steed, to liven the proceedings up. She’s very impressed
that he was able to overpower her bodyguard (“You darling! You absolute darling!”), and rather suggestively
clinches with him while he’s in his dressing gown.
Teale: I can’t
fight on the battlefield any longer, but I can fight on the field of finance.
Madoc’s Van
Doren is surprisingly offered a conscience, baulking when it comes to murder
(he hands Steed his gun). Steed has some amusing lines (he met his batman in
1945 in Munich, when “I was keeping an
eye on an agitant. He was smuggling coffee beans”), and is bought a polo
hat (he already has the mallets, purchased with the tenner left in the batman’s
will). There are various subplots that fail to ignite, including the batman’s
son (David Burke, Watson of Jeremy Brett Sherlock
Holmes fame) attempting to blackmail Teale.
Like The Undertakers, Death of a Batman is at its best with the incidental characters,
and weakest with the villains, despite Morell and Madoc’s chops. I liked that
Cooper (Ray Browne), Teale’s butler, earlier established as a threat to Cathy’s
cover, is revealed to have unapologetically switched sides at the end owing to
straightforward bribery on Steed’s part.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.
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