The Avengers
4.13: Silent Dust
Revisiting Season Four, several episodes have fallen
slightly in my estimation, but Silent
Dust (along with Dial a Deadly Number)
is one that has gone up. The plot isn’t all that, continuing the horticultural
(and pesticide) theme of Man-Eater of
Surrey Green, but it has a great supporting cast, and in Avengers terms that’s often the
difference between a hit and a dud.
Juggins: And what if they don’t pay up?
Omrod: Oh, they will. After we destroy Dorset.
The prologue shows birds dropping dead (so decisively, they
look taxidermied, although much more convincingly than the plastic bat on a
wire that menaces Emma later), meaning Steed and Mrs Peel are called on to
investigate rural crimes in rural climes, she posing as a representative for
the British Trust for Ornithology and catching the eye of local rich landed fellow
Omrod (William Franklyn, Quatermass 2,
Cul-De-Sac, GBH). Who, of course, is up to no good, planning to hold the
country to ransom with his three accomplices. They want £40m, or they will
release a failed-and-deadly-to-all-plant-life organochlorine fertiliser.
A very definite environmental theme can be found in this one,
much as in the earlier The Grandeur That
Was Rome (the very visible hunt protesting also signposts current themes in
Roger Marshall’s teleplay). Steed is informed “Kill the earthworm, Steed, and ultimately you kill everything. Soil,
birds, animals, man”. If Sir Manfred Fellows (Charles Lloyd Pack, father of
Roger and grandfather of Emily Lloyd) had changed worms for bees, he’d be
remarkably topical. Sir Manfred, of Fellows Fertilisers, meanwhile, reliably
informs Steed regarding marketing that “If
it smells like peaches, people won’t believe it does any fertilising. We had a
winner last year. Smelled like old socks”.
There's a subplot concerning Claire Prendergast (Isobel Black), the daughter of the man who
developed Silent Dust, that fails to go anywhere very
interesting (aside from Mrs Peel posing to have her bust sculpted. No, not that
bust). Omrod brought the scientist to the village (Manderley, but there are no du Maurier
references).
Omrod’s cohorts, who will get £10m a piece, are thuggish
Juggins (Jack Watson, Edge of Darkness),
Miss Snow (Joanna Wake), whose family has lived in the area for centuries and
whose land recently turned sour (Omrod has only been there 14 years, so is
considered a newbie) and Croft (Norman Bird, Mr Braithwaite in Worzel Gummidge, amongst many others),
who is out of sorts over not receiving royalties for the roses he bred.
Juggins: I just slit a sow’s throat. You could hear
the squeal three mile away.
All these characters are memorable, with Juggins a “bloodthirsty brute” keen on slaughtering
bullocks and knocking back scrumpy by the flagon. He also has a hankering to breed
cows (“You’ll be able to cross an
Aberdeen Angus with a cottage loaf” Omrod tells him of his prospective
fortune). When he hears Steed is looking for land to buy, he’s forthright with
his threats (“I’ll give him some free,
for nothing… Ay, six foot of it for nothing”).
Juggins particularly relishes
the hunt (“Tally ho. Tally bloody ho”),
announcing “I’ve got a brand-new cleaver
that needs christening”, so it’s particularly fitting the he should be
dispatched in embarrassing fashion by Steed, on horseback, with a hunt sab “Down with violence” placard smashed over
his head.
Croft is less notable (“His
roses bloom but he got the blight”), although one must assume that, during
the hunt climax, he gets as far as he does attempting to do for Steed with a
sickle because Steed has already taken a bit of wear and tear previously.
Steed: Raging drunk.
Miss Snow: I beg your pardon?
Steed: If it’s a man, raging drunk. If it’s a
horse, raging colic.
Miss Snow: You think so?
Steed: All the classic symptoms.
Wake, who has something of the Joan Greenwood about her delivery,
is one of the episode’s great delights, her indulgent interaction with Steed
(putting on the extra-posh gentry pose) proving laugh-out-loud funny. Steed furnishes
her with advice on her horse’s symptoms (“Fire
the vet. Don’t let the horse lie down. Keep him walking”), leading to the
following exchange:
Miss Snow: Tell me, do you know a lot about horses, Mr
Steed?
Steed: Do a bit of steeplechasing.
Miss Snow: Oh? I’d have thought you were a little too
tall in the saddle.
Steed: Oh, I don’t know. Comes in handy. Pop the
old feet down. Help the animal over the sticks.
Besides Snow’s amused response, there’s Emma’s reaction to “too tall in saddle” and as is her
initial one to Steed going to talk to Snow (“I’ll see what I can pick up here”: “Mmm, I’m sure you will… Pick up something”). Later, when it’s
decided Steed must be rid of, Miss Snow comments “Such a pity, he’s just the sort of risk I fancy”.
There’s further
innuendo when Emma and Steed are sussing out the suspects: “Miss Snow? She’s got a good seat”
observes Mrs Peel. “She’s got a good seat”
concurs Steed. Miss Snow later beckons Steed aside on the pretext of further
horse problems: “Can’t keep him away from
the trough. Just seems to want to keep on drinking all the time”. “Oh dear. Once had an auntie like that” he
replies. Appropriately, its Emma who takes her down during the hunt.
Omrod: Ever done any hunting, Mrs Peel?
Mrs Peel: A little.
Omrod: Fascinating. Pit your wits against a master
of craftiness and deception. Point and counterpoint, finally cornering him. And
killing. It’s a wonderful day spent. Well, what about it?
Mrs Peel: I’ll let you know.
Franklyn also makes the most of enjoying his villainy, be it
putting the moves on Mrs Peel or engaging in an exchange with Steed, now up and
about after being shot by gamekeeper Mellors (Conrad Phillips, also seen as a
doctor in The Prisoner episode The General). Neither shakes hands when
Steed arrives unannounced. “Sorry, oil”
comments Ormrod, who has been seeing to his shot gun. “Sorry, buckshot” replies the slinged Steed.
Steed: He mistook me for a partridge. Seriously
ruffled my, eh, wing feathers.
Omrod: Oh, I must speak to him. Tell him to be a
little more–
Steed: Accurate?
Omrod: Careful.
The incident with Steed and Mellors takes place after the
former has been earlier warned off (“I
have orders to shoot poachers”. “That’ll
keep them down” Steed ripostes cheerfully). He’s then winged by Mellors
(there’s no visible blood, however) and steps in an animal trap, hiding from
the gamekeeper, before later stumbling in on Emma in one of the farm buildings.
The scene in which she extracts the bullet finds Steed
hallucinating himself as a sheriff, along with Wild West wanted posters for
Omrod and Mellors. Emma’s a quack doctor, sporting a moustache, mutton chops
and an over-sized bottle of Red Eye, extracting an enormous bullet (“I prefer you clean shaven” he comments,
when he comes around). Perhaps the dream sequences in Too Many Christmas Trees went down so well they thought they’d have
some more of that.
Quince: Oh, you shouldn’t have done that. You gave
me quite a turn.
Mrs Peel: Why were you watching me?
Quince: Watching you? You’re mistaken. I was watching for the birds.
Quince: Watching you? You’re mistaken. I was watching for the birds.
Mrs Peel: Oh? Any particularly one.
Quince: The black-capped pectral.
Mrs Peel: The black-capped pectral hasn’t been sighted
in England for a hundred years.
Also worthy of mention is the great Aubrey Morris (The Wicker Man, The Prisoner’s Dance of the
Dead, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy, Deadwood) as birdwatcher
Quince, who is concerned about the missing martlets and ends up strangled by
Juggins and buried under a pile of apples (“Cut
off in mid-warble?”).
Steed: As you know, in this estuary there used to
be all sorts of lovely martlets. ‘The temple-haunting martlet.’
Mrs Peel: Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 2, Banquo.
Steed and Mrs Peel as should be evident, are on fine form.
There’s an amusing opening scene in a punt, with Steed chilling a rosé in
the river (“Ah, I like a wine that fights
back”) and advising Emma why they should be concerned over the absence of feathered
friends (“Think of the poor bird
watchers. Their gumboots and disappointed faces”).
Mrs Peel obliges with much of the action
work, as per usual, although it has to be said common sense deserts her on
several occasions, most notably when Omrod confronts her with a gun; she
overcomes him, then leaves it to flee from Juggins.
The coda is one of the most heightened yet, with the duo in
a balloon, Emma concerned over whether he knows how to control one of these
things; Steed giving a puzzle look in response to “And what happens when we run out of ballast?”
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.