The Avengers
Season 4 Ranked – Worst to Best
Season Four is generally held up as the pinnacle of The Avengers, and it certainly maintains
the greatest level of consistency in the run. Nevertheless, as I noted a few
reviews back, one viewer’s classic is another’s ho-hum with this show, perhaps
because it doesn’t elicit the same kind of exhaustive fandom to establish any
level of consensus as some series. There follows my Worst to Best ranking of
the season, told mostly in pictures. The index for full episode reviews can be
found here.
26. Two's A Crowd
There are no outright dodos in Season Four, but Steed doing
dopplegangers, despite an enjoyable Macnee performance, is about pedestrian as
it gets.
Creaky, clanky robo-fun, if you’re about seven. Otherwise,
the high point comes early on, in the form of John Hollis as Sensai, who, of
course, ROCKS!
24. The House That Jack Built
Emma banged up in a psychedelically-automated housetrap,
which sounds more enticing than it is in this re-envisioning of Season Three’s Don’t Look Behind You.
23. Room Without a View
Steed’s M Gourmet goes down a treat, but the Manchurian Candidate fixtures and
fittings don’t quite blend with the broader-toned hotel setting.
22. A Surfeit of
The premise of weather-to-order and title are fun, Mr
Cheeseman makes an inevitable impression, as does Noah, the prophet of doom,
and Steed gets to pose as an affable idiot, but the nondescript villains rather
let the side down.
21. Man-Eater of Surrey Green
The one that inspired The
Seeds of Doom, allegedly, and a rare science fiction foray for the show,
one that’s played pretty straight and includes Emma shotgunning a hapless henchman;
the less said about Steed’s “herbicidal
maniac”, the better.
20. The Danger Makers
So-so notion of military types enlivening increasingly
unadventurous service with thrill-seeking escapades, but matters improve
considerably when Mrs Peel is required to take an initiation test.
19. The Town of No Return
The season opener is full of iconic imagery and ideas – an
overgrown plastic bag emerging from the sea unzips to a reveal a man in a suit,
an all-but-empty village conceals mysterious goings-on after dark, Terence
Alexander sports a ridiculous moustache – and establishes the increasingly daffy
tone of the show as Steed unpacks an entire tea set, kettle and cake display
from a voluminous carpet bag.
18. Dial A Deadly Number
Death by bleeper in an episode that enters the realm of
stock market manipulation but really scores during a wine tasting duel: “Chateau Laffite-Rothschild…1909, from the
northern end of the vineyard”.
17. Small Game for Big Hunters
Crumbling colonialism retires to the home counties in an
inventive plotline that makes yearning for the lost Empire the stuff of diabolical
masterminds.
16. Honey for the Prince
A little less light on its feet in treading the line between
irreverence and racial stereotypes than Small
Game, but nevertheless possessed of a winning self-awareness, Ron Moody and
Emma’s Dance of the Six Veils.
15. The Murder Market
Murder by marriage as Steed and Mrs Peel sign up to Patrick
Cargill’s Togetherness Inc and Steed is soon required to kill her; it’s
occasionally evident how early in the season this came with a certain Mrs
Gale-ishness to Emma’s attitude.
14. The Master Minds
Brainwashed boffins stealing secrets, as Emma succumbs to
their spell and Steed needs a little help in hitting his pass marks.
Like Honey for the
Prince, this creaks a bit at times in its of-its-era sensibility, hoisting “silly
old feminism” by its own petard, but also sports an engaging line in absurdity,
not least Christopher Benjamin’s perfumier JJ Hooter (“My nose is in great demand… I have smelled all over the world…”)
12. The Thirteenth Hole
Once it gets going, the dirty tricks on the golf course make
for a highly engaging episode, as Steed, with Emma’s assistance, outwits first
Patrick Allen and then Peter Jones; just don’t ask why a golf club (beyond a “bunker
in a bunker” gag).
11. Silent Dust
Emma joins the hunt while Steed gets shot at; an episode
more engaging for its colourful cast than plotting, including a wonderfully
amused Joanna Wake and convincingly brutish Jack Watson.
10. The Hour that Never Was
A fine “What is
going on?” setup, as Steed and Mrs Peel arrive at his old RAF base for its
closing party only to find it strikingly Marie
Celeste-like; if the second half reset is a little less rewarding, the
episode still gets by on that early attention to atmosphere.
John McSteed flashes his nobbly knees in a haunted highland
castle that inevitably isn’t all it seems, ably presided over by Gordon
Jackson, while Mrs Peel shows off her deadly aim with the crossbow.
8. The Gravediggers
A plot involving a missile jamming signal is strictly
secondary to the steam age nostalgia of Sir Horace Winslip (Ronald Fraser),
taking his meals in a mock-up “travelling” train carriage, only topped by the
silent movie finale with Emma tied to the tracks of a miniature railway.
A dance school as a front for infiltrating foreign agents
into the country is no sillier than… using a golf club to send secrets to the
Russians, I suppose, and there’s much
silliness to take in here, including a fake Italian foot fetishist – the foot
fetishism is real, the nationality isn’t – and a knockout dance-off finale.
6. Too Many Christmas Trees
The Avengers goes all Dali-in-Spellbound, but with a festive spin, as Steed has his mind probed;
a rare excursion into supernatural (or, to be overly generous,
pseudo-scientific) and if you really must
do a Christmas-themed story, this is how to do it (take note Doctor Who, which has churned out
consistently lousy ones for more than a decade now).
5. Death at Bargain Prices
Undoubtedly the most bonkers scheme of the season – and by
far the most devastating if it had succeeded – is effectively juxtaposed
against the incongruity of a department store where shop assistant Mrs Peel
dodges predatory superiors while Steed is forcibly ejected from the premises.
4. What the Butler Saw
John Le Mesurier fits the butler bill perfectly, and Steed
is welcomed with open arms as a major domo, having adopted an array of facial appliances
en route; Emma, meanwhile, is unleashed on Dennis Quilley’s celebrated lothario
and possible secrets spiller. He doesn’t stand a chance.
The season’s only experiment proper in changing the line-up,
with Steed teaming with Liz Fraser’s gorgeous Georgie Price-Jones when Emma is
put on sale to the highest bidder; the result is a deliriously energetic
succession of murders and mishaps as Steed and Georgie track down the kidnapper.
2. A Sense of History
Emma returns to her studies while Steed poses as an old boy
at St Bode’s College, where Patrick Mower is on marvellously malevolent form as
a particularly self-assured student.
1. A Touch of Brimstone
Controversial but also brilliant, A Touch of Brimstone reignites the Hellfire Club under the direction
of a tremendously charismatic Peter Wyngarde; Steed’s audition takes some
beating (it’s so damn cool), but Emma’s Queen of Sin pips him.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.
I'm certainly not going to get vehement over another Avengers fan's choices, and I endorse your top pick. "Brimstone" has, one might say, a sense of history, as well as suspense, clever lines, Peter Wyngard and Carol Cleveland. And all that does not diminish Emma's Queen of Sin garb, however uncomfortable it looks and however overmuch it gets used to represent the show.
ReplyDeleteBut "Castle De'Ath" has great atmospherics _ make a fine tourist spot, eh? _ along with dour Gordon Jackson, cheerful Robert Urquhart, beautiful stock footage and a wee bit of the pipes from Black Jamie. All right, mini-submarines might not be that easy to handle in practice, but it's an inventive plot, well-executed.
Aside from being set in the country, "The House that Jack Built" is not a remake of "Don't Look behind You." That's "The Joker." Yes, this episode comes fairly late in the season to be providing a back story for Mrs. Peel, but so what? I know some viewers find the scenes in the op-art house maze tedious, but the set is still impressive. More significantly, this episode showcases some fine work by Diana Rigg as a strong, lone female lead, which was unusual for the era (outside of Cathy Gale).
Similarly, "Small Game for Big Hunters" does away with the pining for our colonial vassals that often poisons '50s-'60s works. If memory serves, it follows Brian Clemens' pronouncement that "we will never show a policeman or a coloured man." So as not to ruin, you know, "fantasy" Britain." But Philip Levene's script spotlights Paul Danquah as an engaging, non-white good guy. Esther (Ester) Anderson may identify with the downpressor man, but she gets to do something. She's also more beautiful than anyone in the English countryside. And the opening is the best in this show's history.
Fifth place could go any of a half-dozen episodes, but I'm going to tout "The Master Minds," which has a very slightly less far-fetched plot than many episodes, an unusual pine cone, Georgina Ward in a bikini, a bit of athletics and a real master mind of the sort seldom suspected at that time.
I will concede the pleasure of watching Liz Fraser and Pat Macnee at work in "The Girl from Auntie," which has some funny moments. But Yolande Turner is under used, and even by the standards of that era of UK television, the production is ramshackle.
At the bottom end is "Room without a View," with its yellow menace. And the joys of Hooter aside, "How to Succeed at Murder" seems misogynist even for its time. (And really, Steed doesn't need to kill Henry.) Somewhere above them, while Pat Macnee made a good gentleman's man, I'm much less charmed than you by "What the Butler Saw."
Thanks for your comments, Joseph: Aside from being set in the country, "The House that Jack Built" is not a remake of "Don't Look behind You." That's "The Joker."
DeleteI did say "reenvisioning" rather than remake, something others have concluded too (Michael Richardson in Bowler Hats and Kinky Boots, dissolute.com).