"Take a hammer, Emily," he said. "Take a hammer and smash everything shiny."

The Avengers

6.11: All Done with Mirrors

One I rated much more highly prior to this revisit, Leigh Vance’s teleplay for All Done with Mirrors (he’d later pen the screenplay for mid-70s Michael Caine thriller The Black Windmill) nevertheless has some appealing conceits, while Ray Austin (who would also helm half a dozen New Avengers) offers some memorable visuals.

As the title suggest, the plot revolves around reflective surfaces. They’re employed in a “retrometer” as a means for eavesdropping on and communicating with subjects in line of sight, sound being projected along a beam of light, with all the covert possibilities that suggests. What with the villains’ headquarters being a lighthouse, and being surrounding cliffs, the device makes for an effective means of luring nosy types to their doom (including Tara at one point, who survives a plunge to her death with “They pushed me clear of the rocks” – it must have been atremendouspush to have got that far clear). Although, this appears to work in a variety of locations, as per the teaser where ministry man Roger (John Bown) is gunned down in a wood. Dr Seligman (Anthony Dutton, 5.18: Return of the Cybernauts) is also later lured to the woods and dispatched.

Steed: I’m innocent! Entirely innocent!
Mother: Yes, but for how long?

This one’s a Tara single-hander, with Steed under house arrest because secrets are leaking from an institute he is investigating (really because Macnee was taking a holiday). As a consequence, he’s required to hang out with Mother and some bathing-suited belles (including the first appearance of Rhonda, in production terms, which is why she gives Steed an unaccustomed smile). Accordingly, it’s one of Tara’s best showings, since she doesn’t get knocked out or require saving by Steed; he arrives a bit too late to save the day (“Never mind, it’s the thought that counts”). As well as proving handy in the various fights (including the shocking ginger of bowler-hatted pro-wrestler Bruno Elrington), she also looks very becoming in her beret ensemble.

Colonel Withers: Spartan! Amazonian!
Tara: Beg your pardon?
Colonel Withers: Not even out of breath. I like that. Physical fitness. I like that too.

While All Done with Mirrors is big on mystery and set pieces, it’s ultimately a little dry for my tastes, despite a fight during which a villain falls down the lighthouse stairs – all 365 of them. Michael Trubshawe (4.4: Dial a Deadly Number) makes an impression as (the fake) Colonel Withers, impressed that Tara isn’t even out of breath after climbing said stairs and unresponsive to her querying if he’s seen anything, since he has no reason to look at the land ("And what do you see? The sea. That's what you see. The great, grand rolling ocean").

There’s some lovely location filming (done in April), though, and appealingly creative visual touches, such as astronomer Guthrie (Desmond Jordan) losing his glasses on the cliff edge. The supporting cast are solid, but most of the characters fail to come alive. Tara’s given a nominal sidekick in the stuffy Watney (Dinsdale Landen, The Curse of Fenric, suggesting he was never very suave, even in his early 30s).

Barlow (Edwin Richfield in his final appearance in the show, previously showing up in 1.6: Girl on a Trapeze, 2.9: The Removal Men, 3.17: The White Elephant, 4.6: Too Many Christmas Trees, and 5.19: Dead Man’s Treasure) is the ring leader, an impostor stealing secrets from the research institute. Also present are head of security Major Sparshott (Peter Copley, 2.21: The White Dwarf), Pandora (Joanna Vogel, 5.9: The Correct Way to Kill), who notes something is iffy as she’d made arrangements with the real colonel, and is forced to lure Tara to her death, and Carswell (Tennial Evans, 1.11: Please Don’t Feed the Animals, 2.14: The Big Thinker, 3.4: The Golden Fleece).

Steed: I always say the simplest pleasures in life are the most enjoyable.

The coda has Steed serving Tara dinner in a field of buttercups – very idyllic and summery looking – including a fillet steak he’s been cooking in the Rolls’ engine. A solid episode, and I can see why it’s generally acclaimed as one of the best Tara King episodes, but for me it lacks that necessary extra flavour.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Comments

You're not only wrong. You're wrong at the top of your voice.

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
I’ve seen comments suggesting that John Sturges’ thriller hasn’t aged well, which I find rather mystifying. Sure, some of the characterisations border on the cardboard, but the director imbues the story with a taut, economical backbone.

She was addicted to Tums for a while.

Marriage Story (2019)
(SPOILERS) I don’t tend to fall heavily for Noah Baumbach fare. He’s undoubtedly a distinctive voice – even if his collaborations with Wes Anderson are the least of that director’s efforts – but his devotion to an exclusive, rarefied New York bubble becomes ever more off-putting with each new project. And ever more identifiable as being a lesser chronicler of the city’s privileged quirks than his now disinherited forbear Woody Allen, who at his peak mastered a balancing act between the insightful, hilarious and self-effacing. Marriage Story finds Baumbach going yet again where Woody went before, this time brushing up against the director’s Ingmar Bergman fixation.

You must find the keys for me!

Doctor Who The Keys of Marinus
Most of the criticisms levelled at The Keys of Marinus over the past 50 years have been fair play, and yet it’s a story I return to as one of the more effortlessly watchable of the Hartnell era. Consequently, the one complaint I can’t really countenance is that it’s boring. While many a foray during this fledgling period drags its heels, even ones of undeniable quality in other areas, Marinus’ shifting soils and weekly adventures-in-miniature sustain interest, however inelegant the actual construction of those narratives may be. The quest premise also makes it a winner; it’s a format I have little resistance to, even when manifested, as here, in an often overtly budget-stricken manner.

Doctor Who has dabbled with the search structure elsewhere, most notably across The Key to Time season, and ultimately Marinus’ mission is even more of a MacGuffin than in that sextology, a means to string together what would otherwise be vignettes to little overall coherence…

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

Have you betrayed us? Have you betrayed me?!

Blake's 7 4.13: Blake

The best you can hope for the end of a series is that it leaves you wanting more. Blake certainly does that, so much so that I lapped up Tony Attwood’s Afterlife when it came out. I recall his speculation over who survived and who didn’t in his Programme Guide (curious that he thought Tarrant was unlikely to make it and then had him turn up in his continuation). Blakefollows the template of previous season finales, piling incident upon incident until it reaches a crescendo.

There are times when I miss the darkness. It is hard to live always in the light.

Blake's 7 4.12: Warlord

The penultimate episode, and Chris Boucher seems to have suddenly remembered that the original premise for the series was a crew of rebels fighting against a totalitarian regime. The detour from this, or at least the haphazard servicing of it, during seasons Three and Four has brought many of my favourite moments in the series. So it comes as a bit of a jolt to suddenly find Avon making Blake-like advances towards the leaders of planets to unite in opposition against the Federation.

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989)
(SPOILERS) There’s Jaws, there’s Star Wars, and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy, to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “mainly boring”.

Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the system when Burton did it (even…

So you made contact with the French operative?

Atomic Blonde (2017)
(SPOILERS) Well, I can certainly see why Focus Features opted to change the title from The Coldest City (the name of the graphic novel from which this is adapted). The Coldest City evokes a nourish, dour, subdued tone, a movie of slow-burn intrigue in the vein of John Le Carré. Atomic Blonde, to paraphrase its introductory text, is not that movie. As such, there’s something of a mismatch here, of the kind of Cold War tale it has its roots in and the furious, pop-soaked action spectacle director David Leitch is intent on turning it into. In the main, his choices succeed, but the result isn’t quite the clean getaway of his earlier (co-directed) John Wick.

I take Quaaludes 10-15 times a day for my "back pain", Adderall to stay focused, Xanax to take the edge off, part to mellow me out, cocaine to wake me back up again, and morphine... Well, because it's awesome.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Along with Pain & Gain and The Great Gatsby, The Wolf of Wall Street might be viewed as the completion of a loose 2013 trilogy on the subject of success and excess; the American Dream gone awry. It’s the superior picture to its fellows, by turns enthralling, absurd, outrageous and hilarious. This is the fieriest, most deliriously vibrant picture from the director since the millennium turned. Nevertheless, stood in the company of Goodfellas, the Martin Scorsese film from which The Wolf of Wall Street consciously takes many of its cues, it is found wanting.

I was vaguely familiar with the title, not because I knew much about Jordan Belfort but because the script had been in development for such a long time (Ridley Scott was attached at one time). So part of the pleasure of the film is discovering how widely the story diverges from the Wall Street template. “The Wolf of Wall Street” suggests one who towers over the city like a behemoth, rather than a guy …

Poor Easy Breezy.

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
(SPOILERS) My initial reaction to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was mild disbelief that Tarantino managed to hoodwink studios into coming begging to make it, so wilfully perverse is it in disregarding any standard expectations of narrative or plotting. Then I remembered that studios, or studios that aren’t Disney, are desperate for product, and more especially, product that might guarantee them a hit. Quentin’s latest appears to be that, but whether it’s a sufficient one to justify the expense of his absurd vanity project remains to be seen.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog