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Post by matthewsee on Nov 7, 2015 10:03:56 GMT
Olivia Poulet is Emma Peel for Big Finish's The Avengers series:
scifibulletin.com/2015/11/06/olivia-poulet-is-big-finishs-mrs-peel/
Olivia Poulet had previously performed for Big Finish for their Doctor Who range in Requiem for the Rocket Men & Planet of the Rani.
I am currently seeing her in The Thick of It which also featured Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi.
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Post by matthewsee on Nov 28, 2015 21:44:54 GMT
The Thirteenth Hole:
Season 4, Episode 18.
Guest stars Francis Matthews.
Coincidentally I also saw Matthews in The Adventures of Robin Hood 2.34 The Infidel in which he played the episode title character.
Overall not a bad episode that took place at a golf course hence what the episode title was alluding to and involvement of a satellite.
In retrospect should not be surprised that a golf ball is used as a deadly weapon here.
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Post by matthewsee on Dec 11, 2015 9:01:46 GMT
Quick-Quick Slow Death:
Season 4, Episode 19.
Very enjoyable episode in which Steed and Emma's investigates a dance school and Steed is targeted as a victim by the villains here.
Eunice Gayson is pretty good as one of the villains.
Good way to end the episode with Steed and Emma dancing together.
Coincidentally I saw the movie The Lady and The Highwayman which is a curio for The Avengers fans in that the music was composed by Laurie Johnson who had composed The Avengers & The New Avengers and it featured Gareth Hunt who had played Mike Gambit in The New Avengers.
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Post by matthewsee on Jan 9, 2016 6:30:35 GMT
A Sense of History:
Antepenultimate episode of season 4.
Guest stars John Ringham and Robin Phillips. A couple of years before this episode was shown in 1966, Ringham and Phillips were both in the first season of Doctor Who but narrowly missed each other as Phillips was in The Keys of Marinus and Ringham in the next story The Aztecs
An economist gets killed by someone dressed as Robin Hood by a shot of an arrow.
In order to find out who the killer is, Steed and Emma goes to a university where the killer is someone who wrote a thesis.
This all culminated in a Robin Hood fancy dress party. At this party Steed is the Sheriff of Nottingham and Emma is a Robin Hood. Another Robin Hood at the party is the villain Eric Duboys played by Patrick Mower.
It is here that another guest star is Jacqueline Pearce and at the party she was dressed I think as Maid Marian. More than a decade after appearing in this episode, Jacqueline Pearce played the villain in Blake's 7 and Blake's 7 has been said to be like Robin Hood in space.
Not bad and very good how the mastermind got revealed after the episode tricked the viewer earlier on about him.
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Post by matthewsee on Jan 22, 2016 22:08:05 GMT
How To Succeed At...Murder:
Penultimate episode of season 4.
This episode would reveal the villain to be a dummy. A little over a decade later Doctor Who closed its 14th season with The Talons of Weng-Chiang and that too had a dummy villain in Mr Sin.
In addition to dummies what both stories have in common is that both shared the same guest star in Christopher Benjamin.
The voice of the dummy Henrietta in this Avengers episode is not credited and there was speculation it was either former series regular Honor Blackman or Yolande Turner who had appeared in the flesh in The Girl from Auntie & The £50,000 Breakfast.
IMDb list Turner as Henrietta's voice albeit uncredited but I can't say for certain whether that this was based on irrefutable information or someone made a guest chose to make the guess of Turner and posted it as a fact on IMDb.
An enjoyable episode about women attempting to take over the working world and what a revelation about Henrietta although in retrospect it should not have been that surprising.
23/1/16: 1111 11 Karen Gillan
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Post by matthewsee on Jan 31, 2016 11:19:28 GMT
Honey For The Prince:
Season 4 finale.
Guest stars Ron Moody who would later regret turning down playing the Third Doctor in Doctor Who. The Third Doctor role would eventually be given to Jon Pertwee and curiously enough Pertwee was in the next Avengers episode after Honey For The Prince, in the season 5 opener From Venus With Love. What is curious about Moody and Pertwee being in each consecutive episode of The Avengers to the casting of the Third Doctor is that Pertwee was the second choice for the Third Doctor after Moody. Therefore Pertwee was able to become the Third Doctor after Moody turned it down.
Also in Honey For The Prince is George Pastell. Just as Honey For The Prince ended The Avengers season 4, Pastell would shortly be in Tomb of the Cybermen which opened Doctor Who season 5. So kind of a revolving door for Pastell as he exited The Avengers season 4 and then entered Doctor Who season 5.
Very enjoyable way to end the fourth season with a fantasy company being used as a tool for an assassination of a visiting prince.
Cute ending with Steed and Emma on a magic carpet only for it not to be what it appeared to be.
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Post by matthewsee on Mar 6, 2016 2:51:59 GMT
Jon Rollason has passed away.
Born on April 9 1931, Rollason had played Dr Martin King in three episodes of The Avengers.
Rollason had appeared in Doctor Who in The Web of Fear playing Harold Chorley.
Other roles included Danger Man, The Baron & Coronation Street.
He died on February 20 2016 at the age of 84.
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Post by matthewsee on Apr 8, 2016 2:35:16 GMT
Funny thing I read about The Avengers 5.13 A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Station:
theavengers.tv/forever/peel2-13.htm
"At odds with the direction Brian Clemens was taking the series, scriptwriter Roger Marshall left. Clemens rewrote one of his scripts, and used the pseudonym Brian Sheriff (the Sheriff doing the Marshall's job... get it?)."
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Post by matthewsee on Jun 10, 2016 0:21:42 GMT
Somewhat ironically Honor Blackman and her successor Diana Rigg both left the Avengers to be in a Bond movie as the former was in Goldfinger & the latter in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
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Post by matthewsee on Jun 19, 2016 23:21:06 GMT
You'll Catch Your Death:
Season 7, Episode 4.
Guest stars Valentine Dyall who would later become the Black Guardian in Doctor Who.
Specialists are dropping dead after opening a letter which caused them to literally sneeze to death.
Not bad of an episode and certainly felt prophetic to this form of death being used by real-life terrorists.
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Post by matthewsee on Jun 26, 2016 13:15:37 GMT
Legacy of Death:
Season 7, Episode 9.
Guest stars Richard Hurndall who would later become the First Doctor in Doctor Who: The Five Doctors replacing the late William Hartnell.
Legacy of Death is written by Dalek creator Terry Nation who was also The Avengers script editor.
Nation had also written for the Hartnell Doctor including the story which I am now seeing on DVD The Chase.
Although The Five Doctors was not written by Nation, the First Doctor now played by Hurndall met up with one of Nation's Dalek creations in that story.
The Avengers episode also guest starred two people who had also worked on Doctor Who during the Hartnell era that of Tutte Lemkow and Michael Bilton.
Apparently Legacy of Death is a riff on The Maltese Falcon and quite fun deaths this episode has along with two amusing characters played by Stratford Johns as Sidney Street and Ronald Lacey as Humbert Green with these character names obviously derived from the names of The Maltese Falcon stars Humphrey Bogart and Sydney Greenstreet.
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Post by matthewsee on Jun 27, 2016 10:12:27 GMT
The Avengers 7.10 Noon Doomsday was written by script editor Terry Nation and it is a Western episode.
This was broadcast on November 27 1968 and this was 19 years and one day before the birth of Karen Gillan on November 28 1987.
As Amy Pond in Doctor Who, Karen got to be in a Western in A Town Called Mercy and that is part of NuWho season 7 just as Noon Doomsday is part of The Avengers season 7 (although there are people who have called this Avengers season as its sixth season).
A couple of episodes before A Town Called Mercy, Karen as Amy met Terry Nation's creations the Daleks in Asylum of the Daleks as well as earlier meeting them in Victory of the Daleks & The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang.
Noon Doomsday guest starred T.P. McKenna who would later appear in a Blake's 7 episode penned by Nation himself in Bounty.
Also guest starred Anthony Ainley and the previous episode Legacy of Death guest starred Richard Hurndall.
Hurndall and Ainley would both appear together in Doctor Who: The Five Doctors as the First Doctor and the Master respectively and also feature a cameo by a Dalek.
Incidentally while there was no Master in A Town Called Mercy, the Doctor did briefly mention him.
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Post by matthewsee on Jul 7, 2016 3:04:06 GMT
The Morning After:
Season 7, Episode 18.
Steed and Tara meets up with quadruple agent Merlin but he knocks them off with a knock out gas but got knocked out himself when he didn't get away in time.
When Steed and Merlin woke up it was the next day but Tara remained asleep and found London to be deserted except it being patrolled by the army but it was not as it seems.
A similar premise would be shown a few years later in the opening episode of Doctor Who: Invasion of the Dinosaurs. Invasion of the Dinosaurs was the final Doctor Who story written by Malcolm Hulke and Hulke himself had written for The Avengers but not The Morning After.
Just as Invasion of the Dinosaurs featured Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, The Morning After had its own Brigadier in Brigader Hansing (Joss Ackland) but unlike Doctor Who's Brigadier, Brigadier Hansing is a villain.
Absolutely fascinating episode with Merlin being an unlikely fill-in for Tara to Steed (although Tara did wake up briefly to have a little action before being knocked out again) and as played by Peter Barkworth, Merlin is especially good in his concern for his own self-preservation than anything else.
That after Killer, The Morning After is the second episode to feature a limited appearance by Linda Thorson as Tara.
Whereas Killer had Tara spending most of the episode off-screen on holiday, The Morning After had her spending most of the time sleeping.
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