New credits, new 'companion' Emma Peel and new, incredibly intrusive incidental music. I didn't like this episode at all, which is unfortunate because I think it's the way the show is going to go from now on.
Steed and Mrs Peel visit sinister village Little Bazeley and discover a ludicrous, Pythonesque plot to invade Britain by replacing the population, person by person and town by town. I was warned that this series was more 'stylised' and that warning was justified: we've moved away from realism and more towards Prisoner-style surrealism. Some of it is nice to look at - Steed producing an entire tea service from his carpet bag on the train, an immaculately dressed man emerging out of the sea in a plastic bag - but it didn't engage me, it didn't draw me into the action or make me care what happened.
I'm not keen on Mrs Peel so far. Cathy would never have let Steed wrap her up in a curtain during a fencing bout, nor been so coy with him when she emerged. Steed himself has become more of a joke character, he appears to have an armoured bowler hat in one scene.
Also appearing: Robert 'M apparently' Brown, Patrick Newell, who was Col. Faraday and is also the second Avengers actor to end up in the 'bored shitless with interesting things' bit in The Young Ones. Terence 'Lord Ravensworth' Alexander as a cartoon pub landlord and Juliet 'nearly in Carry On Matron' Harmer.
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