Steed is having surreal Christmas-themed nightmares, and when he accompanies Mrs Peel to a Christmas house party he finds them becoming reality. This episode failed to grab me - the dream images were so bizarre that the rest of the story couldn't really live up to them, it was just a gradual reveal of who induced the nightmares, and some vague suggestions as to why (presumably they were hoping to probe his mind for official secrets). There's also the same confusion between hypnosis, magic, spiritualism and psychology that we saw in Warlock - the 'fluence worked in whatever way the plot demanded at any given point.
One good thing was Jeanette Sterke as the chief mesmerist, very callous and sinister.
Although someone has kindly explained the reason for the pre-closing credit scenes that this series has, with Steed and Mrs Peel on various forms of transport in front of back projections, I still don't like them, I'm starting to think 'If you're not going to take this seriously, why should I?'
Previously seen: Edwin 'Captain Hart' Richfield making his fourth appearance, and his first as a white hat. Robert 'Lesterson' James as the butler, returning from Death a la Carte.
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