Monday, May 07, 2012

Naive Avengersthon - 74. Quick Quick Slow Death

A very silly episode but one with a whole string of delightful scenes and images. To wit and viz:

Item, Steed clay pigeon shooting with beer cans - until Mrs Peel accidentally launches a full one.

Item, an army intelligence captain who can't talk after suffering a strangulation attempt, so he whistles Morse code to communicate. Played by John Woodnutt. That's right! He is!

Item, a dying tattooist (Alan 'Bovem in The Dominators' Gerrard) pricking out a desperate last message on a garlic sausage skin. Said sausage is later handed to Mrs Peel by Steed with instructions to destroy after reading - lovely reaction from her there.

Item, Mrs Peel having moulds of her feet taken by a shoe designer with a raging foot fetish. The old 'fake accent dropped at moment of stress' gag done very well here.

The main feature is a dance school at which Mrs Peel takes undercover employment. Its purpose, it transpires, is to gain the confidence of sad, lonely men before killing them and replacing them with spies. There's a wonderful fakeness and insincerity about the school, with its band consisting of a tape recorder and five life-size cardboard cutouts of the drunken bandleader.

Robert Banks Stewart at the typewriter. It seems strange that the same man could have written Terror of the Zygons...

Previously seen: Michael 'Tavius in The Romans' Peake, Graham 'Barney in The Macra Terror' Armitage, James 'partner of Bernard Archard' Belchamber.