Naive Avengersthon - 117. Super Secret Cypher Snatch

I ought to like this because there's a surprising change of pace (literally and metaphorically) halfway through when we first realise how the cypher secrets might be being snatched. And it has Donald 'Eckersley' Gee as leader of a group of murderous window-cleaners, who attack Steed with a ladder during a car chase at one point. And there's Allan Cuthbertson (third appearance), and Tara working undercover in his 60s office.

But somehow it didn't grab me. I think this is one problem with the cartoon style of the later series, the silliness of the high class window cleaning firm and the cypher HQ with its comedy red-helmeted guards don't sell the idea that the theft of the codes is a serious matter. Somehow it's not made to seem important.

Return of the 'group drill in everyday activities' thing at the window-cleaning firm.

Previously and also seen: Alec 'Bob Hall' Ross from Brief For Murder. Clifford 'Major Branwell' Earl from Escape In Time.

Previously seen: Ivor Dean, third appearance. Anthony Blackshaw, fourth. Simon Oates from You Have Just Been Murdered and Nicholas Smith, again from Escape In Time.

Naive Avengersthon - 116. All Done With Mirrors

A great episode. The gimmick - a line-of-sight sound transmitter and receiver - is a lot of fun; there's a supporting character with a pivotal role, something I always like; and there are some beautiful shots of cliffs. In accordance with Hitchcockian dictates, someone is duly pushed off said cliffs - and there's even an attempt at an explanation for how they survive.

The lighthouse fight is pretty broad-brush but I enjoyed it.

Not so much Steed in this as 'Mother' has placed him under close arrest for workplace politics reasons. As the arrest consists of being attended to by ladies, Steed isn't complaining.

When he joins the action, there's a lovely look from him when he hears Tara's voice out of nowhere and thinks she's a ghost. Not often we see him nonplussed.

An enormous crop of returners in this one btw:

Previously and also seen: Peter 'Dr Warlock' Copley from The White Dwarf. Edwin 'Captain Hart' Richfield making a triumphant sixth appearance. Tenniel 'Major Daly' Evans, third appearance. Peter 'Savages' Thomas, third appearance. Graham 'Underwater Menace/Mr Garfield' Ashley from Propellant 23. Michael 'Carry On "Man"' Nightingale from A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Station. David 'Rinchen' Grey all the way from Girl On The Trapeze.

Also seen: Dinsdale 'Judson' Landen. Robert 'dolly soldier' Sidaway.

Previously seen: Michael Trubshawe from Dial A Deadly Number. Joanna Jones from The Correct Way To Kill. Nora Nicholson from Build A Better Mousetrap. Anthony Dutton from Return of the Cybernauts.

Naive Avengersthon - 115. You'll Catch Your Death

An excellent conceit - viral specialists being killed off by infectious letters. I wonder if the CIA got the idea for the anthrax attacks in November 2001 from watching this episode?

Unfortunately it turns a bit silly at the denouement, with people falling out of the nostrils of a giant display nose at a secret research facility. (And only an Avengersthon would require me to type a sentence like that.) And this sits very oddly with Steed's cold-blooded murder of the chief black hat: having safely bottled him up in a pit, he deliberately exposes him to the infection.

Very good sinister postman/chauffeur villain duo - chauffeur a young Dudley Sutton - quite a dangerous look he had back then, you can see why he was cast in Entertaining Mr Sloane.

I enjoyed Steed's speculation about the reverse selection process at the nursing academy, designed, he thinks, to choose all the most dishonest students.

Note the 4d sepia 1967 Machin definitives on the deadly envelopes. (Replaced in 1969 by the 4d vermillion as the sepia was too close in colour to the 5d dark blue). These would have been thought of as the new stamps at the time, having recently replaced the Wilding type seen in You Have Just Been Murdered. Interesting that though the villains are prepared to buy 10,000 envelopes from a high-class stationery firm, they're too mean to pay for first class 5d stamps.

Henry 'Benny Hill's straight man' McGee as the stationer btw.

Previously and also seen: Fulton 'Dr Quinn' Mackay returning from Return of the Cybernauts. He's wasted in this part though. Charles Lloyd Pack, who I think paints Six's portrait in It's Your Funeral, returning from Silent Dust. Hamilton 'Gen. Scobie' Dyce returning from Death on the Rocks.

Also seen: Valentine 'Black Guardian' Dyall as the butler.

Previously seen: Bruno Barnabe (third appearance). Geoffrey Chater from You Have Just Been Murdered. Andrew Laurence from Murdersville.

Naive Avengersthon - 114. Whoever Shot Poor George (etc)

The running metaphor in this of computer (or computor, as the sign seen in the opening shot authoritatively has it) 'George' as a patient undergoing treatment really put my teeth on edge. When it comes to computer episodes I much preferred The Big Thinker. This ep has the same central idea - a sabotaged computer contains vital information which certain people are desperate to prevent from being revealed - but where TBT revolved around the personalities of the programming staff, this centres around melodrama and larger-than-life characters. Such as Dennis Price's suave butler and Judy Parfitt's icy, commanding spy (her fourth appearance).

I did like Steed's accidental discovery of the saboteur, and his sudden swift attack on him which makes everyone think he's gone mental.

Also the way in which the vital information has been inserted into the computer by tortured Sir Wilfred (Clifford 'Wrong Number Two' Evans in his third appearance) is pretty clever.

Note the fact that, in an attempt to read George's memory, they replace his central processor with the one from another computer. Rather than transferring George's memory to the other computer, which would be a lot easier.

Previously and also seen: Arthur 'Cully' Cox from From Venus With Love.

Also seen: Frank Windsor (the Inspector in Ghost Light). Valerie 'Carry On' Leon.

Previously seen: Anthony Nicholls from School For Traitors. Adrian Ropes (third appearance) as a likeable but doomed young programmer.

Naive Avengersthon - 113. My Wildest Dream

Good concept here, cathartic therapy being used as a way of getting people to commit murders for strategic business purposes. And the villains would have gotten away with it too if they hadn't foolishly decided to legitimise the killings by setting Steed and Tara up to be witnesses to each one.

Peter 'Denethor/Genial Harry Grout' Vaughan as the experimenting therapist Jaeger. Though he isn't the real villain of the piece...

An excitingly shot, fast-moving fight for Tara in the optics lab. Some great boot shots here.

Couple of good supporting characters in Jaeger's assistant Nurse Owens, and Tara's admirer the Hon. Teddy Chilcott (Edward 'Jackal' Fox), who starts off in amiable toff territory and gets more and more disgruntled until he begins to seem more like a stalker. At that point he's viciously attacked and drugged by Nurse Owens (some more boot action here).

Also seen: Philip Madoc making his fifth appearance (joint record so far). John 'Egrorian' Savident who was also the Squire in The Visitation.

Naive Avengersthon - 112. Look - (etc)

Directors of a property company are being killed off, one by one, by a pair of old-style vaudeville entertainers. The only clue is the unique clown make-up of the principal assassin - so Tara has to visit the clown makeup registry, where each maquillage is recorded on an egg. I can see the logic of having a 3D record, but they wouldn't be fresh eggs would they? They'd go off. And they wouldn't be stored in a tiny room with a 1-foot wide passage between the flimsy shelves. The registrar is, incredibly, played by John Cleese. I thought at first it was Patrick O'Connell (Ashton in Dalek Invasion of Earth) who has a very similar voice. But it's definitely Cleese.

In proper Hitchcockian style, the eggs are duly all smashed, and the search moves to the crumpled paper-strewn room of gag writer Bernard Cribbins (returning from The Girl From Auntie). I kept flashing back to the 'Funniest joke in the world' sketch during these scenes. Amusingly, once Cribbins is killed, Steed has to search through the piles of paper for a vital clue, a bit like Liz in The Silurians.

There's a sad but funny scene where Tara has to guard remaining director Lord Dessington, and the poor old man tries vainly to converse with her about the Far East and camels. I thought it was a bit cruel of her to give him all those wide-eyed looks and displays of leg. When they do finally find something to talk about, he gets killed anyway.

The search eventually leads to Vauda Villa, home for variety artistes who are not presently in demand. The criminal mastermind is unmasked as the straightest of the company directors (John 'The Marshal' Woodvine returning from The Murder Market), though I would have appreciated an explanation of how he became an expert Punch & Judy man.

It's a stupid episode but a funny one. The assassins (Jimmy Jewel and Julian Chagrin) are excellent, they dance off-camera after each murder with that hat-waving routine that such entertainers used to do. (Who they're doing it to is another question). Steed and Tara do the same bit at the end, though they're not half so good. And in the closing gag Steed demonstrates his new mastery of the quick change, very like the Fourth Doctor trying out costumes in Robot.

Previously and also seen: Robert 'Lesterson' James making his third appearance. Talfryn 'Llanfairfach here' Thomas returning from A Surfeit of H20.

Also seen: Garry Marsh who's one of the prisoners in Convict 99. Johnny Vyvyan who was in many Hancocks, most notably as the professional marcher in The Oak Tree.

Naive Avengersthon - 111. Have Guns - Will Haggle

Very promising start with a precision raid on an ordnance depot, but that's as good as it gets. Lovely 60s sky in the scene where Tara's bouncing on the trampoline during the initial investigation at the depot. The rest of the story is fairly by-numbers stuff centring around Steed's attempts to stop evil Colonel Nsonga from buying the stolen weapons at auction.

A couple of interesting characters are Lady Adriana who conducts the auction - with the suggestion that she's getting more than a financial thrill out of the deal - and her charming but deadly gun-thief brother Conrad (Jonathan 'Silas P' Burn).

Tara fights rather a tense duel while dressed in what must be the shortest skirt seen on the show to date.

Previously and also seen: Timothy 'Binro' Bateson returning from The Correct Way To Kill (think I missed him in that).

Also seen: Michael 'Jarvis in The Wheel In Space' Turner. Roy 'Toberman' Stewart.