Month: July 2013

The Avengers: Death Dispatch

Death Dispatch (Episode 2-13, December 1962).

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*I’m going a bit out of order, but eventually will get around to most of the good ones.

The Cathy Gale series can be very spotty on quality. For every truly stellar episode, there are several mediocre ones and at least one or two terrible ones. Thank God for the good ones, though, because when they’re good, they’re very good. Which is where we stand with Death Dispatch.

The plot follows Steed and Cathy investigating the murder of a British courier carrying special dispatches. When the courier is found dead in his Jamaican hotel, Steed heads off with the dispatches in tow and Cathy close behind. I’m still not 100% clear on the importance of the dispatches to the diabolical mastermind behind the murder – something to do with a South American coup – but only rarely does the plot matter in this series.

What does matter is how much fun the entire episode is. Steed lounges onto the screen, flirting with girls by the pool while his superior One-Ten (one of the few appearances of Steed’s superior in the entire show) explains the basic plot. Then enter Cathy Gale, enjoying her Jamaican vacation immensely. There’s a marvelous scene between the pair when Steed invades her hotel room dressed only in a bathrobe. They banter, they flirt, they evidently enjoy each other’s company for the first time in the whole Cathy Gale series. Up until Death Dispatch, Cathy has been a distant, hard-edged and slightly cold character, unimpressed by Steed’s antics but equally unwilling to enter into the fun of espionage. She must have been deficient in vitamin D or something, because her mood obviously improves the second she gets into the sun. She actually seems to be having fun with him.

Death Dispatch also includes some of the best secondary characters to jump into The Avengers. The scene between Steed and the assistant British consul is one the funniest in the entire series. The villains all pop, and the danger Cathy gets into (which she finally does) is tense and well-shot. Steed also has his chance to let some of the darker elements of his character through, as he bludgeons and threatens his way to rescuing Cathy the moment he realizes she’s in danger.

All in all, I would probably recommend Death Dispatch as the place to start with the Cathy Gale series. Although you won’t get the development of Steed and Cathy’s relationship, you will get one of the best, most tightly written and well-acted episodes. This is 60s cool at its finest.

The Avengers: Propellant-23

Propellant-23 (Episode 2-02, October 1962)

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Oh boy. Let’s talk about Propellant-23. On second thought, let’s not. I’m sorry to say that it is one of the weaker entries in the Cathy Gale episodes. It has such promise too.

The whole thing begins with Steed planning to meet a courier getting off a plane in France. Even Steed doesn’t know what the guy is carrying, but it’s so important that several other rival agents are after it too. The courier is murdered (of course) and Steed finds himself  trying to infiltrate French customs in order to secure the courier’s briefcase and whatever is in it. Cathy meanwhile hangs out in a car outside the airport, ruminating on how she managed to get involved with a secret agent.

A Steed-heavy episode. Patrick Macnee appears to be on some kind of stimulant for the first half, talking a mile a minute, getting into fistfights, and lying his way into and out of trouble. For those that only know Steed from the Emma Peel series, where he’s far calmer and smoother, Propellant 23 is good fun for an introduction to Steed’s more manic side. There’s also a great set of character actors running around the place, including Geoffrey Palmer (you may know him from the BBC series As Time Goes By) to Catherine Woodville (Macnee’s second wife, don’t get me started on her). The French officials are all amusing, and somewhat make up for the rather thin plot.

There are also some great Steed/Cathy moments, both out in the car as they flirt (or Steed does) and a slightly inexplicable scene in a lingerie shop, where we learn that Steed likes shopping for lingerie and Cathy thinks that black is ‘a bit obvious.’ Propellant-23 builds their relationship nicely. Cathy is a humanist, concerned about her charity work, while Steed obviously does not understand her dedication to helping people. He hasn’t yet begun to learn either, although they quite obviously like and loathe each other in equal measure.

Despite its occasional good points, Propellant-23 does not measure up to some of the far more interesting and well-made Cathy Gale eps. Live television strikes again, with actors going up on their lines and a few scenes that are just confusing, I think because someone lost their script. The final fight in a bakery could have been cool but for weak writing and a rather flailing form of fighting that seems more like amateur theatrics. Steed’s manic style of talking in this one gets grating after awhile, as does his apparent incompetence from beginning to end. He does not usually fuck up this spectacularly. Cathy likewise seems cold, even mean at times, which is the side of her character that annoys me the most. Later episodes in this season will better meld their personalities, and give them something to do together. It’s far more fun when they’re bickering, but not at odds with each other.

BEST LINE:

Cathy: Do you always take your calls in a lingerie department?

Steed: If humanly possible.

Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984)

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Carrying on with my non-Trekkie viewing of Star Trek films – The Search For Spock!

When we last left our heroes, Spock was dead and I was very upset. Of course we knew that not even crossing to the other life can keep a Vulcan down. With that little teaser of Spock’s coffin landing on the Genesis planet, there was no doubt that he’d come back.

The Search For Spock picks up right where The Wrath of Khan left off. The Enterprise crew return home to get their ship repaired, only to discover that the Enterprise is going to be put out to pasture. It’s a metaphor for the crew, you guys! Then McCoy finds himself with a dual personality. Spock has apparently put his soul into McCoy’s body – nice one, Spock – so that he can have last rites back on Vulcan. The crew figures that they’ve got to give old Spock final peace, and liberate McCoy from the whole ‘having your friend inhabit your body’ thing.

Meanwhile, the Genesis planet is getting all kinds of weird. The whole planet ages and evolves at an alarming rate, producing some pretty fucked up lifeforms. What’s more, a bunch of pissed off Klingons led by Christopher Lloyd have decided that the very existence of Genesis is an act of war. They want the secret for their very own. Predictably, they’re going to have to fight the Enterprise crew to get it.

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The Search For Spock has the feel of a middle film, because that’s exactly what it is. This is the development stage of the arc, between Spock’s death in Wrath of Khan and his re-learning cycle in The Voyage Home. For that, it’s a perfectly enjoyable film, though not a the same level cinematically as Wrath of Khan.

There are some lovely, amusing moments between the Enterprise crew as they make plans to steal their own ship and return to Genesis to find Spock’s body. The reasoning behind this seems a little muddled – if any Trekkies can explain to me why they need Spock’s body, and at what point they realize that they could actually put his soul back into his body, I would be very grateful. But it does give DeForrest Kelly an opportunity to do a quality imitation of Leonard Nimoy. We also learn about the Vulcan aging process, as dead Spock regenerates into a new baby Spock who grows up very quickly. Puberty is very tough on Vulcans.

The biggest problem with the film is the whole Klingon subplot. It would have been fine, even necessary, adding action to what is basically a quest narrative. But why did we need whole swathes of dialogue in Klingon? The version I watched didn’t have subtitles, so there I was, listening to Christopher Lloyd garble on, without the slightest idea of what the hell he was talking about.

The final fight between Kirk and Kruge (Lloyd) seems a wee bit tacked on, as though we really just needed a scene with Shatner getting down and dirty. For awhile the search for Spock takes a backseat to Kirk’s anger at the death of his son, who very stupidly and bravely sacrifices his life for new Spock’s.

In the end, The Search For Spock is a mostly satisfying effort. While it does not stand up to the calibre of Wrath of Khan, or the humor of The Voyage Home, it’s fun and, particularly at the end, moving. Do they find Spock? Does he come back? C’mon. What do you think?

The Avengers: The Mauritius Penny

The Mauritius Penny (Episode 2-07, November 1962)

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The Mauritius Penny did not start at the top of my favorite Cathy Gale episodes, but has recently worked its way up there. Here’s why.

The episode has Steed and Cathy investigating the seemingly pointless murder of the owner of a stamp shop…and uncovering a fascist conspiracy in the process. As usual with the Cathy Gale episodes, the plot is a little nonsensical, with holes a-plenty. But the actors roll right over the holes by speaking very quickly, exchanging charming banter and a few kickass judo moves.

Cathy Gale often comes in second to Emma Peel in fan favorites. Although the Emma Peel series is better written and more uniform in quality – due largely to a higher budget and the switch from live television to film – I think that Cathy is sometimes underrated. She’s one of the first female badasses to grace television screens. Like Mrs. Peel, Cathy has an almost endless array of talents that include judo, gunplay, anthropology and just about any other scientific endeavor the show demands of her. Cathy cuts through some of Steed’s bullshit, calling him out on his casual misogyny and blatant manipulation of others. She humanizes Steed by declining to idolize him (a problem which pops up in the Tara King era). He, meanwhile, visibly enjoys the verbal and physical sparring.

The Mauritius Penny is a prime example of the pair working together. There are some moments of entertaining exchange between them, and it’s evident that they’re coming to trust and understand one another. Steed does not miss out on a few opportunities to check Cathy out, while Cathy seems a little more amenable to his advances.  Steed and Emma Peel achieve a symbiosis in their relationship, while Steed and Cathy are almost perpetually at odds. It means there’s some pretty exciting sexual chemistry at times.

At the beginning of the episode, Steed inexplicably decides to don horn-rimmed glasses as part of his disguise as a philatelist (stamp collector), which makes for some entertaining facial expressions from Patrick Macnee. There are excellent secondary characters moving in and out of the scenes, from the earnest delivery man to Lord Matterley (Richard Vernon, who you may recognize from A Hard Day’s Night). They serve to flesh out a slightly thin script. Then there’s the scene in the dentist’s office, which owes much to Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much. The Avengers is a very cinematically literate show.

The climax of the episode, where Cathy and Steed succeed in infiltrating a fascist organization, makes for some seriously entertaining viewing. It also serves to highlight the position that the pair occupy as heroes, as the camera draws back to reveal two people standing against an entire organization.

The Mauritius Penny stands as one of the better Cathy Gale episodes – tense without being overblown, well-acted and utterly enjoyable from start to finish.