Tag: Cathy Gale

The Avengers: Traitor In Zebra

Traitor In Zebra (Episode 02-11, December 1962)

Steed in Uniform

Traitor In Zebra or, as I like to call it, Steed In Uniform. This episode follows Steed and Cathy as they infiltrate a government facility currently at work on a new satellite tracking system. The system keeps on being jammed, and the Avengers are on hand to ferret out the real traitor. A man has already been arrested for the crime, but Steed’s not certain that he was the one that did it.

Traitor In Zebra is a middling but amusing episode that allows for both Steed and Cathy to step outside of their closed apartments and get to work in a new milieu. There’s an entertaining sequence in the pub, many gratuitous shots of Steed looking truly spectacular in uniform, and some excellent repartee. Macnee and Blackman have hit their stride as partners. Steed and Cathy evidently enjoy each other’s company by now, their earlier conflict turning to good-natured ribbing. Cathy responds to Steed’s insinuations with a well-placed glare, but neither does she seem to feel badly towards him.

I’ve found that I enjoy the Season 2 episodes with Blackman a bit more than the Season 3, when Steed especially begins to iron out his rough edges and the plots grow more and more outlandish. There is a likable noir-ish feeling to Season 2 that all but vanishes later on. Even the rough camerawork and at times stilted dialogue is charming. You can tell when actors miss their queues, contributing more to the sense that the actors embody their characters, and are forced to adapt to changing circumstances. Season 2 might be for the strong-willed Avengers fan, but it’s well-worth a watch, and Traitor in Zebra one of the more enjoyable episodes.

The Avengers: Death of a Great Dane

Death of a Great Dane (Episode 2-08, November 1962).

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Death of a Great Dane bears the distinction of being the first Cathy Gale episode to be later remade with Emma Peel (as The 50,000 Pound Breakfast). The Gale episode is far more hard-boiled, while the candy-coloring of Season 5 takes some of the edge off later on.

It all begins when a man gets into a car crash and the doctors discover 50,000 pounds worth of diamond in his stomach. Steed and Cathy come in to investigate, leading them eventually to a joke shop, a reclusive and ill millionaire named Alexander Litoff and his staff, and the death of one of the millionaire’s Great Danes. There are some highly enjoyable set-pieces: Steed and Cathy at a wine-tasting together, flirting shamelessly (that scene will also be replayed in Dial A Deadly Number, again with Emma Peel); the final sequence between Steed and Litoff’s butler Gregory; a rare domestic sequence of Steed and Cathy listening to music. Steed suspects that there’s something fishy about the millionaire and his staff, and so attempts to sell them back their diamonds, only to get himself deeper into danger.

The villains in this case are, unfortunately, not terribly interesting. In the Emma Peel remake, Litoff’s staff include a simpering sadist and a tough-as-nails female right-hand. In Death of a Great Dane, the villains are overplayed, with the single exception of Litoff’s butler (Leslie French), whose repartee with Steed is among the best parts of the whole episode. There’s also John Laurie as Litoff’s doctor.

But as always, the point comes down to Steed and Cathy and how much fun they’re having together.  And they are having a lot of fun. The episode most clearly delineates the inherent differences between them, the source both of their attraction and their tension. Steed distrusts the millionaire because he suddenly begins giving to charity, while Cathy claims that Steed looks at the world far too cynically. This conflict between Steed’s cynicism and Cathy’s humanitarianism will come up again and again in later episodes, as she begins to hone his rough edges and help to reveal the much more caring man beneath; as he cultivates her intelligence and energy to fight against villains. Their mutual attraction is palpable in several well-played scenes, their flirtations beginning to take on more energy and intensity. Macnee and Blackman are in top form, visibly enjoying themselves from one scene to the next.

There’s an energy and vitality to this season of The Avengers that won’t be quite matched in Season 3, but will come back in force when Steed switches partners and meets Emma Peel. Here the edges are still visible, making the season rougher, meaner and sexier. Death of a Great Dane gives us that edge in force.

The Avengers: Warlock

Warlock (Episode 2-18, January 1963).

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Warlock is a curious episode. Technically, it was supposed to be the introduction of Cathy Gale, but due to reshuffling in airtimes it wound up coming in the middle of the second series. Steed and Cathy’s first introduction was re-edited to make it appear as though they already knew each other. Nevertheless, I prefer to think of it in light of its original intent.

Warlock hints at some of the weirder aspects of The Avengers that will become more prevalent, particularly in the Emma Peel series. Steed goes to pick up some papers from a scientist, only to discover that the man has slipped into a coma and the papers are nowhere to be found. But it’s a bizarre sort of illness, and Steed quickly learns that it’s linked to an interest in the occult and black magic. This leads him, naturally, to the British Museum, where he meets Cathy Gale and learns a thing or two about the ‘realities’ of the occult. The episode cannily glosses over the supernatural elements with a psychological explanation: if you believe in black magic, you can be affected by it. Cathy joins Steed, finding herself in a black magic circle run by a warlock (Peter Arne), who hires out his services to shadowy figures and has apparently been involved in possessing the scientist.

The plot is flimsy enough, with a bit too much coincidence to make it all worth while. The episode unfortunately fails to follow through on some of the possibilities of a cult, including human sacrifice, bizarre incantations and Cathy’s potential possession by the warlock. Like one or two later episodes, it’s difficult to give credence to the pseudo-psychological explanations, and equally difficult to accept the apparent supernatural power of our neighborhood warlock. The finale, in which Steed has to rescue Cathy from the dastardly clutches of this terrible black magic circle, should have been exciting, but falls flat as well.

Still, Warlock can qualify as a middling episode. Steed and Cathy discover their rapport: Steed is impressed by her audacity in investigating things for herself; Cathy seems attracted to his profession and personal insouciance. There is a lovely little scene where a drunk Steed attempts to entice her up to his apartment to ‘discuss the case.’ Had this aired as the first Cathy episode, Warlock would have provided a lovely little blueprint for their future sparring sessions, as their tension and mutual dislike/attraction leaps off the screen. As it is, the episode falls flat in many ways, but paves the way for later and better incarnations.

“When I find a hunt worth joining, Steed, I like to be in at the kill,” she tells him. And she will be, for the foreseeable future.

The Avengers: Death On The Rocks

Death on the Rocks (Episode 2-10, December 1962).

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Death on the Rocks is a highly entertaining episode for two reasons: good writing, and the added value of Steed and Cathy posing as a husband and wife.

For once in this second series, the plot is actually a pretty good one. A ring of diamond smugglers attempt to control diamond trade in London by lethally enforcing their wills against family members of resisting merchants. This naturally means that Steed must pose a man just getting into the diamond trade, and that Cathy must pose as his wife. Hilarity ensues, although I halfway expected Steed to make greater use of the fact that they ‘need to be convincing.’ Ah, well. We will have to wait until series 3 for a Steed/Cathy kiss, I’m afraid.

Meanwhile, Steed’s partner Samuel Ross (Meier Tzelniker), whose wife died at the beginning of the episode, has problems of his own. His daughter Jackie (Toni Gilpin) is dating Nicky (David Sumner), a young jeweler gone bad who is a sort of point man for the smuggling ring. Nicky is what I like to call the ‘overconfident young man’ category; a type that Steed, as resident Alpha male, regularly has to put in his place. And he is an obnoxious, overbearing character, talking big but ultimately a coward. While we do not get a good rough fight between Nicky and Steed, there are a few moments when the older man simply smiles and waves Nicky aside like a particularly obnoxious dog. I’m sorry to say that the entire final fight sequence is somewhat ruined by someone crashing into the camera, visibly rattling it. By the time we get things back into focus, Steed and one of the baddies are on the floor and someone else has fired a gun.

Death on the Rocks rises to the top of the early Gale episodes. Cathy and Steed are equal partners in this one, and seem to be enjoying one another for the most part. There’s an entertaining subplot concerning the redecoration of Cathy’s apartment, although few chances for Honor Blackman to show off her live-television judo skills. But their interplay is marvelous, from Steed carrying Cathy around on his shoulders, to her justified anger when she discovers that he hasn’t been totally honest about the danger of the case. Cathy has not yet become Steed’s regular partner and the rough edges of their relationship still show. I admit that in some way I prefer the intensity of their early relationship, which is softened by the time we get to the end of the Cathy Gale series. Steed’s roughness makes his character incredibly dynamic – a well-dressed and honorable gentleman who will smile and cut your throat. His final words to Cathy seem to take her aback; Steed has begun to prove that he really does care.

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.

The Avengers: The Mauritius Penny

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

the mauritius penny

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.

The Avengers: Mr. Teddy Bear

I get really easily and wildly obsessed with things.  Case in point: my current adoration for the TV show The Avengers.  There are few TV shows from the 1960s that so easily and effortlessly marry entertainment, feminism and badass spy-fi plots. So, because this is my blog and I do what I want, I’m gonna start posting brief reviews of episodes as I watch, or re-watch, them.

If you want to get a basic idea of the outline of the show, the Wikipedia page gives a great overview.

Let’s begin at the (kind of) beginning with the first episode to introduce Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman), the first tough female partner of secret agent extraordinaire John Steed (Patrick Macnee).

MR. TEDDY BEAR (Episode 2-01, September 1962).

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Steed and Cathy face off against a villain known as Mr. Teddy Bear – and he’s not particularly soft or cuddly.  He’s an assassin for hire, murdering people with some pretty clever booby-traps.  The set-up? Cathy will pretend to take out a contract on Steed’s life in order to draw Mr. Bear out into the open.  The plan backfires and Steed ends up dead.  Kind of.  Not really.  He does get badly burnt, though.

For the first episode with Cathy – Steed had already been paired with a male partner for the entire first season, which is now lost to us except in script form – this one features some entertaining exchanges between the two.  From their first verbal sparring session as Steed debriefs Cathy, to their actual sparring sessions as Steed tries to debrief her in a different way, the set-up of the relationship of the two characters is what makes the episode pop.  And it needs a pop, because the camera work is low-budget and the sets quite obviously cardboard.  Already you can see where The Avengers exceeds many shows of its day – the quality of the actors is superb and the chemistry between Macnee and Blackman is sexual without quite crossing the line.  Steed’s established as a bit of a letch who nonetheless already has a dawning respect for his female partner. And Cathy … well, Cathy’s a badass, insulting her official superior, calling out an assassin, and generally expressing disapprobation when Steed survives the murder attempt.

So while the best part of this episode is Steed and Cathy, the writing is also quite excellent.  Mr. Teddy Bear is an admirable and creepy villain, while Steed’s posturing and overconfidence is nicely matched by Cathy’s quiet resolve.  If you must start somewhere with The Avengers, start here.