THIS was fun! For the 2nd time, they had Brian Clemens as writer, and he clearly gets the half-hour format better than most, which is funny, when you consider THE AVENGERS was always an hour show. Clemens' scripts seem to start with a simple story which he can then flesh out, as opposed to a complex story that has to be crammed into half the time it should have. (Nearly every Sylvester McCoy DOCTOR WHO story had that later problem. Trying to cram what should be 6 parts into 4-or 3.)
The only guest-actor I knew was Ian Hendry, the original star of THE AVENGERS, in its 1st season. Clemens worked with him back then, and must have liked doing so, as he cast Hendry in this, the film CAPTAIN KRONOS VAMPIRE HUNTER (made the same year as this), and THE NEW AVENGERS episode "To Catch A Rat". Both times they teamed in 1972, Hendry played a bad guy.
Now here's the funny thing. The moment I saw Harry wake up injured in a hospital, and people were asking him what happened and where is so-and-so, I thought, hey, I've seen this before. It was a Tara King episode, "Requiem". Here's the IMDB sypnopsis:
"Coming home from a costume party Miranda Loxton witnessed a killing by a member of Murder International and Steed is assigned to protect her until she gives evidence at the trial. Only Miss King knows that he has taken her to a boyhood haunt but then she is caught and wakes up in a sinister hospital where she is pumped for information about Miranda's hideaway."
And get this-that was written by Brian Clemens, too. Now, the last time I watched that series, although I really love some of the Tara episodes, there's a string of them near the end that I really don't like, and might not want to watch again anytime soon. That was one of them. And yet, it seems to me, Clemens redid a story of his I didn't like, and the 2nd time, improved on it. The variation, of course, was that this time, 2 people were kidnapped and pumped for info at once, but one of them figured it out early-on, and set about turning the tables. Had Tara done that in the earlier story, I might have liked it a lot more. I just hated anytime they made her seem like a victim, when in better stories, she could beat any 3 guys at once, like Jim West.
This is the first story where the dialogue makes it very explicit that Harry, Caroline & Paul run a private detective agency. Up to now, you kind of had to guess. Harry & Caroline seem closer in this story than before, which was nice to see.
The only guest-actor I knew was Ian Hendry, the original star of THE AVENGERS, in its 1st season. Clemens worked with him back then, and must have liked doing so, as he cast Hendry in this, the film CAPTAIN KRONOS VAMPIRE HUNTER (made the same year as this), and THE NEW AVENGERS episode "To Catch A Rat". Both times they teamed in 1972, Hendry played a bad guy.
Now here's the funny thing. The moment I saw Harry wake up injured in a hospital, and people were asking him what happened and where is so-and-so, I thought, hey, I've seen this before. It was a Tara King episode, "Requiem". Here's the IMDB sypnopsis:
"Coming home from a costume party Miranda Loxton witnessed a killing by a member of Murder International and Steed is assigned to protect her until she gives evidence at the trial. Only Miss King knows that he has taken her to a boyhood haunt but then she is caught and wakes up in a sinister hospital where she is pumped for information about Miranda's hideaway."
And get this-that was written by Brian Clemens, too. Now, the last time I watched that series, although I really love some of the Tara episodes, there's a string of them near the end that I really don't like, and might not want to watch again anytime soon. That was one of them. And yet, it seems to me, Clemens redid a story of his I didn't like, and the 2nd time, improved on it. The variation, of course, was that this time, 2 people were kidnapped and pumped for info at once, but one of them figured it out early-on, and set about turning the tables. Had Tara done that in the earlier story, I might have liked it a lot more. I just hated anytime they made her seem like a victim, when in better stories, she could beat any 3 guys at once, like Jim West.
This is the first story where the dialogue makes it very explicit that Harry, Caroline & Paul run a private detective agency. Up to now, you kind of had to guess. Harry & Caroline seem closer in this story than before, which was nice to see.