For a viewer who is used to The Avengers showing us a silly idea and then running with it, a telescope picking up sound from a great distance probably seems like just another example of asking us to accept the impossible, but surprisingly (at least for somebody like myself, who isn’t a scientist) this is based on something real called an interferometry microphone, which was used for spying long before this episode was written, and does actually use mirrors. It makes me wonder how many other aspects of this series that seem ridiculous could actually happen. Maybe not the boss of a spy organisation sitting in the middle of a swimming pool, though. Mother’s moving headquarters have been getting increasingly weirder. I loved the double-decker bus idea from the last episode, but I think the sight of a man running a government organisation from a chair in the middle of a pool, with his feet in wellington boots, is taking things a bit far, and seems only to exist in order to show us some women in swimming costumes.

That’s a minor misstep in an episode that otherwise brings back the gender equality that has been lacking since Cathy left. The Avengers used to be a shining beacon of female empowerment in a television landscape where that was vanishingly rare. Cathy was Steed’s equal, physically and intellectually. In fact, she was often his superior, in those departments, particularly intelligence. Emma kept the physical prowess, but she was much more of a sidekick to Steed, and was generally relegated to the damsel in distress role, needing to be rescued by Steed at the climax to each episode. That has continued with Tara, but this wonderful exception brings back the glory days of Cathy.

It would be all too easy to write that off as an accident, because they simply wanted to write Steed out for most of an episode. I’m guessing this was one of those times when the actor was on holiday. But there’s more going on than that, because writer Leigh Vance, who deserves recognition for penning the best episode for at least a season and a half, deliberately subverts the usual episode climax. Steed rushes to rescue the damsel in distress, but Tara doesn’t need him. He is surplus to requirements. The subversion is slightly undermined, because Tara does actually need a little bit of rescuing, when she is about to be shot, and Steed’s temporary replacement comes to the rescue, but that doesn’t really matter because the undermining is undermined (keep up), by the fact that Not-Steed is barely even in the story, and when he is, he’s pretty useless, a bit of a bumbling fool who looks always uncertain of himself. Up to that point, Tara has managed fine on her own. In fact, the closest thing to Tara’s own sidekick is Pandora, a female investigative reporter who is the only one to truly help Tara in her own investigation. The fact that we got this episode after two years of Emma being rescued by Steed and ogled by male viewers is something to be celebrated.

This is also a very exciting episode, with an effective mystery at the outset. It’s helped by the superb location filming, with the nerve-wracking scenes at the top of the cliff. There is one moment that made me gasp, when Tara is pushed over the edge of the cliff, and I even entertained the idea that she had been written out at that point. Her survival seems absurd. Surely that’s not possible? But I suppose we can’t expect realism from the action scenes in The Avengers. Elsewhere, we have Tara fighting a villain in what looks like a wrestling bout, and also a man falling down 365 steps, just for the sake of a comedy punchline.

The lighthouse is a great location for the story. Obviously, it’s a logical choice, but it also creates a strong sense of being trapped. When Tara is at the top of the lighthouse, and the villains are trying to get her, there’s nowhere to run to. The set design is great, and I loved the secret door to a hidden room, halfway up the lighthouse. I wonder how many viewers watched this and dreamed of owning eavesdropping spy equipment like that telescope. You would need a lighthouse as well, to be high enough to listen in on the neighbours, but who wouldn’t love to live in one of those? You would just need to keep in mind the true moral of this episode: be careful going down stairs.   RP

The view from across the pond:

Gimmick #136, aka All Done With Mirrors, once again captures us with a heck of an opener.  We have a man talking to no one.  He gets shot, then the man who shoots him is shot by the no-one!  At first, it reminded me of the Cybernauts in that there’s this mysterious killer of some strength and cunning… until it’s not and that idea fell flat.    Disembodied voices are the killer this week, but right after the opening murder takes place, it starts to fall apart.  Either the voice is at the distant lighthouse that happen to have a view of everything everywhere, or there’s an invisible dude in the woods.  You really can’t have it both ways, but the episode tries to convince us that we can.  How about that?  Then again, at this point, the series is something of a soporific for me, and I wonder how I t ever made it for over 160 episodes when far better shows have been killed at the outset.  It’s totally possible that the idea was explained in one of the mind-numbing scenes during which my brain shut down and I missed something that made sense.  Unlikely, but possible.  The problem is I work during the day so I can’t watch this show right after I get up, even though my brain would be at its peak at that time!

While the “Roger, Roger” bit was funny (and surprised me since it predated Airplane by some time), the moment we see Mother sitting in a pool fully dressed with phones around him, I was rolling my eyes.  How corny does this show get? Is it supposed to be funny?  I guess.  I think it makes the agency Steed works for look like a bunch of nitwits.

Corny is only the tip of the iceberg.  Mother effectively tells Steed that this is a “Steed-Lite” episode and offers to keep him content with swimsuit-clad women and alcohol.  What more does our hero need?  (Am I jealous?)  Mind you, he gets to meet these ladies while saying that Tara is just… “well, she’s female”, implying that she’s not as skilled as himself.  News flash, Mr. Steed: Cathy was far more skilled than you were and yeah, she was female too!  Tara goes on this mission with Watney, a dude who reminded me immensely of Anthony Stewart Head for some reason.  Watney serves almost no purpose, and the little he does do, Steed could have done better, and I’m not even that big a fan of Steed.  Watley spends half the episode talking to a general or brigadier or something over by a car just waiting for Tara to talk to him from afar.  Then he gets fired because Steed is coming in but wouldn’t be there in time, so getting fired serves no purpose because he’s the one who saves Tara.  (Just when I thought Steed was going to have the hero moment, too!)

Having bashed it, All Done with Mirrors does have some things going for it.  When Tara fights with the bearded giant, we get a really enjoyable fight sequence which ends with the giant impaled by a rake.  That’s one way to clean up the riffraff.  Then, the telescopic knockout was a laugh out loud moment, as was the 365-step fall down the lighthouse stairs.  (Shame Tara had to count them; it took away from the humor and let us know just how stupid the writers thought the viewing audience was at the time.)  The granny with the hedge shears is quite funny too; menace personified… not!  The scenery is amazing, but I’m a sucker for a lighthouse having gone into my first one with my uncle when I was about 10, while in Bermuda.  I have a wonderful memory of getting him to toss his hat off the top, only for my aunt to walk away like she didn’t know us down below.  Good times!  However, the claustrophobic nature of lighthouses makes a great setting for horror, thriller, and mystery alike.  The cliffs are stunning too and I can’t imagine anyone filming a series so close to actual danger (although I wonder if the producers were hoping for a more expedient way to stop making this show).  But the biggest win was the unexpected plummet of Tara King off the side of those cliffs.  I actually laughed as it was about to happen because I was totally prepared for her to step aside and let the bad guy fall, but she is actually thrown clear off the cliff.  So my laughter was cut short and I was convinced she’d have survived by some unbelievable branch that she caught.  Imagine my utter shock when I found out that the cycle hit her so far, that she missed the rocks.  Again, I loved the scene but, did the writers forget that being hit by a moving vehicle might also do some damage?  Plus, I don’t think anyone survives that fall regardless of their ability to swim.  How deep was the water?  Falling from that height, it would have to be pretty deep for her not to bottom out.

All of that says nothing of my other pet peeve: the hostages.  So here’s my complaint: we know this wasn’t just a plot hatched mere minutes before we get to it, right?  “The Avengers” got involved because something had been going on and it reached the agency’s ears, so to speak.  In the lighthouse, there are three captives that Tara finds.  Pandora just got there; I have no issue with her.  But the other two!  How long were they tied up?  They are chained and gagged instead of killed, but why?.  Why bother keeping them alive?  Someone had to make sure they had food.  Did the need to pop off to the loo once in a while or did they just go where they were sitting?  Again, I’m not expecting Emmy awards for this show, but I’d like there to be some logic.   It just feels like the writers don’t put any thought at all in the actual events so, while I may be pitting too much into it, I’d be happy with a middle ground.

I just don’t know.  I can’t bail now even though it seems an interminable number to go, but this show boggles my mind with how silly it is.  It’s supposed to be charming, I imagine.  I must be like a particularly recalcitrant snake in front of the snake charmer though because the only thing that mesmerizes me about this show is that it lasted so long!  ML

Read next in the Junkyard… The Avengers: Legacy of Death