Right from the start of this episode, with its bizarre opening sequence, it’s clear that we are in the realms of parodying Star Trek. This shows the extent to which The Avengers was being made for US viewers, because viewers in the UK would have had a very different experience of watching Invasion of the Earthmen to the experience we have today. The references would have been lost on them, because this was broadcast six months before Star Trek would even debut in the UK (we didn’t get Trek until the whole show had actually been cancelled in 1969). If The Avengers were being made primarily for the sake of the UK viewers, then surely this episode would have referenced Doctor Who, which it really doesn’t, unless you include the tubing on the spaceman costume, which is very slightly reminiscent of the 60s Cybermen, and rather a lot of running down corridors.

The parody is quite obvious. We even get the two notes in the incidental music that are so reminiscent of the start of the Trek theme tune, just at the point where the people in Trek-like uniforms first appear, in amongst a load of polystyrene rocks. I’m not certain that was deliberate, but it certainly looks like it. Although it might seem like an act of self harm to deliberately make a rocky landscape look fake, it does really sell that first moment where we see the people in those uniforms and makes the scene really shout out Star Trek in a way that just wouldn’t happen with real location filming in a quarry (which would be more likely to shout out Doctor Who, I suppose). I also can’t quite imagine the polystyrene rocks being a budgetary choice. This clearly wasn’t a series that was short of money. The evidence is right there on screen in most episodes, including this one. There was plenty of location filming throughout the series, so going off to film somewhere rocky surely wouldn’t have broken the bank, especially as there is already location filming going on in this episode. So I think it is a choice, and an effective one in terms of getting that opening sequence to have the right impact, but the problem with it is the clash between studio and location filming later in the episode, which really jars at times.

The Trek references are mainly just a bit of fun, rather than being entirely necessary to the story Terry Nation is telling here: a military academy is training young people to be ready for when they can go out into space and conquer other planets. OK, it’s a really, really silly idea. I mean, it’s off the charts in terms of silliness, but it does have something to say about a certain kind of British military values that were rapidly fading into the past in the 60s. Note how the Brigadier bemoans the lack of military opportunities for young people nowadays. This is not the first time The Avengers has shown us the disappointment and bewilderment of older military men living in a more peaceful age. So it makes sense that a man like Brett would want to work towards a future where he can go off and empire-build. The British had long since run out of places where they could show up, plant a flag and say “this is ours”, and then kill anyone who doesn’t like that idea, so why not look for a new frontier? This is where the Trek reference is actually quite useful, because it’s such a sick subversion of the idea of exploring strange new worlds. Instead, Brett wants to find strange new worlds and plant the British flag in them. He probably wants to make strange new slave colonies. It’s a damning indictment of the mindset of the Empire, which survived in a certain segment of the older generation at the time.

Looking at some of the reviews of this episode, it’s one of the most hated. I find that really odd. OK, there are obvious problems, such as the man in a humpty dumpty space suit, who seems to be wandering around for no reason whatsoever, although he is quite creepy until he’s drop-kicked by Tara and turns out to be exactly what he appears to be: a man in a costume. A suppose that’s a bit meta, when you think about it. But a lot of the episode is given over to an excellent chase sequence, which is quite scary, even with the obviously fake spiders. More importantly, this showcases the return to the Cathy Gale era that producer John Bryce wanted, before he was replaced after three episodes. It’s difficult to draw any conclusions as to whether his efforts were really as bad as they were supposed to be, because his three episodes were extensively reworked, although this one remains far more intact than the others. One thing is clear, though, he had the right idea when it came to bringing back the gender equality. Tara doesn’t need rescuing at all. She escapes from a small army of young military trainees, survives in the tunnels using her intelligence as well as her physical abilities, and meets Steed halfway rather than having to be untied by him as usual. She even gets to be the one who finally defeats the main villain, which is almost always Steed’s job while Tara’s busy with a couple of minor characters. For fans of the Cathy Gale era, this offers a glimpse at what might have been, a return to situations that genuinely feel dangerous, and a team of true equals. In the end, though, it’s an awkward fit for what the series had become. You can’t just turn back the clock, and The Avengers also couldn’t really be two things at once. This episode is a distillation of what happens when the two contrasting approaches to The Avengers are joined together, into a Frankenstein’s monster of an episode. It’s neither one thing nor quite the other. Much like the clash between location filming and polystyrene rocks, or Tara’s ever-changing hair, this season never quite knows what it wants to be.   RP

The view from across the pond:

With an opening right out of Star Trek, complete with high collared gold shirts like in the pilot episode The Cage, I was excited to see the third-in-a-row success for a show that has left me wanting to give up nearly every week.  This one even has a Vulcan neck pinch of sorts!  Not too bad but we don’t get anything near the quality of The Interrogators, however we do get a reasonably good story anyway.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s another hairbrained idea by another whackadoo, but that’s the MO of this entire series.  Commander of Alpha Academy (hm, Moon Base Alpha, anyone?) Brigadier Brett wants to create an army of super soldiers to defeat all other astronauts.  Sure, there’s a market for that.  I can think of at least one other human(ish) being who would come up with such a moronic scheme…

I did take some small pleasure in knowing Brigadier Brett but for reasons that are so off the all that they could form a plot in this series.  Our favorite television brigadier – Lethbridge-Stewart, that is – was played by Nick Courtney, who also played Bret Vyon before he ever donned military garb in Patrick Troughton’s era.  So, in a Star Trek spoof we get a Doctor Who reference.  I would wager with certainty that it was never intended, but I liked it anyway.  Sometimes, you have to make up your own reasons for liking an episode.  That wasn’t the only thing I liked that had nothing to do with the plot: watching Steed get shocked was so over the top, I rewound it about 5 times and laughed with gusto each time.  His arms flail out in precisely the same way as no one else on earth, ever!

On the lackluster side of the fence, we have space humpty dumpty which only works in that it’s so outré that you almost have to appreciate it despite it looking so idiotic.  But that was about the worst of it.  What really caught my eye this time was Tara, and not because of her looks (though I’m certainly not putting them down.)  I don’t know when it was that I went from seeing her as being about as dimensional as a piece of cardboard to a character I’ve come to like, but I did appreciate her here.  I realized in that moment that I haven’t felt anything negative towards her since the season started.  I loved how calm she was when she found a scorpion on her hand.  I can’t begin to imagine I’d be that calm.  She’s less calm when the spiders come out of a hole while she’s trapped in tube, but then I can’t say anything about that.  My first reaction to seeing that was to say aloud in an empty room, “Oh, hell no.”  I might not have said “hell”.  And trust me, they didn’t look real, but I just bought into the scene anyway.  She still remains far more relaxed than I would have been in the same situation. Heaven help me, I hope I never antagonize someone so much that they put me in a tube with spiders!  Still, her real victory was the hug she gave Steed.  In that moment, you see her admiration and love for the man.  “Steed, you’re marvelous!”  While I may not always agree,  I was surprised by it because it made me think of everything that lead to this, including how much she looked after him when he was convalescing with a broken leg.  While there’s not much character development in this series, I feel like they’ve grown closer since the early episodes.

That doesn’t mean I’m ok with the infamous knock-out.  Once again, Steed and King knock out the chief baddie and all the others are rendered inept.  It makes no sense.  The military brigadier is flipped once and he’s out cold and then any threat from the dozen henchmen vanishes like the memory of a goldfish.  I’m sure they’ll all sit around now and wait for the authorities to come and arrest them.  I wish they’d just write the story a little better but you gotta love cordiality in villains.  (Well, that part is true – it’s the very thing I loved in the last 2 weeks!)

I’ll end on an odd note: I don’t go to the IMDb page that often and even when I do, I rarely take anything from there barring an exact quote when needed, but I did find this piece of trivia very funny considering it would have to have been a newer addition.  It reads: It is pure coincidence, of course, that the huge, overbearing fascist thug played by Warren Clarke is called “Trump”.   Well, make of that what you will.  It means nothing unless you want it to.  By the same token, this episode also predicted that “it may be 50 years before…” we’d be in space.  Well, news flash, we’re well past that point and we still don’t have a moon base.  Alpha was supposed to leave Earth’s orbit in 1999, for goodness’ sake!  So, there’s clearly a lot this show got wrong too.  At least when they try to produce new ideas, they know enough to copy from the greats… even if only by chance.  ML

Read next in the Junkyard… The Avengers: Killer