THE AVENGERS-THEY KEEP KILLING STEED

 

THE AVENGERS-THEY KEEP KILLING STEED

“Look! The woods are full of them!”  Meaning Steeds.

 

I used to really love this episode. I’m sure I saw all of it at some long ago time in the past. I was always working and / or going to college when the reruns were constantly on so I do remember coming into the end fights of this and loving it.

 

I still think it is an absolutely barmy episode but…

 

…the idea of many Steeds being killed is a great one and again but…

 

…this fails to hold up today. I mean I still love it for Tara, who is my favorite Avenger, actually. And Ian Ogilvy as Baron Von Curt is a great addition to the cast as a romantic possibility for Tara. What a great couple they made. I was wondering if he would survive the episode as many allies die along the way and/or turn out to be baddies. He is neither a victim or a villain. He’s also rich and rather humble about it until he can’t hide it any longer from the beautiful Tara.

 

Nutty is Mother’s office: an undersea tank of some kind and his way of getting there is to sink into it as he sits in a rowboat with Rhonda, who never speaks as usual. Did she ever speak?

 

That written, I won’t go into all the plot details which have been in numerous books and web sites for years.   http://theavengers.tv/forever/king-12.htm

 

The used music is great as always, the locations colorful and grand as ever in the seasons I love (four to six only really), the fights a bit too brief as one reviewer or more have said, the cars flashy and moving very fast in a chase across a wonderful countryside, and the cuteness of Tara and even more beautiful Ian just almost outshining even Patrick’s Steed (he’s great here, too).  

 

There’s also a weird villain who plays chess with Steed and they both seem to like each other. There is also a face copying device right out of one of the more boring OUTER LIMITS (100 DAYS OF THE DARGON) but…

 

…the plot details I will go into, ruin this for me. 

First, no one (not the guards or guests) stops several Steeds who enter the peace conference which will be sabotaged by one of them. 

Second, Steeds are taken from the main room and killed…one by an umbrella handle around his neck and …no notices? 

Third and worst of all, the villain plan: to copy Steed (and others, for some reason?) using masks of enemy agents that look like those agents. The masks are given to the bad guys (where are they from? Russia?) and a name attached. The bad guys don’t have any other info?

None of them notice that they have the face of Steed…all of them have Steed’s face. The real Steed, captured, escaped, messed up the files and the formula somehow? They all do not notice that they have Steed’s face. Were they given any info on the people they were supposed to look like? The voice? 

They haven’t studied the men they were supposed to look like? None of their plan makes much sense? Wouldn’t one copy of men have been sufficient or were these men being sent on another mission…yet they all seem to converge on the peace conference? Didn’t the bad guys figure on Tara King?

 

All of those details fudged make this episode not as enjoyable as it could have been. 

 

Tara’s fights are fantastic (love the roll down the hill and her defense against being attacked by a knife wielding villain...she sort of bullfights him) and Ian’s sword play is wonderful, despite the fact that if the villains all had guns (at least one DID and didn’t use it until calle on by the script to kill the leader who is now looking like Steed and who the shooter kills the leader thinking he IS the real Steed?). One uses a knife and Ian uses a sword---why didn’t one of the bad guys just shoot Ian and Tara?

 

I love when Steed, the real one seems to confront Tara in the woods and frankly, if I had been paying attention I could tell who was who but again, the strength of this episode---- if it has one ----is that there are many Steeds out and about. 

To prove he is the readl Steed, Steed tells a few stories, one crazy one about he and some girl saving a lama for the Dali? At first, he thought it was Tara or is he being funny? It was someone else, possibly Emma? That might have been an adventure worth seeing, Tara or not.

 

What else to say: why is Tara so disgusted when the bad guy’s face reverts (it doesn’t look disgusting or melted)? 

AND...I wish they let Ian be a third Avenger in more episodes. Surely as a couple, he and Tara work well together and it would put off those who didn’t want Steed with Tara, which always felt kind of wrong anyway. 

I never realized until re-seeing this this time that…they were indeed seemingly working on Steed and Tara being a romantic couple who were about to engage in…well, that!

 

A third Avenger, and male, worked for THE NEW AVENGERS and here, it would have worked for this show. In fact, I’d even watch them without Patrick as Steed!

 

The final scene, a close up of the Tara and Steed seemingly sun bathing, opens up to a long shot to reveal they are…in Tara’s apartment in typical Avenger weirdness and it is charming.

 

Sadly, though, this episode, apart from that scene and all of the scenes with Linda and Ian, is not that charming, even though Ian and Linda are. If some of the details were ironed out a bit better, this would be thought of more fondly.