THE AVENGERS-THE FEAR MERCHANTS and ESCAPE IN TIME

 

THE AVENGERS-THE FEAR MERCHANTS and ESCAPE IN TIME

 

Wow. It’s not just the vivid color that makes every green of the countryside and every gray on Steed’s suit pop out…everything feels superior in this season. I don’t know why but the DVDs don’t start out with FROM VENUS WITH LOVE and never mind, these are two superior episodes of THE AVENGERS. The show feels as if it was always meant to be in color and everything looks fantastic.

 

Not only that there are new opening teasers with “MRS. PEEL, WE’RE NEEDED” and THAT music and ESCAPE IN TIME has the music in full at the tag scene where Emma and Steed (near THE castle or not?) try to start one of his antique cars. The cars are brilliant, the casts are wonderful, the villains delightfully balanced between bizarre and completely scary, and the action is taken up a step to really look and feel tense and fast paced. It all works and works so much better than ANYTHING in season four.

 

I do not really want to list them all but the actors in these two episodes have been in THE TOMORROW PEOPLE (ole Tubby who’s on “our” side AND Steed’s unconscious ally in ESCAPE IN TIME), THE PRISONER (usually as number two), ARE YOU BEING SERVED?, DOCTOR WHO (numerous), and SPACE: 1999 (Balor in END OF ETERNITY). There used to be a joke that there were only about 150 British actors. Maybe in the 1960s? In any case, everyone fits admirably.

 

One of the things about season four was the music: it was good, even great at times and used a lot over and over again, which I do not mind. While THE FEAR MERCHANTS feels as though it used fourth season cues, ESCAPE IN TIME has music that is absolutely perfect in every way and feels more mid 1960s than anything before. It’s lovely to listen to and the fight sequences (Emma on the high platform vs a Steed impersonator; the finale fight in the castle) are enhanced and tensed up by the wonderful music. It’s all charming, exciting, and brilliant.

 

The plots are also logical and well based, balancing nicely horror with the bizarre and slightly humorous. I LOVE when Steed and Emma, both being held at gunpoint, argue over which one of the villain’s fake ancestors he impersonated best. Of course, there is some humor and his finale hit on the head is one of those things you just accept in THE AVENGERS, who are being held at gunpoint but manage to drop the weapon on the villain’s head.

 

THE FEAR MERCHANTS has one heck of a plot: business rivals of a man who didn’t want them “out of the way” by being driven crazy ARE being driven crazy (one is actually driven) using their largest and worst fears (one dies jumping out a window to escape a spider---and I hate spiders but this one was rather tame----and one of the things that distances me from Emma sometimes is how coldly she just steps over a dead body in front of her and she does it here, rather nastily). There are three main villains and all three are wonderful. As great as the music is I think they hit upon a great idea by not using it when Steed, in a terrific action sequence, is in a sand pit checking on a body, which turns out to be fake and a trap, is attacked by a bulldozer ---the henchman intent on burying him in the pit. Wonderful stuff.

 

 

The other action sequence of top notch proportion is Emma being attacked by a man on a motorbike. Emma plays chicken with him after running and trying to protect a toy alligator! It all really works well. Here, the music is fantastic again. The other fights are equally well managed and the fourth season fights can’t compare to the fights in these two episodes.

 

Both of these used to slightly scare me as a child but they’re pretty tame now but given the situations and the writing, they tend to stay with you.

 

Love Steed’s new apartment. Emma’s seems to be the old one but in color it looks great. The rapport between Steed and Emma can’t be better and to avoid being seen by one of the MANY henchmen and women in ESCAPE IN TIME, they feign a kiss / hug. Just how many bad guys and gals were there in ESCAPE? And did the Avengers get all of them in the end? Most of them?

 

There’s not a word wasted in this episode and not a scene that could be described as filler. THIS is the Avengers I remember. The right tightrope walk of brilliant and bizarre plots, eccentrics who are on either side of the good guys and bad guys, fast paced action, vivid color, and jazzy, wonderful music to go with almost every scene. Not to mention snappy, witty dialog and outrageous but beautiful costumes for Emma (“You should see me in the 1960s!”).

 

A lot has been written about this season and these two episodes in particular, and I’ve not seen a bad word about them other than that FEAR is a bit on the nasty side but it would be: this IS the Avengers and murder is part and parcel for it but the murders here are inventive and some aren’t even murders but having people scared out of their minds, literally. Steed’s aide rather than killed is punched and knocked out.

 

THE AVENGERS often thought it was clever. Here, it is 100 percent clever, fun, and entertaining.