MovieChat Forums > The Avengers (1966) Discussion > Ep by ep; Bizarre

Ep by ep; Bizarre

posted 8 years ago by Joxerlives
1 reply | jump to latest

Mr Bagpipes Happychap, what a truly Avengers name! The idea of villains operating out of a funeral parlour is one I think the show used before back in the black and white era. Really pretty unremarkable and a shame the classic series ends on such a weak story, the final scene and Mother's remark to the camera just about rescuing it, interesting that he makes the remark about them being without a chaperone, implying that theirs is a chaste relationship after all.

Okay, off to the New Avengers.

[–] ctaylor-65092 8 years ago

The only reason this is a memorable episode is because it is the final episode. It had a great intro with the woman falling off the train into the snow wearing her nightgown and the tear running down her cheek. Unfortunately it all down hill, or should I say underground from there. The concept of undertakers and funeral homes doing sinister things was done much better in The Undertakers and Gravediggers. Bizarre feels too Batman in set design regarding the underground paradise etc. and it looks cheap. The cemetery is also cheep looking and you can obviously tell it's an indoor set. It's like they couldn't bother doing real location work on this one.

Roy Kinnear is always great and makes for good comedy. The swamy underground thing didn't do it for me. The underground should have been more opulent and grand maybe like a 5 star hotel or something staffed by beautiful women. (By the way apparently the underground girls gold outfits were left over from Casino Royal with Peter Sellers) I also thought the rocket ship was a bit much.

I just wish The Avengers could have had a powerful, memorable High stakes finale with a great mastermind. Instead this was a bit of a whimper for me.

Sad knowing there are no more original Avengers episodes after this one. But at least we got to spend some more time with Steed in The New Avengers.