Ep by ep; Killer

Contrary to a lot of speculation, Jennifer Croxton (Lady Diana Forbes Blakeney) was not an attempt to recast Linda Thorson. Thorson got sick and had to stop filming They Keep Killing Steed to recouperate and the production team got behind on filming. She returned to start filming Wish You Were Here and finish They Keep Killing Steed, and in an attempt to get back on schedule, the production team filmed Killer also. Thorson was unable to work on all these episodes at once, so the character of Lady Diana Forbes Blakeney was created to get another episode completed.

Anti Tara people praise this episode as being one of the best, if not the best, episode of the final season. They also praise that the Forbes character is a return to a more Emma Peel type image, and therefore think she is way better than Tara King. Jennifer Croxton is likable as Forbes, but she is no Emma Peel. She comes off a little flat and wooden. She delivers almost all her lines the same way and here expression hardly changes.
I really like Tara, and Linda Thorson just has a quality about her on screen that works. She is warm and bubbly and has an emotional connection to Steed. For me Forbes pales in comparison to Tara, who seems like the stronger character.

If they were going to go with a one episode replacement character, they should have eliminated Tara completely from the episode and just explained that she was on holiday. Her appearance in the beginning and end of the episode are pointless. It would have been nice for Forbes to have an end tag scene with Steed instead of Tara and the inflatable raft. There really was no closure for the Forbes character.

As for the episode itself,I thought this was a strong episode. The concept was really great. I liked the victims being gift wrapped and placed in weird locations. The sets were spectacular, especially REMAK. The use of colors and sound effects really heightened the episode. The use of the abandoned film set added a surreal touch. The concept of a building that kills was used a few times. Previously in The House That Jack Built and later in the New Avengers episode Complex I believe. I enjoyed Killer and thought it was well done and action packed, but I just can't help wish that Tara was in this one. I think her and Steed together would have made this one of their higher ranking episodes.