Episode 8 - A Surfeit of H₂O

Subject	0-5	Subject	0-5	Subject	0-5	Subject	0-5
Direction		Music		Humour		Intros/tags
Villains		Plot		Emma	+	Sets/Props
Overall (0-10)	A potentially good episode is marred by the protagonists - just why are they killing people with rain anyway? Emma looks great in a raincoat that is probably a few sizes too small.

Victim	Killer	Method	click a name to see the face
Ted Barker	Dr Sturm V*	drowned by weather machine
Eli Barker	Dr Sturm V*	drowned by weather machine
Sir Arnold Kelly	Dr Sturm V*	drowned by weather machine
Dr Sturm V*	himself V*	drowned by weather machine

	Sue Lloyd went on to play 'Hanna Wilde' in the stage play of The Avengers, opposite Simon Oates' Steed (you can see him in You Have Just Been Murdered). After that, she had a long career in Crossroads.
Alan Chuntz	Alan Chuntz makes one of very many appearances on The Avengers as Geoffrey Palmer's stunt double when the villains rush in to the rain room for the wet fight at the end. I think the other double is Marc Boyle, but he's not used much as Albert Lieven has close-up shots shortly afterwards.	?

Dr Sturm turns on the tap in the lab to show Steed the source of the 'rain' sound. Later on, a hand shut off the tap in the background while Sturm and Smythe are watching Sir Kelley then moments later, after ordering him killed, the tap is running again.

Steed goes back to the wine factory after the meteorological equipment is destroyed, and the shadow of a boom mike is in shot just before he enters the store.

Driving down the country lane to the scene of Ted Barker's death, Mrs. Peel takes her eyes off the road while driving, and the car swerves. A car's horn blares to warn them, and they lunge for the wheel, just in time, but no car ever passes them!

Steed and Emma, with their meteorological instruments, are spotted in the field by Smythe and Dr. Sturm. Soon afterwards they drive away, and Frederick is seen hiding behind a tree. Ignoring the fact that he got there in a very fast hurry, how did he get behind the tree - which is in the middle of a huge, flat, open field with no hiding places except a few other isolated trees - in bright sunshine, while wearing a black raincoat, without being seen?

The secret hatchway from the meadow into the sewer is carefully hidden by tamped-down grass and dirt, as found by Steed and Jonah. After Sir Arnold Kelly is killed, Martin Smythe and Frederick haul his body away and hide it in the sewer, presumably via the hatchway. So, how did the hatchway get covered and hidden, and grass and dirt get tamped back down on it after the two men were inside?

When Steed frees Emma from the vegetable press, he asks, concerning which way to throw the" lever,"now was it up... or down?" Emma answers, "I think it was up." Steed then says, "well, let's be different and try down". Successful, he notes, "you were looking at it upside down." Good thinking! Except that... the top of the control panel, a foot or so above the lever and also a foot or so above her head as she lay pinned by the press, would have completely blocked her view of the lever, as well as all the other controls!

After the big fight, everyone is soaked to the skin. As they drag the bad guys out of the rain room, they're all suddenly much drier, with hair no longer matted down, and not even leaving footprints or puddles on the floor! (A similar problem occurred in You Have Just Been Murdered).