The WORST Episode

Dandy Forsdyke · Post by **Dandy Forsdyke** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 10:24 am

What would be the use of 'plastic skin' anyway. It's sounds revolting...

Timeless A-Peel · Post by **Timeless A-Peel** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 11:20 pm

Strange Young Man wrote:
Timeless A-Peel wrote:
Dandy Forsdyke wrote: The way they hold the plastic skin is pretty wince-worthy, though, although I'm glad they left in the little walk around Steed and Emma were so fond of, even if they couldn't give Kane a push without looking rather mean-spirited. I tend to wonder if they could've done the same but better using the original scripted ending, with Steed luring Kane into a patch of wet tar behind Purdey's flat. It's quite tense, actually, although I imagine it was cut for violence (Gambit actually gets crushed inside his car, and Kane backhands Purdey across the room).
That sounds leagues better than the final product and actually seems like a plausible way to stop a cybernaught.
You can read the sequence for yourself (and the rest of the episode) here.

I can see them not wanting to trash one of Gambit's cars for budget reasons, though.

I don't know what it is about the original Cybernauts that fails to grab me as it has most fans. I don't hate it by any means, but it falls short of a "classic" episode, as so many of the usual top choices--The Hour that Never Was, The House that Jack Built--do for me. I'd go for Death at Bargain Prices/What the Butler Saw/Honey for the Prince instead. Maybe you had to have been there for the sixties and the technology fascination and such. But I find Return of the Cybernauts much more sinister with Emma trapped inside her own body. And Last of just has lots of fun Purdey/Gambit bits (Steed hsan't learned a thing, though. Still stands there waiting to get smacked).

Steed's brolly · Post by **Steed's brolly** » Sat Dec 13, 2008 1:42 am

moorlock2003 wrote:Geez, so angry. Relax. Diana Rigg went along with the costume in "A Touch of Brimstone" so I don't think it was a lapse in judgement. I suppose you are opposed to the mini-skirt as well? Are you a Quaker by chance? A Pilgrim by choice? You sound extremely religious. All I can say is thank God I'm an athiest.

You sound like you've got a bit of anger there, all I can say is thank goodness I'm not an atheist

But seriously as the poster never mentioned he disapproved because of any religious reason, imo it was unneccesary and childish for you to have an irrelevant off-topic swipe. Anyway that's by the by.
I am in agreement with the poster actually, not neccesarily because of religious reasons, nor because I'm morally uptight or prudish, but just because it's embarrassing that the Avengers writers felt like they had to make a juvenile publicity stunt like that.
Firstly, just because Diana Rigg went along with it and designed the outfit herself doesn't neccesarily make it alright - if they had Patrick Macnee kitted out in a pink striped leotard it wouldn't make it ok in the story even if he designed it

The main reason that I dislike her being dressed like a 'slut' is because there is absolutely no valid artistic reason, nor does it serve any purpose for the furtherance of the plot ( we already knew the club members were depraved ), and was done only for titilation and to make teenage boys drool.
In my opinion 'A touch of Brimstone' is one of the weakest efforts in the series, and this just makes it worse with this cheap and nasty gimmick.
All in all, I'm not against it because it's 'filth', just because it's embarrassing that when the show was in its prime they had to resort to this.

BitShifter · Post by **BitShifter** » Sat Dec 13, 2008 3:07 am

Steed's brolly wrote:The main reason that I dislike her being dressed like a 'slut' is because there is absolutely no valid artistic reason, nor does it serve any purpose for the furtherance of the plot ( we already knew the club members were depraved ), and was done only for titilation and to make teenage boys drool.
In my opinion 'A touch of Brimstone' is one of the weakest efforts in the series, and this just makes it worse with this cheap and nasty gimmick.
All in all, I'm not against it because it's 'filth', just because it's embarrassing that when the show was in its prime they had to resort to this.

Emma Peel is not a real person. She only exists as a fictional character we see for a 50-minute show in two year's worth of episodes. And that character is clearly a classy woman who has no trouble dressing a little slutty at times. And honestly, that's what first attracted me to the character, so maybe I'm a drooling fanboy. The dichotomy of a strong, intelligent woman who could still wear a leather catsuit, a fur-trimmed bikini, or harem pants, and is clearly aware of her sexuality, appeals to me on the strongest terms, as I think it did many viewers in the 60's and 70's.

Now if there was another fictional character on the show who was forcing her to wear all of those outfits (I'll grant a dispensation that the dominatrix get-up in Brimstone was under duress from Cartney), then I might be tempted to believe that Emma Peel would never dress that slutty. Otherwise, the argument is technically moot; the canon character of Emma presented in the show does wear those clothes, so that is a facet of her personality--and one that makes her very interesting to me.

kim · Post by **kim** » Sat Dec 13, 2008 3:09 am

First off, just another reminder to keep all comments friendly. It can be hard to resist, I know, but nothing is served by slinging words back and forth, especially in regards to other's beliefs. It also goes against this forum's TOS.

In regards to Emma Peel's costume, kinky was something that the show took to the edge without going overboard. If I remember correctly, the whole costume idea and design was Diana Rigg's, not the producers or the writers. In actuallity, the costume does fit in with the type of "club" the episode is portraying, therefore the costume isn't out of line. Does anyone know what the original costume was supposed to look like, or did Rigg just simply say "I've got an idea" and the producers let her run with it.

To me, the costume simply showed that Rigg had a wicked sense of humour and I would have loved to have seen the looks on the faces of both cast and crew when she showed it off for the first time. I can imagine that local cardiologist's phones were ringing off the hook!

I would also have liked to have been a fly on the wall when it was presented to the American censors for previewing!

BitShifter · Post by **BitShifter** » Sat Dec 13, 2008 3:49 am

Lest anyone think I was unduly unfriendly, the edit I did to my post above was just to fix a typo a few minutes after I submitted it, before I saw Kim's post on the thread. Honest! I didn't cut out a section where I cast dispersions on the character of any or all previous posters.

Steed's brolly · Post by **Steed's brolly** » Sat Dec 13, 2008 4:19 am

BitShifter wrote:Emma Peel is not a real person.

So you had to break it to me after all these years.

BitShifter wrote:She only exists as a fictional character we see for a 50-minute show in two year's worth of episodes. And that character is clearly a classy woman who has no trouble dressing a little slutty at times. And honestly, that's what first attracted me to the character, so maybe I'm a drooling fanboy. The dichotomy of a strong, intelligent woman who could still wear a leather catsuit, a fur-trimmed bikini, or harem pants, and is clearly aware of her sexuality, appeals to me on the strongest terms, as I think it did many viewers in the 60's and 70's.

Now if there was another fictional character on the show who was forcing her to wear all of those outfits (I'll grant a dispensation that the dominatrix get-up in Brimstone was under duress from Cartney), then I might be tempted to believe that Emma Peel would never dress that slutty. Otherwise, the argument is technically moot; the canon character of Emma presented in the show does wear those clothes, so that is a facet of her personality--and one that makes her very interesting to me.

Like I said I'm not against it because I'm a prude; I'm against it because it's cheap, nasty and completely 'un-Avengerish' - in my opinion the ( for want of a better word ) 'smut', double-entrendres, and 'kinkiness' in the series were wonderfully under-played and subtle so as the viewer can read as little or as much as they like into it - whereas this is just completely unsubtle, puerile and tacky imo.
There is absolutely no reason as to why she had to change into her outfit in the story ( after all the story is nearly finished, and she must wear it for only 3-4 minutes ) - it may have been justified if it was suddenly revealed that the club was a 'kinky' club, but we already knew ( thanks to a rather long orgy scene ) what the club and its members were involved with.
After all, the 'Emma' character didn't choose to dress like that in this episode so it's not really correct to point out that Emma would neccessarily be happy to be viewed and used in the way she was.

Anyway, it's not something that I lose sleep over, but on the odd occasion that I do watch 'a Touch of Brimstone' the end always makes me cringe because of this - that is, of course, after I've finished drooling...

Rodney · Post by **Rodney** » Sat Dec 13, 2008 1:40 pm

Touch of Brimstone - like Epic - seems to seriously divide opinion. Typical Clemens! I'm sure he would have wanted it that way. Personally, I think Wyngarde's performance is mesmeric but I wouldn't rate either episode as the best or the worst. They both serve a puprpose though as they make us question what the show was all about...something which swung wildly from episode to episode. Dial a Deadly Number and Man-Eater...or Take-Over and Stop Me...almost nothing in common yet in the same season.

Steed's brolly · Post by **Steed's brolly** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 1:37 am

Rodney wrote:Touch of Brimstone - like Epic - seems to seriously divide opinion. Typical Clemens! I'm sure he would have wanted it that way. Personally, I think Wyngarde's performance is mesmeric but I wouldn't rate either episode as the best or the worst. They both serve a puprpose though as they make us question what the show was all about...something which swung wildly from episode to episode. Dial a Deadly Number and Man-Eater...or Take-Over and Stop Me...almost nothing in common yet in the same season.

Yes, I don't think that 'Touch of Brimstone' is without its merits - and certainly Wyngarde is excellent as the somewhat sinister Cartney - however I feel that the club's ambition is feeble - why couldn't they have just made it a 'rich boy's club' where they got their kicks out of playing these pranks ? Steed's initiation tests are excellent, and his sword fight at the end is also good, however the rest of the episode leaves a lot to be desired.

Courier13 · Post by **Courier13** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 9:40 pm

With my viewing of the Season 3 and Season 4 DVD's coming to an end, these are the 10 episodes that left me a bit underwhelmed (from both those seasons):

The Nutshell
The Grandeur That Was Rome
The Wringer
Trojan Horse
Esprit de Corps

Castle De'ath
Two's a Crowd
Small Game For Big Hunters
The Thirteenth Hole
Quick-Quick Slow Death

I would like to say that The Nutshell is probably the most puzzling episode of all, as it ranks rather high on the top 10 lists of other forum members.

The rest of the episodes vary from good to excellent (I only need to watch How to succeed and Honey).