5.24 - Mission... Highly Improbable

[peabody]

Discuss, review and rate Mission... Highly Improbable, production completed Friday 22nd September 1967.

Teleplay by Philip Levene
Directed by Robert Day

[darren]

MHI is a bit of an enigma for season 5b. Just as the show was getting darker and more serious (Emma showing real emotion to the murder if her friend!) this very silly far fetched episodes pops up. It's at the wrong end of the season.

Of course we know that it was a script from season 4 that kept getting held back as The execs had concerns over its plausibility. Consequently it feels out of place and strangely rather tired.

I always feel there's something really horrific about the deaths in this. There's no body with a bullet wound to bury. They just never find them, having been sent to a rubbish dump or flushed down the drain. It funny and very disturbing.

Where it succeeds in with the design work. Robert Jones' team did a stunning job replicating the bottom of a wall and desk large size. It really is stunning work.

Robert Day is far from my favourite Avengers director and thankfully this is his last episode (went off to do Dallas eventually). He does a good job of the miniature scenes, there's no noticeable continuity issues. The cast are good. Francis Matthews being suitably blasé about the murders, relishing them. Ronald Radd is always good value. And Jane Merrow pops up prior to auditioning for the new girl.

Diana and Patrick are sooo comfortable by now. But for her hastily arranged return, this could have been their goodbye!!!

4/10

[Rhonda]

I gave 4

[johnnybear]

Funnily enough Thames tv showed this as the first episode in their repeat run of the series in 1970! what a wonderful era to return to!!! The lovely Jane Merrow should have made more appearances in The Avengers, it's weird to think this is her only one!!! Rumours abounded that she was high on the list to replace Emma. Nicholas Courtney and Kevin Stoney fresh from Doctor Who's The Invasion make an appearance here too and Nick looks like he's in the same costume too!
JB

[Frankymole]

Nicholas Courtney and Kevin Stoney fresh from Doctor Who's The Invasion make an appearance here too and Nick looks like he's in the same costume too!
JB

The Invasion was made a year later, in September 1968... it was their second reunion as they'd been in The Daleks' Master Plan (though I don't think they shared any scenes but would've been at rehearsals and in studio together).

[mousemeat]

Funnily enough Thames tv showed this as the first episode in their repeat run of the series in 1970! what a wonderful era to return to!!! The lovely Jane Merrow should have made more appearances in The Avengers, it's weird to think this is her only one!!! Rumours abounded that she was high on the list to replace Emma. Nicholas Courtney and Kevin Stoney fresh from Doctor Who's The Invasion make an appearance here too and Nick looks like he's in the same costume too!

JB

YEAH, I remember reading somewhat along those lines. a few years ago, on the chance that Merrow was high in the mix, to replace Diana

[Frankymole]

She was certainly one of the many actresses screen-tested. I didn't hear about how they were ranked, though (if at all).