5.20 - The £50,000 Breakfast

[peabody]

Discuss, review and rate The £50,000 Breakfast, production completed Thursday 20th July 1967.

Teleplay by Roger Marshall
Directed by Robert Day

[peabody]

I used to rather dislike this episode and considered it to be one of the lesser ones from season five. I remember having it on one of those old Kult TV/Contender VHS releases and really struggled to make it through the entire thing several times. Everything about it felt... beige. And brown. And both the story and the characters felt somewhat ordinary.

I don't know if my taste has changed/improved since then, or if my slightly improved grasp of the English language has helped me enjoy it more but I think it's a decent episode now. I love the spooky Johnson score, especially in the scene when Steed visit Mrs Rhodes at night. And it has a great opening scene that makes you curious and want to see more.

I even have the "shop!" voice from the ventriloquist shop as message tone on my phone (much to the annoyance of people around me).

And what about Glover? What a diabolical mastermind of the old, gentlemanly school. His motivation for crime is probably as good as any: http://youtu.be/hqiYvd7gdpE

Pity about Steed's "jungle music" remark, though.

I'll give it a 6. Or 7. No, it has to be a 6.

[cyberrich]

This has always been my least favourite season 5 episode. Not that it's poor. Just average. An average Mrs Peel episode is a VERY rare thing. In fact there's only two. Two's a crowd, season 4's weakest, and this one. It doesn't sit well with the other season 5 episodes. Despite being made in colour and with Diana, it still has Cathy Gale era stamped all over it Having said that, I think this is slightly better than the original. More pace. If they had to do another remake I would rather have had Mandrake. Not a bad episode though, for the weakest of the season. 6/10. Rich.

[Rhonda]

I gave 4

[Avengerholic]

Tried to watch this again today and once more I struggled to reach the end. Such a tedious, unexciting episode, the worst of the colour Peel series by far. Comes a close second of the worst Peel episodes in the series run, narrowly pipped at the post by Two's A Crowd.

[Rodders]

There are plenty worse than this one in Season 5 IMO. Worth it for the wonderfully creepy puppet shop scene alone. Plus, there is the rarity of a female mastermind and the comic genius of Glover.

[Sam]

I still prefer "Death of a Great Dane"!

[denis rigg]

I like this episode, though not in the standard style of Emma Peel episodes, but it works. This remake of the Cathy Gale episode has its own interesting scenes, characters, detective line. This is one of the favorite Avengers episodes of my mother, when she saw it on television for the first time, in 1996, she could not distract myself away from the screen. She watched before the end of forgetting about kitchen. Surprisingly, dear fans, this episode still goes in her Top list on second place, first is The Joker.

[Sam]

I like this episode, though not in the standard style of Emma Peel episodes, but it works. This remake of the Cathy Gale episode has its own interesting scenes, characters, detective line. This is one of the favorite Avengers episodes of my mother, when she saw it on television for the first time, in 1996, she could not distract myself away from the screen. She watched before the end of forgetting about kitchen. Surprisingly, dear fans, this episode still goes in her Top list on second place, first is The Joker.

Has she seen the original versions?

[denis rigg]

Has she seen the original versions?

Sadly, in Russia very few people who have watched at least one full episode from video-epoch due to the lack of Russian language and Russian subtitles. My mother knows only information about the early episodes, she very bad with English, though still remember French (she is able to speak simple phrases, but much has been forgotten - at the time she knew the French quite well). Very possible that the originals she would have loved more.