3.20 - The Little Wonders

[darren]

Written by Eric Paice

Directed by Laurence Bourne

Production completed: 3 January 1964

[Lhbizness]

Oh, everything about this episode is wonderful. The villains, the plot, the whole set-up, Lois Maxwell with a machine gun, Steed in a clerical collar, the dolls' hospital...it's just loads of fun. If only they hadn't decided to kill off a large section of the secondary characters partway through, this would be 10/10.

[Ian Wegg]

I've invested more in this episode than any other so far. That's mainly because there is so much going on that I had to rewatch it several times to resolve all the threads in the story. Even then there are parts I haven't quite worked out. (How the 1960s viewers got to grips with some of these shows without the benefit of video recorders is a mystery to me!)

Nevertheless a very enjoyable episode, one of the best. The general premise is excellent with some very good plot twists and a good cast.

9.

[dissolute]

Maybe televisions back then were much sharper than we think. All those scenes where Steed of Cathy writes on a mirror with lipstick - it takes me ages to work out what it says.

[Rhonda]

4 for me. I'm one who doesn't quite get it yet but maybe it will grow.

[Rhonda]

It's great to imagine what inspired the writers to choose characters' names in The Avengers. Somewhere along the way they probably saw a film or read a news story that stayed in their mind. Pure speculation here but when Al Capone went to work for another gangster in Chicago an associate was Dean O'Banion who had sung in the church choir.

Wherever the idea for the dog-collar wearing gangsters in writer Eric Paice's story The Little Wonders came from, 'The Dean Of Rangoon' sticks amusingly in my mind after watching it. I don't think I appreciated it the first time (as you can see by my 4 points) but the it has grown on me the second time - and what a way to end Act 2!

[Frankymole]

Notable for being the episode where Steed and Cathy kiss for the first and only time...

Some good casting in this, Kenneth J Warren is always good value and here gets to use his Australian background to adopt a broad accent and insert slang into his lines in a very entertaining way, while Lois Maxwell can be full-on Canadian and David Bauer can be Chicagoan (or is he meant to be Canadian too?).

Harry Landis gets to sport an amazing scar, and spout Polari (a kind of cant or slang very popular with entertainers and persons of a camp persuasion, as featured on the radio comedy Round The Horne...). All the crooks are good. Tony Steedman is solid support as well - and Frank Maher gets to act, though perhaps because he was recognisable from Dressed To Kill they give him bleached hair and sunglasses worn constantly indoors.

A few fluffed lines but overall quite entertaining. The plot isn't anything to write home about, but everyone is having so much fun it doesn't seem to matter.

8/10.