5.04 - From Venus with Love

[Rhonda]

I gave 7

[johnnybear]

I must admit that I found Emma's colour episodes to be not as good as her b/w ones and in fact I think I preferred Tara's shows more! I really must get around to another viewing as I did quite a few Cathy Gale, Dr.King, Venus episodes a few weeks back but...
JB

[Lee]

A number of years agp, colour Emma episodes were my go-to episodes. No longer, as I find the year more repetative and formulaic,, with the never-never land of England quite annoying. The eccentric characters as well as plot seem to make it a little too much. I think the final subset of episodes this year were better as the series seemed to take a step back to reality without losing the off-beat predicaments, just some of the more wild characterisations.

Having said that, this is a good opener to the year. I first saw it when released on video in the early 90s and it still has a high place in my regards.

Casting is done well. Nice to see Philip Locke again - I think for the first time since Mandrake? He manages to bring a sinister element out of the character which could easily have been a chracature as many ultimately were during this season. Similarly, Venus and Crawford provide a good balance between between faith and reason. And the Doctor Who fan in me can't help but smile that Jon Pertwee is cast as a Brigadierz, and he is obviously relishing this part. I love how there is a lot of time devoted to him making his memories, which really is just a throw away idea and has no relevance to the plot, so could easily have been cut.

In moving to colour, the show did lose some atmosphere. Some of the colour combinations are questionable, I would have thought even back in the day. When shooting an outside scene in the studio, it really now does show up whereas there was more forgiveness in the previous year. Also I find some of Johnson's incidental music too comedic this year to bring out the suspense unlike the previous year. A reliance on electric bass and bass clarinet for comedy effect is over used from now on. Pity as his music was sublime the previous year. However, it isn't so bad in this episode, with the high strings reminiscent of Holt's planet suite for Venus. There were times, actually, when I noticed some early TNA strains in some of the brass. I hadn't noticed that before.

Overall, I gave this an 8.

[Allard]

A number of years agp, colour Emma episodes were my go-to episodes. No longer, as I find the year more repetative and formulaic,, with the never-never land of England quite annoying. The eccentric characters as well as plot seem to make it a little too much. I think the final subset of episodes this year were better as the series seemed to take a step back to reality without losing the off-beat predicaments, just some of the more wild characterisations.

Having said that, this is a good opener to the year. I first saw it when released on video in the early 90s and it still has a high place in my regards.

Casting is done well. Nice to see Philip Locke again - I think for the first time since Mandrake? He manages to bring a sinister element out of the character which could easily have been a chracature as many ultimately were during this season. Similarly, Venus and Crawford provide a good balance between between faith and reason. And the Doctor Who fan in me can't help but smile that Jon Pertwee is cast as a Brigadierz, and he is obviously relishing this part. I love how there is a lot of time devoted to him making his memories, which really is just a throw away idea and has no relevance to the plot, so could easily have been cut.

In moving to colour, the show did lose some atmosphere. Some of the colour combinations are questionable, I would have thought even back in the day. When shooting an outside scene in the studio, it really now does show up whereas there was more forgiveness in the previous year. Also I find some of Johnson's incidental music too comedic this year to bring out the suspense unlike the previous year. A reliance on electric bass and bass clarinet for comedy effect is over used from now on. Pity as his music was sublime the previous year. However, it isn't so bad in this episode, with the high strings reminiscent of Holt's planet suite for Venus. There were times, actually, when I noticed some early TNA strains in some of the brass. I hadn't noticed that before.

Overall, I gave this an 8.

Good description of the Peel colours, although it doesn't lessen my love for them.

[Frankymole]

A similar thing happened with The Saint when it went into colour. They had pretty much run out of Leslie Charteris's original stories so the writing became more formulaic, with some notable exceptions; and it seemed being in colour meant a lot less of the moody and atmospheric lighting and interesting camera shot angles and editing. It's like the director had his hands full dealing with colour film stock and grading etc and so didn't have time to make it look interesting when shown on a black-and-white telly.

[mousemeat]

Incidentally, I take issue with series 5 being described in the topic header as "Emma's glory days" and series 4 as her "formative year".

The black and white Emma episodes are much more mature and less formulaic and repetitive (or to put it less politely, series 5 is "dumbed down" for some reason compared to 4. Dian Rigg also seems more tired, and the direction is less fresh and inventive).

Series 4 was the "glory days", for both Emma's era and The Avengers as a whole.

I would concur, always felt the b/w or monochrome episodes, were superior to the Color era. the reason the show went to color, was American ABC, requested..as the network was converting all it's programming to color...but nonetheless, I think the scripts in the B/W era, was better..and both Patrick and Diana seemed more involved, or interested in the material...but that's simply just my opinion...of course, many truly love the color episodes...and perhaps she was getting tired..inbetween fighting for equal salary, to the peaks and valleys working on a series...long hours are the norm...as Diana was probably interested in both returning to the stage..and having a motion picture career..