Series 5 — Episode 4
The See-Through Man

Plot summary

Mrs. Peel is surprised to find a message on one of her microscope slides, saying she’s needed to investigate an apparently invisible man.
Ambassador Brodny is convinced that Major Vazin, a top agent recently arrived in England, has acquired the secret of invisibility. A front for their government, The Eastern Drug Corporation, recently purchased the formula from Quilby — a mad professor expertly played by Roy Kinnear. It is all a plot to fool the British government into diverting much needed resources into pointless research but the Avengers see through the scheme.
They dispatch the villains, and flummox Brodny, before going out for something to eat, if they can catch up to the old Rolls that has a will of its own!

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Prologue

Government employee Wilton (David Glover) is returning a dossier to the archives and becomes worried about doors apparently opening and closing by themselves behind him, disembodied footsteps and filing cabinets being rifled by an unseen hand — he investigates and is knocked out by an assailant who isn’t there…

Act 1

Emma Peel (Diana Rigg), working on a scientific paper, is astounded when one of her specimen slides reveals the message “Mrs. Peel — We’re Needed” under the microscope, and John Steed (Patrick Macnee) whisks her off to the ministry archive where they discover the assailant must have passed upwards of twenty people¹ without being seen at all. In the filing cabinet they find a note reading “Ernest Quilby, submission 144, transferred to Special Section”.

Moments later, the Special Section apparently has a visit from the unseen visitor.² This perplexes the bureaucrat in charge, Sir Andrew Ford (John Nettleton) who charges out the door after being knocked down by a cabinet door, just as Steed and Mrs. Peel arrive.

They declare they haven’t seen anyone. File 144 — Ernest Quilby’s, the one transferred — is missing. Sir Andrew declares that Quilby’s a crank inventor who sends them a new invention every week, each one of them rejected with equal regularity. He doesn’t know what was in the missing file and suggests they ask his predecessor, Lord Daviot, or Quilby himself what the file contained. Steed suggests they split up, Emma taking “me Lord” while he visits Quilby.

Outside, Enemy³ agent Ulric (Harvey Hall) watches them leave the ministry and radios his Major at HQ. He is told by his commander to start Plan 2.

Steed visits Quilby’s house, noticing a sign saying “Enter at your own risk” and quaint old taxi with purple curtains parked outside. Inside the lab in the basement, Professor Quilby (Roy Kinnear) and his assistant, Ackroyd (Jonathan Elsom) are conducting some explosive experiments which make Steed take cover just as he enters. Steed introduces himself as being from the Ministry of Defence and discovers Quilby is an absent-minded inventor of useless items — the self-thrusting bayonet, jet-propelled army boot, rain-activated explosive, and submission 144 — his special formula:

QUILBY: You take a teaspoon at night, and you wake up invisible.
STEED: (smiling) Invisible… (reacts) Invisible?!!
QUILBY: I made it quite clear when I sent it to Lord Daviot.

Quilby admits he has sold it to the Eastern Drug Company — to the astonishment of Steed and the devious Ackroyd — for £100,000⁴ and has since lost his only copy in an explosion while working on a nuclear device. Ulric watches Steed leave and radios the Major with the good news…

Meanwhile, Emma arrives at Daviot Hall, passing a Jaguar saloon in the driveway. She hears a blood-curdling scream and a splash as she reaches the door and goes to investigate. The assailant escapes in the Jaguar leaving Lord Daviot dead, face down in the ornamental pond.

Emma tells Steed about Daviot, and he reveals the buyer of Quilby’s formula is a front for Ambassador Brodny and his cohorts at an Eastern Bloc embassy, which is being visited by Major Vazin and his wife Elena, two of their top spies — she’s being watched but the Major hasn’t been seen since he arrived, which makes Emma make a quip.

EMMA: (SMILING) Perhaps he’s sampled some of Quilby’s formula.
STEED: (LAUGHS)
(BOTH STOP SMILING AND STARE AT EACH OTHER IN SURPRISE)

At the Embassy, Brodny (Warren Mitchell) enters the guest apartments, looking for Major Vazin and finds the shower running while having no-one visible inside it.⁵ He’s about to check the cubicle when Elena Vazin (Moira Redmond) stops him, telling him the Major is taking a shower.

Brodny is worried about the withdrawal of £250,000⁶ from the embassy account, which she dismisses.

BRODNY: Well, you see the tourist allowance is 12 units a day, now you’ve been here a week, that’s… seven twelves are …
(HE STARTS COUNTING ON HIS FINGERS)
BRODNY: Three sevens are twenty-one…

Elena claims it was at the order of the Supreme Central Committee and produces the authority⁷ from her stocking garter, saying the funds were for a secret weapon.

Brodny rechecks the shower cubicle and finds it definitely empty with the water off, and returns to the office to see the Major’s seems to be in his office chair — the chair spins round and Brodny faints when he sees a headless man in a dressing gown!

Act 2

Brodny comes to and is agog as he accepts a drink from the seemingly invisible Major — who swivels his chair around, squirts the soda siphon, opens and closes drawers and windows and so on. The Major explains they’ve bought Quilby’s formula so they can build an invisible army to penetrate their enemies’ defences.

ELENA: Of course, the British suspect. You have heard of a man called John Steed?
BRODNY: Oh yes, yes, I have know him for years. A man of many talents; of excellent taste; a good friend- (realises his faux pas) — A sworn enemy!

Ackroyd rings the embassy, seeking £100,000 of his own to ‘forget’ what he knows about the formula and Elena arranges a meeting. Brodny is aghast at another £100,000 being spent, but Elena takes a gun from the drawer instead, grimly observing, “We will pay him”.

Elena leaves, followed by Emma in her Lotus, while the guard allows Steed to slip into the embassy to see Brodny, who is just taking leave of the Major. He opens the door to find Steed and panics and slams the door shut. The Major reassures him he won’t be seen and Steed is let in.

They banter, and Steed notices cigars and vodka which Brodny hates,⁸ and Elena’s photo. He mentions Quilby’s formula has been offered to them — “A fraud, of course” — but Steed thought he ought to warn his old friend.

BRODNY (unconvincingly): An invisible man? (laughs loudly)
BRODNY (cont’d): I would see through that immediately.

Brodny lets slip how much he thinks Vazin has paid for it, then back tracks awkwardly when Steed suggests he has been approached.⁹

Steed further incommodes Brodny with insinuations about an affair between Brodny and Elena, likening her to his blonde secretary, and plants a bug on her photo as Brodny tries to usher him out of the office.

Outside, Steed smiles as he tunes in to the bug and hears the Major reprimand Brodny for his stupidity and point out the bug on the photo, which Brodny then crushes underfoot.

Meanwhile, Elena arrives at the rendezvous and is about to shoot Ackroyd when Mrs. Peel turns up, scaring him off. Elena contacts Vazin, who chases Emma in his Jaguar, trying to run her off the road. They skid to a halt after narrowly avoiding crashing into a truck and she sees the headless driver take off, leaving his hat — labelled ‘Major A. Vazin’ — behind.

Act 3

At her flat, Steed and Emma listen to the recording from Steed’s bug and Emma suggests Vazin came in after he left but Steed says Brodny was quivering with fear the whole time. Wondering if Vazin really could have been invisible, they discuss the scientific basis of the formula.

She goes on to say she didn’t see who Elena was talking to, but describes the old taxi which Steed remembers from Quilby’s house. Steed revisits Quilby who is testing another explosive and has scant recall about his invisibility formula¹⁰ — and learns it was Elena who bought the formula.

QUILBY: Most enchanting, a regular little Martha Barry. No, no, that’s me auntie, or was it me niece? Hari Cari.
STEED: Mata Hari?
QUILBY: That was the chap, yeah.
STEED: There’s more than just a resemblance. She’s the modern equivalent.
QUILBY (worried): Enemy agent?
STEED: Yes, Mr. Quilby.
QUILBY: Oh no!!! No …. what have I done? What have I done?

Distraught that he has unwittingly betrayed his country, Quilby decides he will not accept the money and is determined to rediscover the formula, with the help of Bertha.

STEED: Bertha? Is she another relative?
QUILBY: (confused) I don’t think so. No, she’s a hamster.
STEED (bending down to look in the cage): Hello, Bertha.
QUILBY: Very patriotic is Bertha.

When asked about the taxi, Quilby says that Ackroyd had taken the car out earlier, and has probably gone for a stroll in a nearby park. Quilby gets back to trying to rediscover his formula while Steed rushes out to avoid the inevitable explosion and goes to the park where Ackroyd is on the phone, arranging another meeting with Elena.

Ackroyd is shocked when Steed turns up, but warms to him when Steed suggests he is in the market for his information. They’re interrupted by the park turnstile that starts clicking as it rotates by itself. and swings starting to move by themselves, which worries Ackroyd. Steed goes to investigate and finds a cigar stub in the bushes then hears the swings squeaking and rushes back to find all the swings and roundabouts moving by themselves and Ackroyd’s dead body on the roundabout.¹¹

Steed receives a call from Quilby claiming that he’s rediscovered the formula — but after he hangs up we see he has been ordered at gunpoint to say so. Steed leaves Emma to her chemistry experiments and returns to Quilby’s house. When he arrives he finds Quilby lying on the floor¹², and Bertha the hamster apparently invisible, her hamster wheel spinning madly with no hamster visible inside. When Steed kneels down to check Quilby, Vazin creeps up, grabs a pestle from the workbench and Steed is struck down by the headless Major Vazin¹³ before he can learn anything more.

Act 4

At the Embassy, Vazin says he’s taken care of Steed and they will move on to the final phase two. A short time later, Mrs. Peel is working on her chemistry experiments when someone rings the doorbell. She opens it to find no-one there but there is a discarded cigar butt on the floor. When she re-enters her flat the door slams behind her and she is chloroformed and abducted by the Major.

Steed comes to and sees that Bertha’s cage has been taken. He escapes from the lab by blowing the door off the hinges with an improvised explosive. Emma meanwhile regains consciousness in the Embassy, where Elena orders Brodny to guard her, handing him a gun.

Steed knocks out a guard and enters the Embassy through a side window while in the apartment Mrs. Peel is being introduced to the seemingly invisible Major Vazin.

VAZIN’s VOICE: So you see, Mrs. Peel, Quilby was not such a fool after all. Did you imagine we would pay a hundred thousand for a worthless formula?
ELENA: But it is a pity you were so inquisitive. We have no intention of allowing you to inform the Ministry. Brodny.
BRODNY: You want me to … ?
ELENA: No, put her in Ulric’s room. He will deal with her.

Brodny worriedly motions the pistol at her to get her to move. He panics when she slams the door in his face behind her and he runs into it, slapstick fashion. When he bustles into the hallway she is waiting, leaning causally on a pillar.

In the office, the Vazins plan to return home, fully expecting Mrs. Peel will escape and warn the Ministry of Defence of the formula’s efficacy.

Sure enough, she does escape by tricking the dim Brodny, who tries to rush her after being disarmed and ends up falling out the window into the guard dog pen. Suspicious of the ease of her escape, Emma heads back toward the Vazins’ apartment.

Steed reaches the apartment first and, taking cover in a side room, discovers a control room full of switches, computer banks, and a microphone and monitor. Mrs. Peel knocks out Ulric then confronts Elena with the gun she took from Brodny.

ELENA: You are very foolish, Mrs. Peel, you cannot escape from here.
EMMA: No? It’s been child’s play so far. Such stringent precautions. No guards in reception… Brodny with an empty gun…
ELENA: The fool, he will pay for that.
EMMA: But you gave it to him. If I’m wrong, do forgive me.

She pulls the trigger, proving that she was supposed to escape. They fight and Elena is finally knocked out by a cabinet drawer that mysteriously opens by itself.
Emma smiles when Steed gets on the P.A. and demonstrates a few of the remotely controlled doors and windows, then directs Emma to the control room from which the fraud was perpetrated, the setup including cameras in the ministry offices. Mrs. Peel supposes Ackroyd knew the formula was useless and nearly wrecked their plan to convince them there was an invisible man.

STEED: We’d report to the Government, they’d divert every available scientist…
EMMA: From vital research…
STEED: Onto a completely useless project…
EMMA: The cost might ruin our economy.

While they’re talking, the headless Vazin enters with his gun drawn but Emma slams him with the automated door and Steed belts him in the stomach — they discover he is a much smaller man wearing a built-up torso disguise.¹⁴

When Brodny staggers back in, dirty, cut and bruised with torn clothes after his encounter with the guard dogs, Steed playfully squirts him with the remote-controlled soda siphon as Brodny begs the Major not to be sent back East.

BRODNY: Don’t send me home, please- it’s so cold! Major, I don’t want to go home. I have tickets for the next Beatles concert¹⁵ and I am learning to play cricket.
EMMA AND STEED LAUGH

Epilogue

Back at Emma’s apartment, she pretends her chemistry apparatus has become invisible and does a mime of using the invisible equipment. She then produces a slide that reads “I’M HUNGRY”. Steed proposes lunch, and gets his 1909 Rolls-Royce out of mothballs for the occasion. He has trouble crank starting it, and it takes off on its own when they give it a push start, they end up chasing it down the driveway.

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1. Dodgy Steed. He mentions the dozen clerks and when Mrs. Peel reminds not to forget the four secretaries he wistfully sighs, “Mmmm, indeed not”. ⭮
2. In a lovely bit of direction, the camera pans down as it looks at the empty hallway, as though following an invisible person as the sound of footsteps nears, it slows and pans as they near the door. ⭮
3. As is usually the case, the country invloved is never mentioned but the actors all put on thick Russian accents. ⭮
4. Steed and Ackroyd are rightly astonished — £100,000 would be between £1,500,000 and £2,000,000 in 2023 terms. ⭮
5. The Get Smart episode Now You See Him, Now You Don’t (October 1965) has a very similar plot to this episode but in that the shower trick doesn’t fool the victim as the water is noted to be flowing straight. ⭮
6. That’s between £3,810,000 and £5,473,000 in 2023 terms. ⭮
7. Apparently signed by “Him, himself”. It’s unclear if Brodny means the First Secretary of the Communist Party, Leonid Brezhnev, or the Head of the KGB, Vladimir Semichastny. ⭮
8. This is a reference to Brodny’s previous appearance in Two’s a Crowd where he was a thoroughly Westernised diplomant with a hatred of Vodka. ⭮
9. There’s a slight problem with this, as Brodny cites the £250,000 the Vazins have taken rather than the £100,000 paid to Quilby, so Steed is fishing a bit as he pressures Brodny. ⭮
10. He keeps on changing the ingredients for similar sounding ones, and at one point substitutes polonium for the even rarer promethium, and then saying “It had 93 ingredients and 39 processes … or was it 39 ingredients and 93 processes?” ⭮
11. A visual idea that is revisited in Game. ⭮
12. It’s not clear if Quilby is dead or knocked out. Steed listens to his chest but is knocked out shortly after. After the ad break, a shot of Quilby shows Roy Kinnear breathing lightly but he might not meant to be. ⭮
13. It’s very Scooby Doo (yes, I know that was 9 years later). ⭮
14. It is Scooby Doo! ⭮
15. The producers couldn’t know it but the Beatles had already played their last concert, at Candlestick Park Stadium in San Francisco, on 29th August 1966; this episode wasn’t broadcast until January & February 1967. ⭮