Series 5 — Episode 10
Never, Never Say Die

Production

Production dates: 23 January to 21 February 1967, some post-production (post-synch and sound effects) on 22-23 February and 3 March 1967.

Only progress report 16 some mentions on progress reports for The Superlative Seven are held in the archives. Progress report 16 shows the episode had taken 9½ days in studio and 6½ on location, with ten days allotted, and 6 days allotted to the Second Unit. The progress report shows that the episode was 1½ days behind schedule. It does not seem to be the last report for the episode, as it records an additional 13.54 in studio and 1.00 on location still being required, so it’s quite possible that filming with the Second Unit or Third Unit continued up to 23 February. Progress reports 2-4 for The Superlative Seven have sections for this episode, showing music and scenes with doubles and stand-ins recorded on February 20,

Another cracking science fiction oriented script from Philip Levene was approved straight away, now that the series had embraced science fiction and Philip was central to the direction of the show. This is in contrast to the previous series when Brian Tesler, Production Controller for ABC Television, would routinely complain about Levene’s science fiction plots. Robert Day had a coup is casting by managing to hire Christopher Lee to play Professor Frank N. Stone; Lee of course was famous for playing Frankenstein’s monsters in a series of horror films which the viewing public would have known well.

The script had a lot of late revisions, presumably with Day working with Levene to refine the episode, and the scenes with the soldiers were completely rewritten, as was the finding of Stone’s cottage - originally by Mrs. Peel, who was attacked by Stone, and the final battle, which had Dr James added to it. Laurie Johnson composed new themes especially for this episode, as well as riffing his music from the thematically-similar The Cybernauts (another Philip Levene script).

Robert Day directed a very open episode, using a large amount of location shooting: the war memorial on Tollgate Road, North Mymms saw Professor Stone burst out of the back of an ambulance and march into the woods; the access road for the British Rail Centre near Watford had Whittle driving along it, shortly before crashing into Professor Stone - but that was filmed at Silver Hill; the hospital exterior was shot at a now demolished outer building at Haberdashers’ Aske’s School, Aldenham Road, Elstree; when Whittle ran Stone over a second time, it was at Buckettsland Lane, Well End; Steed drives past Aldenham Wood Lodge, Elstree on the way to the Neoteric Research Unit, the gates of which are at the front of Haberdashers’ Aske’s School - the rest of the NRU was studio sets; the old gent with the toy boat was filmed at Tyke’s Water Lake, as were the other random attack scenes, and the dirt road from Watling Street to the lake was used for Emma approaching Aerial Cottage, and for all the shots of cars going to Stone’s cottage in the woods.

Additional cast and crew

• Cyd Child, Eddie Powell and Rocky Taylor were stunt doubles used in production, as recorded on the 14 February 1967 progress report.
• The progress report for 22 February 1967 lists Jeffry Wickram and Tim Barrat (sic) as doing post-synch from 2pm. Tim Barrett later appeared in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station while Barry Johnson did some foley artist work.
• Stella Tanner recorded post-synch on 23 February, presumably for the Carolinan chess player and it seems likely she also performed the body shots, although those records are lost. While Stella was recording her lines, Ann Selwyn and Barry Johnson were redording more sound effects.
• All the additional crew mentioned in the progress reports have been added to the crew page.

Regional broadcasts

Broadcaster	Date	Time
Rediffusion London	17/03/1967	8.00pm
ABC Midlands	18/03/1967	9.10pm
ABC North	18/03/1967	9.10pm
Anglia Television	17/03/1967	8.00pm
Border Television	19/03/1967	8.10pm
Channel Television	15/03/1967	8.00pm
Grampian Television	24/01/1968	8.00pm
Southern Television	12/05/1967	8.00pm
Scottish Television	18/03/1967	9.10pm
Tyne Tees Television	15/03/1967	8.00pm
Ulster Television	1/02/1968	7.30pm
Westward Television	15/03/1967	8.00pm
Television Wales & West	17/03/1967	8.00pm

TV Times listing

International broadcasts

Broadcaster	Date	Time
ABN2 Sydney, Australia	6/06/1967	8.00pm
ABQ2 Brisbane, Australia	10/07/1967	7.30pm
ABV2 Melbourne, Australia	5/06/1967	8.00pm
ABS2 Adelaide, Australia	18/07/1967	7.30pm
ABC New York, USA	31/03/1967	10.00pm
ORTF2 France	13/10/1968	8.00pm
Suisse Romande, Switzerland	29/01/1968	9.10pm
French title	Interférences
ZDF Germany	7/11/1967	9.20pm
German title	Duplikate gefällig?
KRO Netherlands	21/10/1969	9.10pm
Dutch title	Ontmoeting met een dode / Onsterfelijk ?
Svizzera Italiana	28/06/1974	9.00pm
Italian title	gli indistruttibili*
Spain	29/01/1968	4.10pm
Spanish title	Jamás, pero jamás, digas: ¡muere! / Nunca digas morir

* Italian listings showed this as 10pm, as Italy observed Summer Time and Switzerland did not.

Episode Rating

Subject	0–5
Direction	4½ stars
Music	4 stars
Humour	3½ stars
Intro/tag	4½ stars
Mastermind	5 stars
Plot	3½ stars
Emma	3 stars
Set Design	3 stars
Overall (0–10)	8½ stars

An engaging and thrilling episode, even if it becomes all too apparent what’s going on long before the denouément. Lee is superb as the humourously named Dr. Frank N. Stone (Lee having played Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster for Hammer Films prior to this rôle).

Steed interrupts a rerun of “The Cybernauts”, because he needs Mrs. Peel’s help with a corpse that will not die.
The body keeps on walking off and destroying radios. Professor Frank N. Stone of the Neoteric Research Unit is a dead ringer for the body, and Steed’s suspicions are aroused. Mrs. Peel and the local doctor are abducted and trapped within Stone’s laboratory — but Steed detects the fake doctor and rushes to the rescue. The replicant of the Professor is discovered to be the genuine article by his three-day growth, and the Avengers attempt to fight their way out. Dr. James uses Steed’s transistor radio to disable the replicants, and the Avengers discover doubles of themselves, Steed’s being marked REJECT.
The Avengers return to their television — and discover you would never be able to tell a plastic politician from a real one.

The Cars

Marque/Model	Colour	Number Plate
Morris Oxford Series IV Traveller	blue/white two tone	HOA 994D
Austin LDO/Wandsworth 1959 Ambulance	white	YLD 259
Bedford J1 Ambulance	white	KBF 979 (Nº 53)
VW Kombi van	white/blue	-
Morris Oxford/Austin Cambridge	black	-
Triumph TR4	light blue	-
Land-Rover SWB soft-top — no canvas	dark green	VX 897
Lotus Elan S3	glacier blue	SJH 499D

Who’s Killing Whom?

Victim	Killer	Method
George Eccles	Professor F.N. Stone V*	Beaten & strangled

The Fashions

Emma’s Fashions

Steed’s Fashions

red chinese silk with purple pattern pant suit tan suede coat, high collar, white woollen skivvy, tan trousers, white boots blue catsuit with white trim (1)

grey single-breasted 3-piece suit with 4 buttons, slanted flap pockets and 2 very long vents, bowler hat & umbrella, white shirt, blue tie grey herringbone single-breasted suit, waistcoat, white shirt red tie brown and green hunting blazer with dark brown paisley cravat, houndstooth trousers, white pinstriped shirt, brown suede boots brown and green hunting blazer with dark brown paisley cravat, houndstooth trousers, pale khaki shirt, brown suede boots light grey chalk stripe single-breasted 3-piece suit, blue cravat & handkerchief dark single-breasted taupe jacket, green waistcoat brass buttons, white pinstripe shirt, dark brown cravat, beige trousers, brown bowler and chelsea boots, black umbrella black/midnight blue tuxedo with silk facings and piping on trousers, pale blue ruffled shirt, blue velvet bow tie, black dress shoes

Continuity and trivia

1. 2:26 — Nice stunt work by the stand-in Eddie Powell (or is it Christopher Lee?), rolling off the bonnet of the car.
2. 4:01 — In the intro scene where Steed appears on Mrs. Peel’s television set, she’s watching The Cybernauts from the previous season — very post-modern!
3. 4:29 — Diana Rigg looks right down the barrel of the camera as she’s looking under the gurney.
4. 4:55 — Mrs. Peel uses the unlikely expression “All the symptoms of death.” Dr. James says “yes” in reply, but it sounds like an overdub by a different actress, and the line was originally “Unless I’ve been reading the wrong text books.”
5. 6:09–6:05 — Christopher Lee walks out onto a different stretch of road than the rest of the action takes place on (6:11), and the stuntman doesn’t land next to a puddle by a side road either — he hits his head on the rear wheel of the car, which must have hurt!
6. 7:55 — Is Steed long-sighted? The way he holds the MOT-NRU note suggests so.
7. 10:42 onwards — The old man is steering his RC model boat around Tyke’s Water Lake.
8. 10:51–12:26 — the close-ups of the hands on the controller don’t look like Arnold Ridley’s hands, and the sleeves are orange-brown rathen than beige.
9. 13:43 / 14:44 etc. — Professor Stone’s replicant is shot several times in the chest by the Sergeant, but when we next see him marching through the woods the holes have gone.
10. 14:46 — You can see the shadow of the camera on the ambulance.
11. 16:12 — Penrose is wearing an Old Etonian tie.
12. 16:38 — It’s a lovely studio set for the outside of Professor Stone’s cottage but the backdrop we see when he goes in (16:45) is very artificial.
13. 
    16:45 and throughout — The somewhat obvious painted backdrop seen through the door of the cottage reappears in Epic in the scenes with the church — and it’s wrong for this episode, as the woods outside are much denser than the backdrop looks. Not only that, but it’s Winter outside in the woods, with barely a leaf on the branches, and the backdrop here shows full Summer.
14. 
    16:50 — If Professor Stone’s cottage has “not been lived in for weeks” (32:33), how come there’s a fresh loaf of bread, a pat of butter, half-eaten sandwich and a tankard on the table?
15. 17:32 — The diary page that Steed walks away has a different message from the close-up.
16. 17:57 — Patrick Macnee has a stunt double for the fight scenes — it’s Rocky Taylor — and while Christopher Lee does most of his, Bill Cummings stands in for the scene (18:42) in which he’s captured by the NRU men.
17. 18:36 — Professor Stone has a copy of Venus: Our Sister Planet from From Veuns with Love in the bookshelf that Steed falls against.
18. 20:01 — Steed goes back for his bowler hat but leaves his shotgun behind (it doesn’t reappear, so this isn’t technically a continuity error — he’s just forgetful).
19. 20:12 — The film is sped up for when Steed jogs through the woods to make him look like he’s running.
20. 20:50 — There’s a stand-in for Steed driving the Land Rover, it might be Mike Jarvis.
22:38 — grey suit
21. 23:18 — Stone is wearing a Keeble College, Oxford, bow tie. It ought to be him weating the Old Etonian tie as Christopher Lee and Patrick Macnee were in the same form together at Eton.
22. 24:14 and throughout — There’s a hair caught on the camera lens, on the right hand side of the screen, for Diana’s close-ups when she’s near the door inside the cottage.
23. 30:16 — Similar to Something Nasty in the Nursery, Steed’s outfit is swapped alarmingly when he’s entering and leaving buildings. When he leaves the Neoteric Research Unit the first time, he’s seen passing the Transistor Radio warning in the suit he wears on his second visit.
24. 30:51 — you can see the top of the corridor set, showing there’s no ceiling, at to top right of the screen.
25. 32:45–34:05 — there’s a thick thread stuck to the camera lens at bottom centre in the shots of Stone and Penrose.
26. 37:04 — Homage to Hammer & Amicus Film as Lee recreates his waking vampire in the close-up.
27. 38:20 — the small wad of folded notes Mrs. Peel draws from behind the drawer doesn’t look anything like the pile of A3 she’s holding a second later.
28. 40:22 — How does Penrose know who Mrs. Peel is when he asks for her to hand over the plans?
29. 42:25 — How come the duplicate Dr. James can’t smash through the door?
30. 44:47 — the close-up of the computer lights is taken from The Hidden Tiger.
31. 49:30 — Our first sight of Emma’s redecorated flat, but it’s very brief.
32. 49:30 — Moët et Chandon product placement.
33. Running time: 51′19″