Series 6 — Episode 16
Killer

Regional broadcasts

Broadcaster	Date	Time
Thames Television	22/01/1969	8.00pm
ATV Midlands	2/05/1969	8.00pm
Granada Television	4/05/1969	8.25pm
Anglia Television	11/06/1969	8.00pm
Border Television	29/01/1969	8.00pm
Channel Television	28/06/1969	8.25pm
Grampian Television	24/01/1969	7.30pm
Southern Television	2/04/1969	8.00pm
Scottish Television	24/04/1969	8.00pm
Tyne Tees Television	22/01/1969	8.00pm
Ulster Television	2/05/1969	9.00pm
Westward Television	28/06/1969	8.25pm
Harlech Television	2/05/1969	8.00pm
Yorkshire Television	25/01/1969	8.30pm

TV Times listing

International broadcasts

Broadcaster	Date	Time
ABN2 Sydney, Australia	14/03/1969	8.00pm
ABQ2 Brisbane, Australia	18/04/1969	8.00pm
ABV2 Melbourne, Australia	25/02/1969	8.30pm
ABS2 Adelaide, Australia	20/03/1969	8.00pm
ABC New York, USA	30/12/1968	7.30pm
ORTF2 France	12/10/1973	8.35pm
Suisse Romande, Switzerland	29/07/1974	8.55pm
French title	Meutre au programme
ZDF Germany
German title	REMAK
KRO Netherlands	6/11/1970	9.35pm
Dutch title	De computermoord
TTI Italy	4/1/1982 C5
Italian title	Killer
Spain	20/04/1970	11.05pm
Spanish title	Asesino

Get-A-Way! was originally scheduled for February 25 1969 in Melbourne, Australia, but replaced by Killer. The Age at the time printed their full-week television listings on Thursdays and these episodes were shown the following Tuesday, so it had been rescheduled before Monday afternoon for ABC Publicity to inform the press before the type was set for the next day’s newspapers. Get-A-Way! would eventually screen in that city on April 22 1969.

ZDF Germany did not screen this episode as part of their broadcasts and Italy didn’t see it until 1982.

This episode was not shown in the initial Swiss run of series 6 in 1969, but was the one of six previously unbroadcast episodes shown there in a new run of the series in 1974.

Continuity & Trivia

1. 2:34 — The sting under the opening titles is the dramatic music from The Hidden Tiger.
2. 4:25 — Trancer had already leapt up from the couch to attack Brinstead, but in the change of angle we see him do it again.
3. 4:45 — The chase music from A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Station is used when Brinstead and Merridon chase after Trancer.
4. 4:45 and throughout — Most of the loction work was filmed in Burnham Beeches. The factory is the backlot of the Elstree studios.
5. 5:10 etc. — These gates are used in Danger Man ("The Professionals") and in Never, Never Say Die — they’re actually those of Haberdasher’s Askes School.
6. 8:47 — Jennifer Croxton, in the commentary for this episode, reveals that Patrick Newell, like William Hartnell in Doctor Who, uses to sticks bits of paper about the set to remind him of his lines.
7. throughout — I’ve always thought Jennifer Croxton looked a bit anorexic and the lady herself thinks that in her commentary.
8. 10:00 — Jennifer commentary also reveals that she’d been taken out to lunch — steak and a few glasses of red wine — and couldn’t remember any of her lines, so she just nods at Clark and peers at the body.
9. 10:03 — Steed asks, “How did he die?” and the forensics man, Clark, replies, “In alphabetical order, he was clubbed, poison, shot, spiked, stabbed, strangled and suffocated — and his ear drums are damaged.” Steed glances at the body and replies, “His neck’s broken as well.”
10. 12:57 — Something black falls from the ceiling at the start of the fight between Forbes and Brinstead, it might be a bit of burnt paper. Jennifer Croxton reveals that Rhonda Parker did some of her stunts, but they were mostly done by herself, including all the driving.
11. 13:27 — Musical sting from The Winged Avenger. There’s also a lot of music from Look — (stop me if you’ve heard this one) But There Were These Two Fellers… in this episode.
12. 14:32, 15:12 and throughout — The “old village mock-up owned by some bankrupt film company” is the ITC Elstree set where much of Danger Man, The Saint and The Avengers was filmed. It would be familiar to any fan of ITC or ABC television from the Sixties and was reused in “The Morning After”. It has since been demolished and a Tesco’s supermarket is on the site.
13. 15:40 — There’s a dark smudge in the top left corner of the screen in the CU of Gillars.
14. 17:11 — You can see the camera crew reflected in the front windows of the coach.
15. 17:15 — Later on, we see all the passengers in the coach are dummies but here they are people. I am not going to bother capturing their mugshots; I must draw the line somewhere.
16. 17:32 — How appropriate, the bus is a Commer Avenger V!
17. 17:40 — The pub referred to as The Pirate, Lower Storpington is actually The Crown in East Burnham.
18. 18:35 — The suspense-building music is from From Venus With Love.
19. 19:48 — Steed has a very old fashioned telephone in his Rolls-Royce.
20. 23:56 — Jennifer Croxton has a black fingernail on her left hand in this scene (which was shot in one take) — a memento of an injury sustained while filming the cart sequence which appears near the end of the episode (37:26 onwards). The cart struck her and knocked her down and she was taken to hospital. You can see the black fingernail reappear here and there throughout the rest of the episode.
21. 25:36 — There’s lens flare, caused by the ceiling light, at the bottom centre of the screen as Anthony Valentine leaves the set.
22. 34:13 — The continuity error that wasn’t. Forbes parks her MG diagonally across the very front of the pub, but at 35:00 Merridon parks in what seems to be the same spot, and there’s no sign of Forbes’ car. All is revealed at 36:00, her car is further along, past the pergola while Merridon’s is near the sign for the pub.
23. 37:14 — Is it the same cart they used in The Superlative Seven?
24. 38:20–38:27 — The casual racism of the Sixties — Diana’s references to an “oriental trick” and bidding Steed “sayonara” make me cringe.
25. 42:10 — Does Steed’s bowler now have more buckshot holes than before?
26. 42:35 — Remak detects that Steed is 6′ 1″ and 175lb, later adding the collar size 15½. It gives him the reference number 04/ZX/2. This is different to what Anjali calculates in Escape in Time
27. 42:58–46:50 — Remak attacks Steed with:
    1. 42:58 — high pitched sound (Steed quickly puts earplugs in his ears)
    2. 43:23 — crossbow bolt (Steed ducks when he sees the projected target on his chest)
    3. 44:10 — cutting blade (chops tip off umbrella after Steed ducks under it)
    4. 44:40 — crushing walls (traps the buttons of his coat)
    5. 45:10 — strangling (crushes his bowler and takes his umbrella)
    6. 45:40 — electric ray (burns his overcoat to ashes)
    7. 46:15 — motion-detecting machine gun (shoots his jacket; he screams and the computer concludes he is finally dead)
28. Running time: 50′19″

The Transport

Marque	Colour	Number
Morris J2 Luton 1962 removals van	blue	844 ...
Lotus Europa S2 Pre-production [Type 54] 1968	silver	PPW 999F
Wolesley 1100 1967	black	SNP 616E
Daimler 2.5 V8	silver	MMK 743C
MGC 1968	white	BWM 300G
Commer Avenger V HX441 coach with bodywork by Owen	buff	616 BYP
Hughes 300 (269B) helicopter 1965	buff	G-AVZC
Rolls-Royce 40/50 h.p. ‘Silver Ghost’ 1923 H.J.Mulliner tourer (chassis number 46LK)	pale lemon	KK 4976
Morris 1300 Mk II 1968	black	BNL ...?
Austin A110 Westminster 1963	grey	244 VFK

Who’s Killing Whom?

Victim	Killer	Method
Wilkington	REMAK	clubbed, poisoned, shot, spiked, stabbed, strangled, suffocated, neck broken
Trancer	Brinstead	shot
Freddie	Merridon	strangled
Gillars	REMAK	crushed
Calvin	REMAK	garrotted
Lawson	REMAK	heart piereced by a sharp instrument
Chattell	REMAK	?
REMAK	John Steed	ordered to self-destruct
Merridon	John Steed	killed by explosion of self-destructing Remak

The Fashions

Tara pale blue knit minidress with long sleeves, later with a matching jacket soft pink bouse and maroon high-waisted trousers Lady Diana purple open neck blouse and magenta tailored bermuda shorts, blue neckerchief, wide oxblood belt and matching calf boots bright yellow blouse and powder blue hipsters, brown neckerchief with gold dots herringbone brown & red overcoat, knee length, with integrated belt and flapped pockets, red buttons and round buckle, bright red boots black rollneck skivvy and widebrimmed hat, with red trousers and a maroon cardigan, thigh length, maroon shoes

Steed brown three-piece suit with pale yellow shirt and dark brown paisley tie, brown bowler navy two piece suit with pale lilac shirt and light blue paisley tie, blue bowler grey suit (felt collar) with lilac shirt and metallic maroon tie, grey bowler dark grey three-piece suit with pale brown shirt, paisley tan/pink/yellow tie and grey bowler, grey shoes; later with a beige overcoat with a buff felt collar brown suit with felt collar, brown bowler, pale buff shirt and brown paisley tie