The Mind of Mr J. G. Reeder, season one

The Mind of Mr J. G. Reeder is a 1969 British television series based on the exploits of one of Edgar Wallace’s most interesting heroes. It was made by Thames TV in 1969, with a second season following in 1971.

Mr J. G. Reeder is a quietly spoken middle-aged man who seems on the surface to be as ineffectual as he is harmless. But appearances can be deceptive. He is in fact a man who strikes terror into the hearts of England’s most dangerous criminals. Mr Reeder likes to say that he has himself a criminal mind, so completely does he understand the psychology of crime.

Mr Reeder works for the Office of the Public Prosecutor. The cases that come to his attention are ones that are beyond the powers of Scotland Yard to solve. These cases are extraordinarily ingenious but that’s by no means the main attraction of this series. The chief interest is the personality of Mr Reeder. Hugh Burden’s performance is superlative. He manages to make Mr Reeder seem both meek and bumbling while at the same time being both brilliant and dangerous. He really is a joy to watch.

Mr Reeder is most certainly not the sort of man to become involved in any dalliances with the fairer sex, or at least that was the case until quite by chance he made the acquaintance of a rather charming young lady, a Miss Bellman. Miss Bellman was involved in one of Mr Reeder’s cases, and indeed would be involved in several more. And, against the odds, it seems that romance may have entered the life of Mr J. G. Reeder. This unexpected romantic entanglement gradually develops over the course of the first series (as it did in the Edgar Wallace short story collection).

Willoughby Goddard hams it up outrageously as Mr Reeder’s bombastic and ridiculously vain and selfish boss, Sir Jason Toovey. 

The 1920s setting of the stories is captured very well even though the series was made in black-and-white. 

The one jarring note is the perfectly dreadful theme music. In fact the incidental music is equally horrible. It sounds like a demented banjo player trying to conjure up a 1920s mood and failing dismally.

The tone of the show is very tongue-in-cheek and very over-the-top. The guest stars ham it up to a quite excessive degree. This was the 1960s and despite the 1920s setting the tone is actually very 60s. This very exaggerated approach could have been irritating but Edgar Wallace’s own style was rather outrageous so in this instance it works surprisingly well.

The eight episodes in the first season are all based on actual stories by Edgar Wallace.

This was one of those series that was a little unlucky in its timing. Although some British series were being shot in colour as early as the mid-60s this was not yet the customary practice. The fact that The Mind of Mr J. G. Reeder is in black-and-white (apart from two episodes of the second season from 1971 which are in colour) has counted against it. TV networks have had zero interest in screening old TV shows made in black-and-white and so series such as this have been entirely forgotten, in many cases (such as this one) most unjustly.

Network DVD have released both seasons (a total of 16 episodes) in one boxed set. The transfers are reasonably good.

The Mind of Mr J. G. Reeder is a deliciously offbeat crime series with a flavour very much its own. For fans of 1960s cult television this really is a must-buy. Very highly recommended.

Space: 1999, season one (1975)

Space: 1999 was the most ambitious of all Gerry Anderson’s science fiction television series, and is in some ways the most controversial. Hardcore Gerry Anderson fans are somewhat divided on its merits and the division is even more marked in relation to the second series. The series, which went to air from 1975 to 1977,  had a troubled and rather unhappy production history and even its most ardent fans accept that it failed to achieve its full potential.

It’s a series that Anderson had never planned to do. He was all set to do a further season of UFO and had exciting plans for the series when Lew Grade dropped the bombshell that he was cancelling the show. Anderson, typically, did some quick thinking and came up with a concept for an all-new show that would utilise some of the ideas he’d been working on for the projected but ultimately abortive new season of UFO which was to have been set largely on the Moon (and was to have been called UFO: 1999). The visual design of Space: 1999 incorporated many of the ideas that had been intended for UFO: 1999.

He sold Lew Grade on his ideas and got the go-ahead to do Space: 1999. It would be a very big-budget production indeed - the most expensive TV series yet made in Britain (in fact the most expensive science fiction made anywhere up to that point). That naturally meant that it absolutely had to do well in the US and as a result Anderson found himself forced to cast Americans in the two lead roles. That proved to be a fateful decision. Martin Landau and Barbara Bain saw the series as a starring vehicle for themselves and the contracts they negotiated guaranteed that they would dominate the series. This meant that the supporting actors were pushed into the background and their characters became mere ciphers. Landau (who had turned down the role of Spock in Star Trek) was a fine actor so the focus on his character wasn’t too much of a problem but Barbara Bain’s slightly lifeless performance was a definite drawback. To be fair Landau and Bain did work extremely hard to promote the series.

Signing Barry Morse to play the show’s resident scientist was another unfortunate decision. Morse hated the series and he particularly hated Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Morse clearly wanted the series to be more character-driven and he seemed unable to understand that given their track record Gerry and Sylvia Anderson might actually have known more about making a successful science fiction series than he did.

Despite these behind-the-scenes troubles Space: 1999 did have some very strong things going for it. Anderson’s technical people had plenty of experience in TV science fiction and this time they had serious money to play with. The production values are extremely high, the special effects and the miniatures work are superb and the large amount of money spent on the show paid dividends. Forty years later it still looks terrific.

The sets are very impressive, and for a 1970s series the costume design holds up fairly well. Moonbase Alpha looks convincing and the Eagle transporters are very cool.

The opening episode, Breakaway, sets things up very effectively. Moonbase Alpha is to launch the first manned space mission to a distant planet. Planning for the mission has been disrupted by a series of mysterious deaths. Moonbase Alpha’s new commander, John Koenig (Martin Landau), is determined not to give the go-ahead to launch until these deaths can be explained. The base’s chief medical officer Dr Helena Russell (Barbara Bain) is puzzled and worried. Chief scientific officer Victor Bergman (Barry Morse) is equally mystified. The cause is finally determined to be magnetic disturbances caused by radioactive waste dumps, but the big problem is that the entire Moon is now a gigantic bomb. Moonbase Alpha faces destruction but its actual fate turns out to be much stranger as the Moon is hurled out of Earth orbit into space. The tension is built up with great skill and the forceful but charismatic personality of John Koenig is immediately established. He’s the sort of man who will face any crisis without flinching.

In Matter of Life and Death it appears that the crew of Moonbase Alpha may have found  new home, an Earth-like planet on which they can settle. Of course things turn out to be more complicated. The scenes on the planet surface, while obviously filmed on a sound stage, look pretty good by the standards of alien planets in television series.

These two episodes establish the series as a sort of cross between Star Trek, with encounters with strange new worlds and alien life forms, and a more serious version of Lost in Space with its theme of the search for an alternative home. The latter theme seemed to become less prominent in Year 2.

Space: 1999 was certainly prepared to tackle big philosophical questions, with the episode Black Sun being clearly very influenced by Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Death’s Other Dominion is another fine episode that deals with big concepts - immortality for the individual versus survival of the species. Ring Around the Moon, with its ambiguous alien intelligence, was also typical of the bold approach of season one. Aliens were often dangerous not because they were overtly hostile or monstrous but simply because they had their own agenda and were indifferent to humanity’s fate.

There’s also a faint hint that science alone may not the answer to everything and that there may be a purpose to the universe, although a purpose that is mysterious and inscrutable.

Brian Johnson’s special effects quite rightly attracted a lot of praise. Production designer Keith Wilson also did a fine job although his original concepts for Moonbase Alpha (which was to have been called Moon City) were rather more stark and austere than than the final version we saw on screen.

Season one tried very hard not to get locked into a battles in space formula and on the whole it probably deserved to be taken more seriously than it was. It was an odd mix of often very silly pseudoscience and serious philosophical speculation. It stands up surprisingly well today. It’s certainly a must-see for sci-fi fans and if you have fond memories of this show you will find it’s worth taking another look at it. Highly recommended.

Doctor Who - The Krotons (1968)

The Krotons was the fourth serial in season six of Doctor Who and originally aired in late 1968 and early 1969. This four-parter is one of the few Second Doctor serials to survive in its entirety. It illustrates some of the strengths and weaknesses of the series at that time.

This was the first Doctor Who story penned by Robert Holmes who would go on to write much better stories for the series.

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe arrive in an unnamed planet inhabited by a humanoid race called the Gonds. The Gonds are not however the rulers of the planet. They are held in absolute subjection by the Krotons although no-one has ever seen a Kroton. The Krotons are assumed to live inside “the machine” and issue their instructions via a disembodied electronic voice or in writing. The Gonds are only allowed to learn what the Krotons teach them through their “teaching machines” in the Hall of Learning. Periodically the two most promising Gond students are selected to serve as companions to the Krotons. They disappear through a door and are never seen again. As we will later learn they are drained of their mental energies and then destroyed.

The arrival of the Doctor and his party precipitates a crisis. The Doctor and Zoe have much greater mental capacities than any of the Gonds and the Krotons intend to use their mental energies to achieve something they have been trying to achieve for a thousand years, but the Krotons are about to face a serious challenge to their rule.

It’s not a great story but it’s perfectly adequate. It’s the execution that is the problem. The sets are uninteresting and the costumes are dull although Zoe’s costume (apparently made from plastic-coated paper) is quite startling and rather appealing.

The Krotons must be among the most embarrassingly silly monsters in the whole history of Doctor Who. In the audio commentary Bobi Bartlett, who was responsible for the costumes, makes the valid point that the design of the Krotons should have been treated as a special effect rather than being left to the costume department. I’m sure she did her best on the pitiful BBC budget but the Krotons just don’t work at all. Even a small child would be more likely to react to them with laughter than with terror. Doctor Who was never given anywhere near the budget a science fiction series required. Most of the time the budgetary constraints are overcome by the sheer imagination and ingenuity of the technical staff but there were serials that did suffer very badly from the inadequate funding and this is one of them.

The acting is fine. Philip Madoc, who would go on to feature in many Doctor Who adventures, is the standout as the ambitious and unscrupulous Eelek. Madoc steals every scene he’s in, as he always did.

I have mixed feelings about Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor. I appreciate the fact that he was trying to make his interpretation of the role as different as possible from William Hartnell’s and I think that was a sound idea. Hartnell’s First Doctor was crotchety and rather arrogant so Troughton makes his Doctor whimsical, amiable and at times not entirely sure of himself. That’s all fine and good but for my tastes he overdoes the whimsicality just a little. I also feel the the Second Doctor is not quite alien enough compared to the First Doctor. The Doctor is not human and while he’s generally well disposed towards humans he is not one of us and he has his own agendas. This aspect of the Doctor’s character seems to me to be under-emphasised by Troughton.

Jamie (Frazer Hines) is always fun and he gets a pretty reasonable fight scene in the opening episode of The Krotons. While the Doctor generally prefers to avoid violence, and in particular avoids engaging in violence himself, he was never a pacifist and Jamie’s fight is a good example of the Doctor’s philosophy towards violence. He is quite prepared to let others resort to violence when its necessary. In this serial the Doctor is also quite prepared to encourage the Gonds in violent resistance to the Krotons. 

Brian Hodgson's sound design (which takes the place of conventional incidental music) is a highlight.

As usual the BBC’s DVD presentation is excellent with a worthwhile audio commentary and some good documentary features.

The Krotons is by no means a complete failure and it’s better than its dubious reputation might suggest. All it needed was a bit more money to make the Krotons convincing and a bit more inspiration from the set designer. There are some amusing dialogue exchanges between the Doctor and Zoe, some reasonable ideas and there’s Philip Madoc in fine form, all of which are enough to make it worth a look.

Stingray (1964)

The last thing Gerry Anderson wanted to do was to work with puppets. However, having set up his own production company (AP Films), he was facing financial ruin. His company had no work at all until a woman approached him and commissioned him to make a series called The Adventures of Twizzle. To Anderson’s shock and dismay this series was to a children’s puppet series. He was in no position to refuse the offer but the experience confirmed his intense dislike of puppet series. His misery was complete when his company was commissioned to make another series - yet another puppet series.

Anderson’s distaste for puppets was in fact to be the driving force behind the immense success of his puppet series. He hated puppet series because they were crude and looked absurdly and embarrassingly unrealistic. His solution was to make a puppet series that would not suffer from these egregious faults. Puppet series made up to that time had been so awful that he was sure he could do better. The first puppet series originated by APF would be a western adventure called Four Feather Falls. It was a success but the experience convinced Anderson that he could do even better. Since the biggest problem was in trying to get the puppets to walk he would create a series in which the puppets would not have to walk - they would go everywhere in a high-tech futuristic super car. Thus was Supercar born. And Gerry Anderson, who had had as little interest in science fiction as in puppets, found himself a very successful maker of science fiction puppet TV shows.

The enormous potential of science fiction and its obvious advantages for a puppet series soon kindled his enthusiasm. Supercar was a hit but it was still a little crude. Fireball XL-5 would be much more ambitious and much more polished technically.

By 1964 Anderson could rely on the enthusiastic backing of ITC chief Lew Grade and he was able to be even more ambitious. Colour television in Britain was still some years off but it was obviously the future in the US. If you wanted to sell a series to the US it was obvious to Anderson that it would have to be in colour. This would be much more expensive but Lew Grade could see Anderson’s point and this next series would be in colour. The series was Stingray and it would turn Gerry Anderson into a pop culture phenomenon.

If there was one thing Gerry Anderson hated it was the idea of repeating himself. He’d already done flying cars and spaceships so he needed to do something different. The adventures of the crew of a high-tech submarine seemed like the perfect solution.

Stingray would also introduce a recurring motif in Anderson’s TV series - the headquarters that was either ingeniously hidden or that could be made to vanish. Marineville was a city that could disappear beneath the Earth when under attack. A major innovation with this series was the use of multiple heads for each puppet, each head having a slightly different expression.

The Anderson hero was already well-established - handsome, square-jawed but sensitive and with a sense of humour. Stingray’s Troy Tempest was a logical development of Supercar’s Mike Mercury and Fireball XL-5’s Steve Zodiac. With Fireball XL-5 Anderson, no doubt at the prompting of his wife and collaborator Sylvia, had introduced another innovation, giving his spaceship a beautiful female crew member. Stingray would go one better, with not just one but two leading female characters. This would allow for the introduction of more dramatic tension and even the possibility of a romantic triangle. Sylvia’s instinct proved to be correct - not only did leading female characters give the series more appeal to female viewers it also made the characters far more human and realistic, with genuine human emotions. For a children’s TV adventure series this was a fairly revolutionary idea, and a very successful one.

In the 1960s British television makers became obsessed with the idea of making programs with a transatlantic feel. With the United States being the world’s largest television market it seemed like a sensible strategy. So second-string American stars, or American stars whose careers were fading, were imported to play leading roles in British TV series. Gerry Anderson felt that this was rather silly - why would you for instance have an American cop in a British TV series? Anderson accepted the need to appeal to the US market but his strategy was to go all the way - to make the whole series seem American. Whether this really had the desired effect or not is an open question - to many people Thunderbirds seems like the quintessence of British pop culture. But there’s no questioning Anderson’s ability to capture the imagination of American audiences (as well as audiences everywhere else). 

If Gerry Anderson had a genius, it was a genius for never being satisfied. He always felt that things could be done better, that the look of his programs could be improved. And he communicated this sense of dissatisfaction to the people who worked for him so that they were always trying to find ways to make the shows look more realistic and more exciting.

A good example of the imaginative and innovative approach taken by Anderson’s team was their solution to the problem of filming the submarine underwater. Anderson was initially intending to film the sub in a tank of water but a better way was found. A very thin tank filmed with small fish was placed in the foreground with Stingray suspended on wires behind, rather than in, the tank.

The episodes vary quite widely, with some being very whimsical and clearly aimed at the children’s audience while others deal with more serious science fictional themes and even with interesting interpersonal conflicts (the episode The Man from the Navy being a good example with inter-service jealousies and rivalries and with Troy Tempest having to make a very tough decision).

The gradual move towards more grown-up themes in Anderson’s series would culminate in the astonishingly dark Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons in 1967.

Stingray stands up pretty well. The miniatures work is excellent and the series is consistently entertaining. 

Doctor Who - The Ark (1966)

The Ark was the sixth serial in season three of Doctor Who and was originally transmitted in March 1966. The script was by Paul Erickson and Lesley Scott. It’s a rather ambitious story although it has its problems.

The Doctor along with his companions Steven and Dodo arrive on what they believe to be the Earth. They are in a jungle and while the animals are clearly Earth animals they come from all parts of the globe. This leads Dodo to assume they have landed in Whipsnade Zoo. But if they are in a zoo, why does the ground vibrate? They soon find out that they are of course in a spaceship.

Equally importantly, they appear to have travelled a very long way into the future. The Sun is about to explode and destroy the Earth. The entire human population (and apparently the whole animal population as well) are on board the ship, reduced to micro-cells. There are however quite a number of living humans, known as the Guardians. Also on board the ship are the members of a race known as the Monoids. The Monoids seem to function as servants although they also appear to be treated well.

The arrival of the Doctor and his companions has potentially disastrous and tragic consequences. Dodo has a cold. Pretty soon several of the Guardians have caught her cold. This is a problem since these future humans have no resistance to ancient diseases and their medical knowledge is rather rudimentary given the fact that most diseases were eliminated millions of years earlier. The Guardians are frightened and dismayed by this strange malady and react in a rather unfortunate manner, putting the Doctor, Steven and Dodo on trial. This is not the wisest course of action since the Doctor is the only person who might possibly be able to treat the disease. 

This serial changes course dramatically at the end of the second episode (with a very clever and very effective end-of-episode cliffhanger). This is one of the rare occasions on which Doctor Who writers really took full advantage of the Doctor’s ability to travel in time. To say anything more would involve spoilers and it’s a clever enough idea that it would be a great pity to spoil it.

The relationship between the humans and the Monoids turns out to be not quite as it originally seemed. And the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.

This serial features two alien races. The Monoids are not a bad concept and the idea of a single eye where you would expect to see a mouth is not a bad one. On the whole though the Monoids are not really very effectively rendered. The shaggy wigs are very unfortunate and the shambling gait also tends to make them dangerously close to being comical. The Refusians are much more unconventional and they work fairly well.

The sets are quite impressive and the jungle looks rather good - it’s inhabited by a number of real animals including an elephant! The costumes of the Guardians are a bit iffy - apart from looking a bit silly they’re also rather revealing.

This is an example of Doctor Who’s ambitions outrunning its budget but generally speaking it works reasonably well. And you have to admire the production team’s willingness to be so ambitious.

This is the first serial I’ve seen featuring Steven and Dodo and as companions go they manage to be fairly personable and not actively irritating. 

The years were starting to catch up with William Hartnell and he was starting to display a worrying propensity for fluffing his lines but he was a fine actor and he doesn’t allow this to have an adverse effect on his performance. Hartnell made a huge contribution to the early success of the series by taking the role seriously and by avoiding the temptation to make the Doctor simply a loveable dotty old man. His First Doctor is prickly and has quite an ego but he is also keenly aware that his ability to travel through space and time involves heavy responsibilities. If he makes a mistake, such as bringing a deadly virus to an isolated population as he unwittingly does in this serial, the consequences can be catastrophic. So it’s not surprising that he’s sometimes rather cantankerous.

The extras accompanying the BBC’s DVD presentation include a mini-documentary arguing for the influence of H.G. Wells on The Ark. Certainly the relationship between the humans and the Monoids is rather Wellsian, Wells being fond of inserting his somewhat half-baked political ideas into his fiction. 

The Ark has some good ideas, an ambitious story and a willingness to use the time travel angle boldly. The uneven quality of the makeup and the effects are minor quibbles. 

This is a First Doctor serial that has not only survived in its entirety but in fairly good condition as well.

On the whole this is a pretty satisfying Doctor Who adventure. Recommended.

The Avengers - the Venus Smith episodes

The Avengers had originally been conceived as a vehicle for Ian Hendry. He would play Dr David Keel, a man who gets involved somewhat reluctantly in the counter-espionage business. The David Keel era lasted for one season of 26 episodes. His offsider would be the rather shadowy and cynical John Steed (Patrick Macnee). 

Production on the first season was curtailed due to an actors’ strike and by the time the cameras were ready to roll again Ian Hendry had departed. As a stop-gap Jon Rollason was brought into the show for three episodes as Dr Martin King, mainly to use up several scrips that had already been written for Ian Hendry. The intention was that Steed would become the central character in season two and he would have two glamorous female side-kicks who would appear in alternate episodes. Mrs Cathy Gale would be played by Honor Blackman while Venus Smith would be played by Julie Stevens.

Venus Smith was to be a night-club singer, and like Dr Keel she would be a somewhat unwitting accomplice for Steed. In fact both Mrs Gale and Venus Smith are to some extent manipulated by Steed who very rarely lets them know all of the facts of a case. In many cases he tells them virtually nothing at all. The personality of Steed was softened a little compared to the first season but he’s still a harder-edged and more cynical character than the more familiar Steed of the Emma Peel years.

The plan for alternating side-kicks did not quite work out. It quickly became clear that Mrs Gale was not only the more popular of the two, she was also a far more versatile character. That’s not to say that there was anything particularly wrong with Julie Stevens as an actress, but a leather-clad lady martial arts expert like Mrs Gale had more to offer the series than a very feminine jazz singer.

Venus Smith ended up featuring in just six episodes, of varying quality.

The Decapod, written by Eric Paice, marked Venus Smith’s debut. The president of a Balkan republic, Yakob Borb (Paul Stassino)  is in Britain to arrange a loan, in exchange for the use of naval bases in his country. Both his visit and the negotiations are causing concern for his own ambassador, Stepan (Philip Madoc), as well as for the British security services. No-one is quite sure how far they can trust Borb or whether he has his own agenda. Since Borb unquestionably has an eye for attractive young ladies Steed decides to use his friend, jazz singer Venus Smith, to keep an eye on the president. He doesn’t consider it necessary to tell her what’s going on. This early incarnation of Steed is rather an amoral character and he is quite happy to use people in order to achieve his objectives.

Yakob Borb is actually a bit of a charmer and Venus finds herself in danger of being swept off her feet. Meanwhile Borb’s bodyguards seem to be dying at an alarming rate. Steed (and his superiors) are not too concerned by the internal affairs of Borb’s country but they definitely do not want him to be assassinated while he is Britain. Keeping him alive may be quite a task, given that nobody knows what he is up to, or what his ambassador is up to.

Julie Stevens had almost no acting experience at this stage but she handles her role quite well. Since Venus is a singer she naturally has to sing, which she does competently enough. This episode’s biggest pluses are the performances of Paul Stassino and the always reliable Philip Madoc, both playing nicely ambiguous characters. The whole episode has a murky (and at times quite sleazy) feel which captures the world of international intrigue and espionage quite well. Everyone is prepared to double-cross everyone else, except for poor Venus who has no idea what is happening. This early version of Steed may be a good deal less likeable than the later versions but he is intriguingly duplicitous.

The biggest surprise is the opening nude scene, very daring for British television in 1962!

On the whole The Decapod is not vintage Avengers but it’s reasonably entertaining.

The second Venus Smith episode, The Removal Men (written by Roger Marshall and Jeremy Scott), starts with another nude scene! Producer Leonard White seems to have been determined to give the series a reputation for naughtiness. It’s an OK episode but Venus Smith really does not play an essential role. The episode is interesting in that Steed not only carries a gun but uses it, something he was to do rather less often in the later years of the series. This is not merely a rather amoral Steed but one who displays no hesitation whatsoever in resorting to violence when it’s necessary.

These 1962 episodes were also notable for the occasional presence of characters who act as Steed’s controllers, notably One-Ten (Douglas Muir). This idea of a controller would be revived (more successfully) in the person of Mother in the 1968 series. One-Ten does however add some humour to The Removal Men.

By the time Venus made her third appearance in Box of Tricks (written by Peter Ling and Edward Rhodes) the show had a new producer, John Bryce. He decided to give Venus a complete makeover - she now sports short hair, is noticeably more bubbly and definitely more in tune with the Swinging 60s. The original intention was that Box of Tricks would feature both Venus Smith and Cathy Gale.

The trouble with Box of Tricks is that it runs out of plot twists very quickly and after that it’s too obvious what is going on. Steed does get some witty lines however and his performance as a hypochondriac millionaire is great fun. Generally I enjoy stories involving stage magic but this script needed a bit more thought. It's still a pretty good episode.

School for Traitors involves a spy ring recruiting undergraduates at Oxford. Given that the great British universities produced more Russian spies than the KGB it’s a very believable story, which is what you’d expect from a script by James Mitchell who went on to create Callan. Although he throws in a good twist at the end Mitchell is more interested in the atmosphere of betrayal in the world of espionage than in clever plot twists. This story benefits from some interesting supporting characters, and some fine performances from the supporting cast. Anthony Nicholls as the dean and John Standing as the rather carefree but charming undergraduate East are very impressive while Melissa Stribling is a wonderful evil spider woman. Venus Smith gets to make a real contribution to the plot development. Venus and Steed seemed to be settling into a fairly affectionate relationship by this time. He still doesn’t see fit to tell her too much but in both this episode and Box of Tricks he is starting to trust her to play her part in his plans, and he is genuinely distressed when she finds herself in real danger. Overall School for Traitors works extremely well.

The Man in the Mirror by Geoffrey Orme and Anthony Terpiloff has its moments but it’s let down by sluggish pacing, and by a script that offers few surprises. This is an episode that nicely illustrates both the drawbacks and the advantages of shooting entirely in the studio. The sets are cheap and makeshift and everything is dull and grimy, but then the setting is a very rundown and very tawdry amusement hall. It all looks terrible, and yet in a way it works. The world of spies and traitors is a world as tawdry and seedy as the amusement hall, where everything is fake and shonky. It becomes very claustrophobic and even has hints of the surreal quality that ultra-cheap sets could occasionally produce in 1960s television (an example being the memorable Doctor Who episode The Mind Robber which would have failed entirely had the BBC given the producers the money for lavish sets and location shooting). We get the impression that Steed and Venus are trapped in a very cheap and very limited television set desperately trying to pretend it’s a real amusement hall and in a strange way it produces just the right atmosphere.

While Venus’s tendency to do silly things and get herself into unnecessary tight spots might exasperate modern viewers used to super-capable kickass action heroines it has to be remembered that she is very young (one remark of Steed’s suggests that the character is supposed to be only twenty) and a complete amateur. The mistakes she makes are exactly the mistakes that such a person really would make. So why does Steed use her on his cases? The obvious answer is that she is useful because she is the last person anyone would suspect of working (albeit unofficially) for the security services. And why does Venus allow herself to be used in this way? The obvious answer to that is that she’s young and it’s all terribly exciting and it’s flattering to have an older man who is obviously some kind of secret government agent wanting her help. The relationship between Steed and Venus, which seems to puzzle some fans, makes perfect sense to me. Of course it is rather cynical of Steed to use her like this but the 1962 version of Steed is arrogant enough to assume that he’ll always be able to get her out of the dangers he places her in.

The Man in the Mirror could have worked quite well with a bit more energy and if the surreal element had been pushed a little further.

We know move on to Venus’s final story, A Chorus of Frogs, almost universally regarded as being not only the best Venus Smith episode but also one of the best episodes of the entire season. And it is. It has a pretty reasonable plot and it has some of the gadgetry that would become a feature of the series in later years - a kind of mad scientist’s laboratory on board a yacht, secret experiments and a midget submarine. It has superb sets, courtesy of designer James Goddard. Martin Woodhouse’s script provides some fine dialogue. It has great performances by the guest stars, with Eric Pohlmann being especially good. It has a sinister villainess. There’s not just one but two competing diabolical criminal masterminds. Julie Stevens as starting to flesh out Venus’s character a bit more and there’s some amusing banter between her and Steed. It’s well-paced and it has more action than usual for this period. Everything comes together perfectly.

One thing you have to remember is that in 1962 British television programs such as this were done more or less live in the studio, using multiple cameras, on videotape. And in 1962 editing of videotape was too expensive and too time-consuming even to be considered. So retakes were unheard of and an entire one-hour episode was shot in an hour in one go. If an actor fluffed a line or a boom mike appeared in a shot or if any of the other countless things that could go wrong did go wrong there was nothing anyone could do about it. Those mistakes ended up on the tape and that’s how it got transmitted. Making television in that way required immense professionalism and nerve. Everything was rehearsed but once the cameras started rolling that was it - you had one chance to get it right.

Sadly for Julie Stevens the immense popularity of Cathy Gale spelt the end of the line for Venus Smith. In strictly commercial terms the producers made the right decision to drop her and the series went from strength to strength during the Cathy Gale era. 

The six Venus Smith episode are included in the Region season two boxed set and they are also available in the old A&E Region 1 sets. The six episodes might be a mixed bag but overall they’re not at all bad. A Chorus of Frogs and School for Traitors are excellent, The Decapod is very good and the other three all have their moments. All are worth a look. 

Adventures of Dr Fu Manchu (1956 TV series)

The Adventures of Dr Fu Manchu was a short-lived 1956 US TV series based on Sax Rohmer’s famous diabolical criminal mastermind. 

I picked up a bargain DVD from Payless Video containing three episodes of this series for a couple of bucks, and it’s actually not bad and the transfers are acceptable if not great. Yes, it’s very politically incorrect (which is really a feature rather than a bug) and it’s very campy, but it’s kind of fun. Being quite a fan of both the Fu Manchu books and the various movie adaptations made over the years I ended up buying the Volume 2 disc from Alpha Video which has another four episodes. Sadly this one is standard Alpha Video quality - in other words the transfers are stupendously atrocious.

Although this is an American series it retains the character of Sir Denis Nayland Smith as Dr Fu Manchu’s staunchest opponent and even has him played by an English actor. The highlight is Laurette Luez’s performance as Fu Manchu’s beautiful but deadly female assistant. She really should have been given a lot more to do.

Glen Gordon is very cartoonish as Fu Manchu, although that’s hardly a problem given the source material. He’s definitely not in the same league as Christopher Lee (who played the role in four films beginning with The Face of Fu Manchu and was the definitive screen Fu Manchu) or Henry Brandon (who played the role exceptionally well in the 1940 Republic serial The Drums of Fu Manchu), or even Boris Karloff (who gave a deliciously over-ripe interpretation of the part in MGM’s 1932 The Mask of Fu Manchu). Gordon’s performance is the show’s weak point, being more suited to an out-and-out spoof and lacking the necessary malevolence. This particular incarnation of Fu Manchu also lacks the sense of honour that is such a crucial part of the makeup of Rohmer’s creation. That sense of honour, and the fact that Fu Manchu really does have a vision of a world which to his way of thinking would be a better world, is what makes Rohmer’s character more than just a stock villain. Unfortunately those nuances (which Christopher Lee was able to bring out) are completely lost here.

Lester Matthews is adequate but they really needed a much more colourful actor to play Sir Denis Nayland Smith. For a Fu Manchu story to work properly Nayland Smith should be as much of a larger-than-life character as Fu Manchu himself. Dr Petrie is transformed into a rather dull American scientist.

The series apparently came to a premature end after only 13 episodes due to legal wrangles. This is a pity since it did have at least some potential. The series had the considerable advantage of having William Witney directing six of the thirteen episodes. Witney had been one of the best (some would say the absolute best) directors of movie serials and had helmed the excellent The Drums of Fu Manchu mentioned earlier. It’s impossible to imagine anyone better qualified to direct a Fu Manchu television series.

The series kicks off with The Prisoner of Dr Fu Manchu and this episode really does capture the spirit of Rohmer’s stories surprisingly well. 

The Master Plan of Dr Fu Manchu is great goofy fun, with Fu Manchu joining forces with Hitler! The Death Ships of Fu Manchu sees Fu Manchu dabbling in germ warfare.

Not surprisingly the series has a definite 1950s Cold War feel to it, especially in episodes like Dr. Fu Manchu's Raid (in which the evil Doctor threatens the air defence system of the United States) and The Satellites of Dr Fu Manchu (in which Fu Manchu plans to establish a space station which will allow him to threaten the free world with nuclear annihilation).

The Assassins of Dr Fu Manchu is not so good. The idea of Fu Manchu having an adopted son who is both a clean-cut all-American boy and a deadly killing machine stretches credibility a little too far.

In general the Cold War angle does not really detract from the fun and most importantly the plots have Fu Manchu doing the sorts of things you’d expect him to be getting up to in the 1950s. There’s still enough of an authentically Fu Manchu flavour to the stories.

The idea of Fu Manchu (a descendent of Chinese emperors) working hand-in-glove with the Chinese Communists might perhaps stretch credibility a little. I’d have thought that he would regard them with contempt but I guess if you’re aiming at world domination you sometimes have to work with unlikely allies.

The series was made by the television arm of Republic Pictures. The budgets were obviously minimal and production values are low. The series was made cheaply and unfortunately it looks cheap.

On the whole The Adventures of Dr Fu Manchu can be enjoyed to a certain extent for its silliness. This is probably one for Fu Manchu completists only, although The Master Plan of Dr Fu Manchu is definitely worth a look. If you can pick up one of the discs for a dollar or so in a bargain bin then by all means grab it but I’d hesitate to pay any more. I certainly would not pay more than a dollar for the Alpha Video disc. Even at that price it's a dubious buy.