One would imagine that, afforded the luxury of being the series’ only two parter, would mean a
complex plot too knotty to deal with in forty seven minutes. `K Is For Kill`
Part One; `The Tiger Wakes` however has less plot in it than an average
episode with a supposed mystery that even the slowest viewer would work out
before the combined intelligence of the Avengers and a French police inspector
manage. It would be a little less straightforward were it not for a prologue
set in Tibet which drops a line that a hermit who appears to be in his thirties
is actually decades older. Laying it on we then see a young Russian soldier
attacking a seemingly isolated garage in the Sixties only to be found minutes
later having aged decades. We’ve pretty much got it by now but the point is
further laboured by attacks happening in 1977 in France. So the trio hightail
it the French countryside for an episode of dodging bullets and scratching heads
clearly unable to hear millions of viewers explaining what is happening.
Which is that
somehow (and the somehow is really the only mystery) Russian Cold War soldiers
have had their ageing process frozen and are running around taking out targets
that decades later are empty or museums. Quite how these people from the Forties
can find their way around dressed in full uniform or where they get their weapons
from is overlooked. It is an interesting enough just poorly executed. It is
clearly meant to be pin sharp from the time credited subtitles but even one of
those is betrayed when we immediately see a clock telling a totally different
time. The Russians are stereotypical in the extreme and the fact that while
everyone else is deadly serious the Avengers carry on as wittily as usual seems
out of place. Still we get some dynamic action sequences set in woods and some
humour courtesy of a retired General who now looks after a museum that is
attacked. That he ends up personally knowing the soldier who led the assault
removes what little credulity the episode had.
There’s a scene
in `K Is For Kill` Part Two; `Tiger by the Tail` where Steed, Purdey and
Gambit are literally meandering around Paris unsure what to do next and that is
very much the feel of this second part of the story. There’s not enough plot to
fill the run time hence a number of slow or unnecessary sequences pad it out.
These are somewhat forced and lacking in the usual snappy Avengers dialogue.
What it boils down to is that after all the soldiers awakened in part one have
now been defeated there are just two K Agents left, assassins whose initial
target is to the bafflement of all concerned the retire General. He makes his
killing fairly easy as he happens to be standing on the steps of his beloved
museum blowing a bugle at the time! I was sorry to see him go as he was a
comedic character who sort of worked and his uncertain grasp of reality was a
neat mirror to the main plot of the revived soldiers from the past. Anyway, his
death is merely a means to an end as the remaining assassin is intending to
dole out the same treatment to the French President.
Nobody actually
says “sacre bleu” but the portrayal of the French in this episode is almost as
cliched as that of the Russians. This reaches a low with a couple of scenes involving
a French waiter who talks to himself (ie the viewers) about what he see mugging
for all he’s worth. When it gets (eventually) to the sequence where the assassination
is to take place the episode finally moves up a gear but is set up through too
many unlikely coincidences to really ring true. Like for example how come
nobody but Gambit notices the lack of a church bell at mid-day, the moment when
the President is due to emerge from his car? The story could have fitted
perfectly into a standard single episode but with drawn out battle sequences in
part one and unnecessary scenes in part two it struggles to hold interest.
In the
Seventies some of the ideas in `Complex` would be considered a bit far-
fetched but watched from this distance it’s an interesting piece from a time
when new technology was often viewed as a threat rather than a help. The
Avengers are called into the search for a super efficient KGB agent called
Scapina who remains elusively free despite numerous attempts to find him. Each
time someone gets close they die. The trail leads to Toronto in Canada and an
episode that is mostly set in a building controlled entirely by a super
computer. Writer Dennis Spooner rather accurately predicts the sort of
automatic mechanisms that have us frothing in supermarkets today and
considering some of them didn’t come into our lives for decades after this
story was written it seems quite prescient. Unexpected clarity in the story
area!
It soon becomes
apparent to the viewer- though not necessarily Steed and co- that Scapina is in
fact the computer. We keep cutting back to its screen dialogue wherein it is
clearly using some of the building’s electronic accoutrements to dispense
death. One character falls from a window, another is scooped into a hidden incinerator
and yet another steps into a lift only for it to drop instantly before he is in
it. The production also provides an eerie tension inside the building with an
increasing number of odd sounds suggesting danger round every corner. The
building thus becomes something of a character complete with what seems like an
electronic heartbeat in the sound mix.
Outside the
direction is eager to show off the fact that they really are filming in Canada
with wider shots reminiscent of many American police shows of the time. The
special card before the opening credits did already tell us that though. A
running gag about Gambit getting arrested plays well adding a touch of humour
though the agents we meet on either side are not very memorable.
The ending is
inventive as Steed and Gambit can’t get into the building as Purdey is trapped
and the air being sucked out. It does get a little silly when the computer’s
screen types out HELP! Being the time it was, the director has Purdey get
soaking wet when she sets off the sparkler system, part of her dress already
having been torn off minutes earlier. The computer itself looks fairly
realistic in some respects tough some coloured patterns and dramatic lights give
it an air of fiction too.
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