Tag: The Avengers

Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: The Avengers: The Comic Strip Adaptations, Volume 5

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Big Finish released its fifth volume of Avengers Comic Strip Adaptations based on four 1960s Avengers comic strip stories featuring John Steed and Tara King. In this recast version, Julian Wadham and Emily Woodward play Steed and King with their superior Mother played by veteran British Actor Christopher Benjamin (Jago & Litefoot.) 

The box set opens with “Whatever Next.” Steed and King are summoned to headquarters by Mother to witness a heroic saving of the world through Soviet and US Cooperation. The reason for the cooperation? An eerily correct prediction from a man who claims he got the information from aliens. Steed and King are on the case and quickly find themselves marked for murder.

This story is clever, fun, and moves at a solid place. At it’s core is an entertaining mystery that introduced a lot of twists and red herrings before turning in an unexpected solution. Overall, this is a solid opening story for the set.

In the second story, “How Does Your Garden Grow,” Steed and King are called into investigate when giant plants endanger the operation of a British Airbase.

As a story, this is a superb vehicle for Tara King, as we learn she’s an expert pilot. She gets to shine and show her stuff several times. We get a decent enough mystery that has a nice twist and sets the stage for some lovely aerial dog fights, which are well-realized over audio.

In, “A Very Civil War,” An armored van is robbed carrying new Bank of England notes. However, both the van and the stolen money is recovered or is it? Steed senses something’s wrong and sets off to find the truth.

This story has a  good mystery as to what happened. But it’s much more of a hook. Once Steed begins to look into it (as Steed himself observes), the solution becomes rather obvious. It’s all a lead in to the classic Avengers situation of infiltrating a quirky group of people (in this case re-enactors of the English Civil War) to find out what’s going on.

This is very much a standard Avengers story but realized well. It makes for a breezy fifty minutes of entertainment and does out a good measure of mystery, swashbuckling action, and more than a bit of humor, with just a touch of light flirting. Overall, a thoroughly satisfying listen.

The sets concludes with “Mother’s Day.” Mother is set to go back to her old school for sports day as the guest of honor after the first honoree had to drop out. However, Steed and King look into it and find a string of mysterious deaths and disappearances surrounding all the other members of Mother’s Sports Day championship back in the 1930s.

This is a good old-fashioned romp. The story gives us a big mystery to be solved, but also there’s plenty of fun cases of impersonation and trying to maintain cover, wacky motives, insane murder attempts, and then there’s Mother’s Aunt with her constant pronouncements of doom.

This episode also sees the return of Linda Thorson (the original Tara King) to the Avengers franchise in another part and she turns in an absolutely superb performance in an interesting part.

This is the last announced Avengers project from Big Finish as of this writing. While I hope there will be more, if this is the last Avengers story they do, this is a wonderful release to go out on.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5

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Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: The Avengers: The Comic Strip Adaptations Volume 03: Steed & Tara King

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Big Finish has released two prior sets of Comic Strip adaptations based on the 1960s Avengers TV show featuring John Steed and Emma Peel. This set features adaptions of comics strips featuring Steed (Julian Wadham) and Peel’s successor Tara King (Emily Woodward) There are four episodes on the set and here’s a run-down on each:

In It’s a Wild, Wild, Wild West: There have been several Old West style stick-ups and Steed and Tara King suspect an American-style Dude ranch opened in England and all is not what you expect. This is a well-acted story and the writing and acting is good enough to make a fairly absurd plot entertaining.

Under the Weather is not as humorous as other episodes. Steed and Tara race to save England from sinister forces that have seized control of the weather. This one has more mystery to it than many other episodes, while still having a far out concept that fits the Avengers of the later seasons.

Spycraft feels more like the Lost Episodes from Season 1 of the Avengers rather than comic strip adaptations as Steed and King are charged with guarding an important leader of an emerging African democracy. While working undercover, they stumble into agents of his own country’s government that are also working undercover.

The story has slow moments but does get going once they team up . Overall, this is a solid story with some of the most fun moments in the set.

…Now You Don’t is a standard “evil hypnotist” story where Tara is hypnotized to kill Mother. Decently executed, and well acted, but the villain is undone because he doesn’t understand the basic rules of hypnotism. Also Dorney’s decision to adapt this story and to then adapt the one that came before it featuring Emma Peel in the next box set is a little baffling and feels like just making things complicated for the sake of it.

Overall, this was a decent box set, without any bad stories, but it’s not as enjoyable as the Emma Peel box sets or the “Lost Episodes” productions Big Finish did. This felt like it took a middle ground approach between the strait-laced drama of the Lost Episodes and the wacky situations of the comic strip adaptations and wasn’t as satisfying as either.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

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Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: The Avengers: Too Many Targets

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“Too Many Targets” in an adaptation of the Avengers novel of the same title. It brings together all the lead characters from the six seasons of the British classic TV series The Avengers in one giant case. It begins with Steed (Julia Wadham) being advised Mother (Christopher Benjamin) has gone over and become a double agent. At the same time, Mother is telling Tara King (Emily Woodward) the same thing about Steed.

The story is a lot of fun and does a good job giving each and every member of the Avengers something to do and their own individual entrance into the story. Eventually, they’re drawn into groups before coming together. The casting in this great particularly for roles not heard in Big Finish’s audio adaptations with the roles of Mother, Tara King, and Cathy Gale (Beth Chalmers). These characters were well-realized and fully brought to life, so  they each contributed to the story.

The biggest challenge with this release is the final quarter. There, so much of the story is spent explaining a convoluted and confusing plan. The villains are defeated in an odd way that’s a bit of a letdown.

Still, story problems aside, the release is a nice romp for fans of the Avengers with quite a few Easter eggs. It makes me want to hear more of these characters.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article, Podcast

My Big Finish 20, Part One

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My Big Finish Twenty

September is the 20th Anniversary of Big Finish productions turning out audio dramas and this month we’re celebrating with a series of articles looking at twenty great releases from Big Finish.

I should say that this is NOT a “Top 20 Big Finish” releases article, since I’ve not listened to every single Big Finish release. Some are only available on CD and shipping rates from the UK can be prohibitive. Some are for series that I’ve never gotten into like Blake’s 7 or Dark Shadows. Others I’d like to listen to someday but haven’t gotten around to. In addition, Big Finish has lost the license for some other properties such as Sapphire and Steel.

It’s also not my top twenty favorite releases. That would be heavily skewed towards Sci-Fi and certain Doctor Who actors. Rather this is a list of twenty great Big Finish releases. There’s still a lot of Science Fiction and Doctor Who on the list, but my aim is to cover a bit of the breadth of Big Finish’s catalog and offerings. I do have these in an order of quality. Comparing vintage mystery show revivals to madcap Science Fiction is a bit of a challenge, but we try.

20) Hound of the Baskervilles:

There have been many adaptations of the Hound of the Baskervilles, but this may be my favorite. Director/Star Nicholas Briggs and writer Richard Dinnick decided to do an absolutely faithful adaptation, which is impressive as most writers can’t seem to resist to tinkering with one of the greatest mystery novels of all time. What we get is the richness of the story, along with super but not intrusive sound effects. The cast is superb and professional, Briggs is a solid Holmes, and Richard Earl does a great job bringing Watson to life. One of the most remarkable facts about this is that the entire recording was done in a single day. It’s a must-listen-to for Holmes fans.

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19) Light at the End:

For the Fiftieth Anniversary of Doctor Who, on television, the Tenth and Eleventh known regenerations of the Doctor joined forces with the previously unknown War Doctor (played by John Hurt.) Yet, that left a lot of Doctors out. One of the key premises of Doctor Who is that when his life is in mortal jeopardy, the Doctor can regenerate into another human form.

Light at the End is the Anniversary special for all the other Doctors (save Christopher Eccleston, who took part in neither.) The five living Doctors from before the revived series (Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, and Paul McGann) star along with one of their companions, with three now-deceased Doctors played by appropriate substitutes but only making brief appearances as they battle their long-time foe, The Master.

The most surprising thing about this story is that despite all these characters, the story is coherent. Writer Nicholas Briggs (who didn’t want to do a multi-Doctor story) wrote a script that managed to keep everything in balance and give each Doctor something to do, and give the script a coherent plot. Light at the End is a superb celebration of fifty years for the Doctor Who Series that still manages to hold up as a well-written, beautifully scored and directed production.

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18) Doctor Who:The Lost Stories The First Doctor Box Set

This was from Big Finish’s range of “Lost Stories,” which were adaptations of Doctor Who scripts that were written or proposed but never made for a variety of reasons. While the initial series focused on Colin Banker’s canceled second season as the Doctor, this expanded to the rest of the classic Doctors.

The First Doctor Box Set focused on two scripts written for William Hartnell’s First Doctor by Turkish writer Moris Farhi in 1964. During Hartnell’s time on Doctor Who, the series was split half between Science Fiction stories and historicals. The bulk of the box set is taken up by the story, Farewell Great Macedon, an epic script that puts the Doctor and his companions into the thick of events as they meet Alexander the Great just before his death.

Surviving cast members Carole Ann Ford and William Russell return as the companions Susan and Ian and voice the roles of their departed co-stars and provide narration in a brilliantly written story that manages to capture the feel of Early Doctor Who as well as pulling readers into the midst of this key time in history.

The second story, “The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance” is good but a bit high-concept and it’s hard to see how it ever would have worked on television. At less than an hour long, it doesn’t have time to be fully developed. Still, if the second story is largely forgettable, the first story makes this box set well worth listening to.

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17)The Avengers: The Lost Episodes, Volume 3

When Americans think of the British TV series, The Avengers, they think of Emma Peel and John Steed bringing their larger-than-life adventures to America. They aired over the ABC TV network in Prime Time. Yet, before the Avengers came to America, there were three seasons of the series shot in the U.K. The first season of the series from 1961 was almost completely lost with only three episodes and part of another surviving.

Big Finish brought all 26 episodes of the first season to life in their Avengers: The Lost Episodes series which starred Julian Wadham as John Steed and Anthony Howell as Dr. David Keel, a general practitioner who joined Steed on missions after his fiancee is murdered by a gangster in the first episode.

The Lost Episodes are a much more straightforward 1960s crime drama, although later episodes do get into espionage. Big Finish does a great job creating the feel of the 1960s through sound effect, music, and the type of performances given, and several of these lost episodes show the first season of Avengers was good even in its early days.

For me, Series 3 is the best set of the series. Click here my full review of Series 3.

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16) How to Win Planets and Influence People

Not only can the Doctor regenerate, but so can his foes from his own race. Big Finish has added some new regenerations for some of the Doctor’s Time Lord enemies. Big Finish cast comedian Rufus Hound as a new version of the Meddling Monk and he’s had some great stories. However, my favorite thing Rufus Hound has done for Big Finish is the short trip, “How to Win Planets and Influence People.” This is part of the Doctor Who Short Trip range. Those usually feature a short Doctor Who story of between 25-40 minutes that’s available as a download only. However, this is a bit different.

In this story, the meddling monk is giving a speech to a corporate convention as a motivational speaker, giving attendees a crash course in supervillainy and detailing how to defeat the Doctor with his many examples of how he failed to defeat the Doctor.

The production does a great job playing off of Hound’s stand up skills, while also poking fun at Ted Talks, as well Sci-Fi genre conventions for both Doctor Who villains and supervillains in general. Yet, it becomes clear more is going on than just a speech as the story goes on. Overall, this release is just a hoot and a great showcase for Mister Hound’s talent.

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Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: Avengers: The Lost Episodes, Volume 6

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Big Finish released the penultimate volume in is Avengers: The Lost Episodes range, recreating the mostly lost first season of the Avengers featuring David Keel (Anthony Howell) and John Steed (Julian Wadham). This release and Volume 7 (which will be released in January) contain three episodes rather than four as did the first five sets. Here’s a look at the three stories included:

The Frighteners: This is an adaptation of one of the few episodes to be preserved from the Avengers’ lost season. While I’ve never seen the TV version, Big Finish’s take on the story is a very good one.

The titular Frighteners, a group of thugs who blackmail “patients” (i.e. victims) with severe beatings if they don’t perform a desired action that their clients want are genuinely creepy and menacing with their euphemistic language.

At the same time, this is a fairly complicated problem for Keel and Steed compared to the others they’ve faced because they not only have to deal with the Frighteners (Counter Measures), they also have to deal with one of their victims, who has his own agenda for wanting to marry a wealthy man’s daughter. Keel really shows how much he’s grown since he first appeared, easily taking the lead both physically and in planning.

With a guest appearance by Hugh Ross, this is an extremely enjoyable episode and one of the best stories released so far.

Death on the Slipway: This story is a somewhat standard spy tale, that finds Steed investigating a mysterious death at a shipyard with the British Navy’s latest submarine is being built. The sound design is solid on this as it really conveys the feeling of a 1960s shipyard. Death on the Slip has some good moments with Steed in the spotlight as Dr. Keel is relegated to a couple comedic scenes back at the surgery. It’s a decent enough story of a break-in gone wrong and the spy is menacing, but the production’s not a stand out by any means.

Tunnel of Fear: Steed goes undercover at a fun fair to investigate strange goings on after an exonerated prisoner who had pretended escape and worked at the carnival, is beaten so badly he didn’t remember what happened. This is another good story with a bit more humor thrown in. Steed has some of the best lines of the entire Lost Episodes series in this story and there’s some superb fight scenes. The villains are pretty typical, but the unusual locale makes this a fun story.

Overall, this is a solid box set that lives up to the high standards Big Finish has set for the series.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

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Book Review, Golden Age Article

Graphic Novel Review: A Secret History of Space

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This graphic novel collects Issues 4-7 of Boom Studios’ Steed and Peel series based on the 1960s TV show, The Avengers. 

The four issues cover three separate story lines but there is a sense of them being tied together. The art is superb and really fits with the imaginative, often larger than life world of the Avengers as beautiful concepts are explored.

The first Issue features Steed and Mrs. Peal attending a masquerade ball with some dangerous intruders. It’s probably the simplest story in the book, but the art is very good, even though black and white are the predominant colors.

The middle issues are probably most speculative in the book in a plot that involves blackmail of high government officials, secrets from space, and time travel.

The final issue is typical of many actual episodes of the Avengers as Steed and Peal investigate a series of unexplained unwarranted suicides in a small Welsh town. The ending is a little quick, but the concept is well-realized.

Overall, this is a very enjoyable book for fans of the 1960s series. While being single issue stories does make the first and last issue slightly less complex than you’d otherwise expect, writer Caleb Monroe does a marvelous job capturing the spirit and feel of this classic series.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

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Audio Drama Review: Avengers, The Lost Episodes, Volume 5

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The fifth volume of lost episodes of the Avengers featuring John Steed (Julian Wadham) and Doctor Keel (Anthony Howell) offers four more adventures from that mostly lost first season of the 1960s classic.

In, “Nightmare,” a researcher who is one of Dr. Keel’s patients disappears and Keel impersonates him while a search is made to find the missing man. Keel finds himself the target of gangsters who want to make use of his patient’s research in psychological drugs. Overall, a pretty standard crime drama story that’s reproduced in a way that feels completely authentic to the era. I do wonder if the original screen version might have made the psychotropic drugs used feel more trippy which would have added to the period feel.

“The Girl on the Trapeeze” is a rare Steed-free episode as Dr. Keel appears to witness the suicide of a woman who he remembers from somewhere. A magazine picture leads him to a circus where a big secret is being hidden. It’s a nicely done mystery with some great moments between Keel and Carol.

“Crescent Moon” features Steed going to the Caribbean to investigate the kidnapping of the daughter of the late dictator of an island. It’s very well-done multi-layered story with a lot of great guest characters. At first, it appeared that, following the previous Steed-free story, we were going to have a story without Dr. Keel, but he ends up appearing in the second half of the episode and plays an interesting role in the denouement without ever leaving England. This has actually been my favorite lost episode so far.

Finally, “Diamond Cut Diamond” finds Steed going undercover as an Australian Airline steward to bust a diamond smuggling racket. It’s a solid and well-paced adventure even though it’s very similar to many earlier stories in the Avengers series. Okay, but not remarkable.

Overall, this collection is enjoyable and has a more solid sense of identity than many of the earlier sets partially because the original 1960s writers had a better sense of what they wanted the Avengers to be as well as the fact that Big Finish is very comfortable with these characters.

While there’s no “Making Of” extras on this CD, there’s a tribute to the late Patrick Macnee from the writers and cast. It adds a touch of class to an already very classy release.

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Audio Drama Review: The Avengers, The Lost Episodes, Volume 1

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Many TV producers did little to preserve their programs for posterity, leading to many TV episodes from the 1950s being lost to time, perhaps never to be seen again. In the United Kingdom, this continued into the 1960s with many programs lost to the ages due to the BBC’s “wiping policy.” It effected Doctor Who where more than 90 black and white episodes of the series are only available on audios and numerous other series that don’t exist in any form.

The case is worse for the first season of The Avengers. Only two full episodes and the fragment of another exist and no audio exists for the missing programs. The hit TV series was best known for the pairing of the Roguish spy John Steed (Patrick Macnee) with Mrs. Emma Peel (Diana Rigg.) However, Mrs. Peel only joined the series in Season Four. The first season featured Steed fighting alongside Dr. David Keel. What was that season like? Beyond the fragments we had, the entire first season of adventures was lost.

Then Big Finish came along. The company, best known for their Doctor Who dramas, agreed to produce the missing episodes of the Avengers as Audio Dramas and cast Julian Wadham as John Steed, Anthony Howell as Dr. Keel, and Lucy Briggs-Owens as nurse Carol Wilson.

The first volume collects four episodes of The Avengers: “Hot Snow,” “Brought to Book,” “Square Root of Evil,” and “One for the Mortuary.”

Throughout the set, Big Finish does an incredible job creating a sense of authenticity. The background music and soundscape succeed in making the set seem like a well-preserved recording from the 1960s rather than a modern imitation. The direction and acting are authentic to the era. When I listened to these, I found it easy to forget these were recorded in 2013.

The stories themselves are different from the type of stories told in the Steed and Peel era. Episodes from the Steed and Peel era included fantastic plots like a mad tycoon who planned to turn his department store into a nuclear bomb. The early Avengers episodes seemed to enjoy far more typical crime dramas.

The first episode, “Hot Snow,” focuses on drug dealers who  start Keel’s career as a crimefighter by murdering his bride to be.”Brought to Book” has Steed and Keel working to bring down an extortion ring with ties to the hitman that murdered Keel’s fiancee. “The Square Root of Evil” features Steed infiltrating a counterfeiting ring, In “One for the Mortuary,” Keel agrees to carry a life-saving formula to the World Health Organization in Geneva but finds himself in the crosshairs of international ne’er-do-wells who want to steal it for their own ends.

“One for the Mortuary” is the most exciting story in the collection, and it  gives the biggest hint of what was to come for the series with an exciting and dangerous spy game with assassins and international intrigue. The first three were well-produced and well-acted but quite ordinary crime dramas. It’s odd to think the show went from basic undercover work to trying to stop a department store from being used as a doomsday weapon.

The one story that had a significant problem was “The Square Root of Evil.” The reason Steed goes undercover is so he can find out who the Mr. Big is behind the counterfeiting operation. However, the episode ends before Mr. Big is caught or Steed learns who he was. Also, modern listeners may take issue with Keel’s reaction understated reaction to his fiancee’s murder. However, this is true to the era.

Each episode features a short extras segment which provides insight into the production of the set. I found the interview with John Dorney interesting as he adapted the original scripts and he explained the unique challenges in this task.

Overall, the stories are enjoyable and the finale is particularly good. The entire collection manages to recreate four classic TV episodes that we haven’t experienced for over five decades and does so with a great sense of respect and authenticity.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

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