The Avengers Forever: Book Bloopers

	Book Bloopers Page 4 of 4

THE AVENGERS
Toby Miller

In his Acknowledgement Dr. Miller thanks more than 70 individuals for their assistance with his book. One should think that this number would be sufficient to ensure a virtually error-free manuscript. However, this proved not to be the case. Worse, some of his howlers lead to serious misinterpretations about easily verifiable facts. It's as if he'd seen the episodes once, maybe twice, back in the 60s and was attempting to work from very dim memory...

Starting right off in the introduction, Dr. Miller credits Neil Gaiman as the creator of the Steed and Mrs Peel comic, when it was Grant Morrison and Ian Gibson (thanks to Mark Wightman).

On page 30 he makes mention of the plot in "Death at Bargain Prices." Horatio Caine [sic] plans to blow up the city "with a bomb inside a new washing machine." Wow—that's a small a-bomb! Actually, the entire fabric of Kane's store is the bomb, which would be detonated when someone buys a washing machine.

On page 35 we find: "For Castle De'Ath, traffic lights at an intersection read 'Mrs. Peel' and 'We're Needed'..." Huh? The "We're Needed" teasers did not appear until the color season; the traffic light sequence is from "The Living Dead."

Emma Peel... NOT! Page 50 features a large photo of Hilary, the telephone operator from "Murdersville," played by Hilary Dwyer (unbilled). However, the caption in the book reads, "Mrs. Peel—restrained as ever." Not!

Moving on to page 55, Dr. Miller states, "Macnee plays a double role as male model Gordon Webster in 'Man-Eater of Surrey Green'..." No, no, no, no, no! Steed plays Webster in "Two's a Crowd"! Where's a good editor when you need one?

Page 83. "In the earlier series, the homosociality between Hendry and Macnee is very striking. In 'The Charmers,' they seem almost intimate, almost loving, with Macnee sexy and Hendry gruff." Are we talking about the same series? Ian Hendry was most certainly not in "The Charmers," nor was this episode from the "earlier series"; it was, in fact, from the latter half of the third season, with Steed and Cathy Gale. It would be impossible for Dr. Miller to evaluate the relationship between Hendry and Macnee (or did he really mean Steed and David Keel?) since only one episode existed at the time, "The Frighteners," and they were hardly intimate or loving. But it gets worse, as this blunder begins an overly-long, generally misguided discourse on how masculine Steed was supposed to be, and is just one of several cases where Dr. Miller totally misreads a scene and thereby misrepresents the message it supposedly conveys.

[Steed] leers at the bare breasts of a mannequin she is dressing?? Page 84. Referring to a scene from "Death at Bargain Prices," Dr. Miller writes, "[Steed] leers at the bare breasts of a mannequin she is dressing while referring to Emma being taken into the 'bosom' of the company." Not quite. She's actually standing in the background, arms crossed, whilst Steed casually eyes a plastic torso that is already well-covered with a bra.

On the same page, Dr. Miller discusses some innuendoes in "Mission... Highly Improbable" and unfortunately gets his wires very, very crossed. He makes reference to dialog after "[Steed] is enlarged again...":

Peel: Well?
Steed: Back to normal.
Peel: Everything?
Steed (turning three hundred and sixty degrees): Everything.

Emma: "Everything?" Steed: "Everything!" In reality, the dialog takes place after Emma is enlarged again, and Steed doesn't turn 360, she does! These facts lay waste to Dr. Miller's already dubious point that Steed was attempting to reassure Emma that his private parts were back to full form. Actually, Emma is playfully soliciting Steed's assurances that her figure is unharmed. This gaffe was the inspiration for these book blooper pages, by the way.

Detailing the plot in "The House That Jack Built," the following description is provided on pages 111-112: "She realises that there must be a mechanism that rotates the house each time she opens a door...in response to door knobs being turned." A machine that rotates the whole house? Extraordinary! Actually, it's the rooms that move, and not in response to door knobs turning, but instead to doors being opened and closed, via plungers in the door frame which she discovers.

Page 114 contains a photo credit for a scene from the same episode: "The patriarch revealed—Michael Goodlife as Professor Keller." The man's name is Michael Goodliffe.

The text on page 120 describing the teaser from "Death at Bargain Prices" suggests that the snooping agent is slain after exiting the elevator. In fact, he is shot inside the elevator as it descends.

Page 122 finds Dr. Miller stating, "In 'Immortal Clay,' an industrialist [is] explaining the development of an unbreakable plastic..." Surely he meant to say, "unbreakable ceramic."

Steed takes aim with his champagne bottle. Discussing the final battle from "Dial a Deadly Number" on page 132, he writes "...but [the villain] only succeeds in shooting the cork off Steed's champagne bottle, which ricochets on to his own head." In reality, the villain's shots puncture a wine keg. Steed then arms himself with a champagne bottle, which he shakes vigorously, aims at his foe, and lets loose the cork.

Page 140 has a reference to the plot in "The Last of the Cybernauts...??" as being masterminded by "Cain." For the last time, it's Kane, with a K.

Page 144 bears a quote from the newspaper headline that marked the end of the Emma Peel era ("The Forget-Me-Knot"): "Peter Peel Alive. Air Ace found in Amazonian Jungle. Mrs. Peel Waits." Please change the last bit to "Wife Emma Waits." Trivial, yes—just think of it as icing on the cake.