The Young Avenger
Page 75 of 110

Fog
By Joseph A.P. Lloyd

Direction: Two out of five. What the heck has happened? Here we have one of the best directors ever, and he is just not good enough. There are a few interesting shots, but the filming is just eaten up by fog and mist. We do find out the numberplates of cars easily this way, however.

Plot: Half a point out of five. What plot? The villain has no real motive, there is a seemingly random collection of Russian conference delegates, silly Victorian characters and just no storyline! Burnham certainly made this different from other episodes, he made it extremely bad!

Original Music: Three out of five. Johnson actually manages to go out of his way this time in order to make a decent score. There is one piece of recycled music in the entire story. Shame it is for the wrong kind of programme! If only the music could save the episode!

With Music From: "Stay Tuned."

Wittiness: Nil points. The funniest thing is the tag, and that is so bad, it makes you laugh at it. A truly horrible episode.

Action: Two out of five. A couple of half-hearted encounters in the street paled by comparison to the great Steed scene at the end where he manages to fight off every swordstick thrown at him by his assailant. Maybe things would have been better if David Lodge, after his performance in "Epic," had actually made it onto the screen. He was going to be a sword-expert.

Cars/Sets/Locations: Two out of five. What is this, a joke? There is only one car apart from Steed's Rolls-Royce, a Rover P5, and even then it does not move. There are a lot of Hansom cabs around though, even though the street sets are appalling. One point for the well-constructed house of Charles Osgood.

Introduction/Tag: One out of five. The tag is also filled with fog, and Mother's Mini Moke seems to be able to climb the stairs to Tara's flat! The introduction is actually fairly spooky, but again, it is not The Avengers.

Overall Impression: How much dry ice did they use in this episode? Certainly more than necessary. How did they get away with the idea, especially as Burnham is a British writer? London is just not like that at any time of the year. It is just wrong to have The Avengers 80 years out of date from everything else, and the Russians are just a joke. A cold, lonely failure, which seems to have no intention of greatness. Fortunately next week we have a good mastermind.

Rating: Two out of ten.

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Page last modified: 5 May 2017.

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