All reviewed episodes have images.
| Tape | Prod. | Episode Title | Air Date | Uncut | Quality |
| 1.1 | 3 | The Sell Out (Dr. Martin King) | 11/24/62 | Poor | |
| 1.2 | 4 | Death Dispatch | 12/22/62 | Fair | |
| 1.3 | 1 | Dead On Course (Dr. Martin King) | 12/29/62 | Fair | |
| 1.4 | 26 | Killer Whale | 3/23/63 | Poor | |
| 2.6 | 8 | The Decapod (Venus Smith) | 10/13/62 | ||
| 2.7 | 8 | Bullseye | 10/20/62 | ||
| 2.8 | 2 | Mission to Montreal (Dr. Martin King) | 10/27/62 | ||
| 2.9 | 10 | The Removal Men (Venus Smith) | 11/3/62 | ||
| 2.10 | 11 | The Mauritius Penny | 11/10/62 | Inc. | |
| 3.11 | 12 | Death of a Great Dane* | 11/17/62 | Yes | Poor |
| 3.12 | 13 | Death on the Rocks | 12/1/62 | ||
| 3.13 | 14 | Traitor in Zebra | 12/8/62 | ||
| 3.14 | 15 | The Big Thinker | 12/15/62 | ||
| 3.15 | 5 | Warlock | 1/26/63 | ||
| 4.16 | 16 | Intercrime | 1/5/63 | ||
| 4.17 | 17 | Immortal Clay | 1/12/63 | ||
| 4.18 | 18 | Box of Tricks (Venus Smith) | 1/19/63 | ||
| 4.19 | 19 | The Golden Eggs | 2/2/63 | ||
| 4.20 | 20 | School for Traitors (Venus Smith) | 2/9/63 | ||
| 5.21 | 21 | The White Dwarf | 2/16/63 | Poor | |
| 5.22 | 22 | Man in the Mirror (Venus Smith) | 2/23/63 | ||
| 5.23 | 23 | A Conspiracy of Silence | 3/2/63 | ||
| 5.24 | 24 | A Chorus of Frogs (Venus Smith) | 3/9/63 | ||
| 5.25 | 25 | Six Hands Across the Table | 3/16/63 | ||
| -- | 6 | Propellant 23 | 10/6/62 | ||
| TS-1 | 7 | Mr Teddy Bear | 9/29/62 | Yes | Good |
*This episode was later remade as "The £50,000 Breakfast."
This is a fairly uninspiring secrets-leaking-from-within yarn, comprised of talking heads nearly end-to-end.
The first pre-Emma Peel series episode I ever saw proved to be a strange and disappointing experience. For one, I had expected to see Cathy Gale, when it turned out to be a Dr. Martin King story. I sat waiting and waiting, wondering when she'd appear! Patrick Macnee was the only actor to receive opening title credit, and it remained that way until halfway through the season, beginning with "Death of a Great Dane." Then, to add to the confusion, Honor Blackman continued receiving title credit through the end of the season, even for those episodes in which she did not appear. Further, since the episodes were not rebroadcast in the order of production, the title sequence kept changing. "My brain hurts!"
It took me a while to get used to the significant stylistic differences. Steed was familiar yet unfamiliar. It was disconcerting seeing him behaving less than gentlemanly, carrying and using a gun, and driving an ordinary automobile. The quasi-live videotape production is crude and laced with occasional bloopers—the black blob in the upper right corner of the first image is a camera lens caught briefly in the shot. To make matters worse, the audio track is badly muffled, leaving the dialog—which is usually uttered in low tones to begin with—almost unintelligible at times.
Now, that's more like it! When a British courier is murdered in Jamaica, Steed and Cathy are called in to track down the killers. The trail leads to Santiago, where the duo engage in some humorous espionage. Then it's off to Buenos Aires for a tense face-off with the politician behind it all. Although the story is straightforward and by-the-numbers, the dialog is snappy, the performances are bright, and the considerable globe-trotting involved gives the settings flavor. Steed's rapport with Travers at the British embassy is hysterical.
It was pleasantly startling to see Cathy in her underwear in one scene, and also startling to see Steed cavorting with the young girls in Jamaica, and making suggestive remarks to Cathy on the phone while casually puffing a cigarette. Cathy seems very tolerant of Steed's sexist behavior.
Anyone affected by Flight 800 should avoid this episode, as it involves a series suspicious passenger jet crashes. It was fortunate for the few survivors that the accidents took place near a convent—or was it? Steed is much more the hard-working professional in this outing, except when he's in an Irish pub working on Deidre. And, yes, that's a machine gun in the hands of the nun.
What does a boxing ring, a bar of soap, and a couturier have in common? Smuggling ambergris. A strange brew, to be sure. While it is well-produced, featuring quite a bit of fisticuffs, its subject matter is just plain odd. There is a lot of attention paid to some convincing boxing fights, which might be interesting if you're into this sort of thing.
Is the end of the world at hand? Only one man knows, and he's been murdered. It gets off to a slow start, but this intriguing and intelligent episode presents a plausible situation, as an astronomer makes an observation of a white dwarf on a collision course with our solar system. The bullets fly as Steed and Cathy close in on the truth. There is also a very interesting minor character, an Indian astronomer, Dr. Rahim (Paul Anil). Don't laugh too hard when the token American in the teleplay makes an overseas call to the New Jersey University! Trivia: Philip Latham (Cartwright, receiving a lead slug in the image below) went on to play Carter in the first-season Rigg episode, "Room Without a View."
A crackling script and imaginative direction make this episode a standout. An infamous assassin is flushed out, as Cathy pays to have Steed murdered. Steed is quite the daredevil professional agent as he takes great pleasure in pursuing Mr Teddy Bear himself. But just before he can, he is taken off the case, and it's all up to Cathy. Mr Teddy Bear's creative style and supremely devious nature place him in the category of diabolical mastermind, which also lifts this episode out of the straightforward sleuthing genre typified by most of the Cathy Gale series and into the fantastic realm of the Emma Peel era.
End of page. Copyright ©1996 David K. Smith