Homicide and Old Lace

Larry Dearing's review was unthinking and totally missed the point, which was that the intention was to give the plot structure an original angle, and to make the most of the comedic & comic-book element of the show. And the similarly stupid bad reviews of Linda Thorson failed to recognise that all Steed's partners had their own personalities and contribution to the series, and Ms Thorson, as well as being (arguably) the most beautiful of them all - in outstanding company - and performed equally as professionally as the others. I can't understand why anyone would give her a hard time, and the partnership deserved many more seasons.

You know you're in trouble when you're past the 9-minute mark and you haven't seen Steed or Tara since the credits. The dread increases when it becomes apparent that the star of the episode is Mother, whose very presence is one of the biggest blots on season seven. Apparently, the producers were trying to salvage footage from an episode that was shot and too terrible to use, so they chopped it to bits (along with scenes from other old episodes) and had Mother talk over it, with occasional accompaniment from Laurie Johnson's tack piano. Despite the humorous bits by Mother's old aunties, this script is dead in the water and a mess to follow with any sense of logic. I guess it was a budget-saver, but it was so embarrassing that they didn't air it until the show was on its last legs.

It is an episode where the writers were all sick so they recap all the previous episodes. So boring and feel so cheated I wrote my first review on IMDB. Dreadful.

Rehashed lame material from the producer that was let go early on in the final/Tara King season. I am not at all a fan of the "Mother" character to begin with, so - apart from the yawn inducing story and material - there was almost 50% of the episode's screen time focused upon him to persevere. If I saw this Tara King episode before all the others, I would have not watched the rest of them. Yes, this was that bad.

"Homicide and Old Lace" may have arrived at the very end of the original series (Jan. 1969), but it was conceived in the fall of 1967, as one of the earliest Tara King episodes (witness her blonde wig, wisely discarded but not soon enough). Scripted as a sequel to the excellent Cathy Gale episode "Intercrime," this entry features the new boss, Dunbar (Keith Baxter, perhaps the single dullest villain of the entire series), leading what he describes as the crime of the century, namely the theft of priceless art treasures from under the nose of security man Colonel Corf (Gerald Harper, "Death Dispatch" and "The Hour That Never Was"). The final result is a total mishmash, half comprised of endless new footage of Patrick Newell's Mother, who never appeared in the original version titled "The Great Great Britain Crime," coupled with scenes from Emma Peel episodes, "The Bird Who Knew Too Much," "Murdersville," "The Fear Merchants," and Christopher Lee's cottage battle from "Never, Never Say Die." All of Tara's footage was shot before "The Forget-Me-Knot," with Steed making two token appearances in new scenes opposite Mother. Also featuring Mary Merrall ("The Girl from Auntie"), Donald Pickering ("The Winged Avenger"), Bari Jonson ("The Yellow Needle"), Bryan Mosley ("The Gravediggers"), and Anne Rutter ("Super Secret Cypher Snatch"). Even the producers showed their contempt for it by inserting ridiculous silent film piano music at random, creating an utterly bizarre effect that does not go unnoticed (unthinkable during the Emma Peel era). Is it the worst episode? I've always believed so, and found my father in agreement (Among many contenders, Cathy Gale's worst was "Conspiracy of Silence").