W Is For Wyngarde

Here’s a familiar face in a 1968 episode of ‘The Champions’, yes, well spotted, it’s Peter Wyngarde! Our Peter plays a roguish villain called Hallam and takes the opportunity to run the Wyngarde gamut: he prowls, he purrs, he dresses up, he has a comedy fight and pulls some faces. I usually find ‘The Champions’ a bit dull, but Peter - as ever- makes this episode a joy.

Valerie Leon, Show Girl

Valerie Leon has a small but pivotal role as a showgirl in the Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) episode 'That's How Murder Snowballs'. She's a fine looking woman. I'd pay money to see her standing around in a feather head dress.

Oddments

Del Boy gets tough.

The Prisoner: Dance Of The Dead

'Dance of the Dead' is a strange ‘Prisoner’ episode, a vague amalgam of various themes executed in a fair to middling way, neither a notable success nor a flop. It has good bits, and weird bits (the radio broadcast; the trial), and a great new Number Two (played by frail but feisty veteran actress Mary Morris), but it doesn’t hang together particularly well and, as such, is nowhere as memorable as other episodes.

When I tried to recall the plot of this one, for instance, I came up with three basic elements: something about a trial, Number Two in a Peter Pan costume and Roland Walter Dutton. I don’t know why I should remember an incidental character’s full name other than everyone keeps saying it all the time. It’s even written down at one point. Brains are funny things, aren’t they? Well, when they’re on your side, that is. There’s nothing funny about your brain turning against you, believe me.

When I re-watched the episode, I was additionally struck by the attempt to present more composed, ‘artistic’ shots, by how very cool Ms. Morris is, and, on a Ms. Morris coolness related note, the final scene in which Number Six says to Number Two ‘I’ll never give in’. The not particularly bothered Number Two smiles and says ‘then how very uncomfortable for you, old chap’. A killer line, and a very perceptive analysis of the situation. Just for a second, I’ll bet Six felt like a right chump.

Space 1999: Alpha Child

Moonbase Alpha is a tragic place, isn’t it? It’s a hermetically sealed plastic hellhole with three hundred odd miserable inhabitants who have been wrenched from their homes and sent hurtling through space on a journey from which they will never return. Whatever and whoever they left behind on Earth is lost to them forever and, perhaps worse, everyone on the base is believed dead, blown to bits. Think of the sadness of all those permanently estranged lovers, partners, husbands, wives, parents and kids: no wonder no-one seems to care how many crew members get killed each week, they’re just waiting their turn, hanging out for the relief of sudden, violent death.

Still, this is ‘Space 1999’ so, despite every episode being at least ten minutes too long, we haven’t got time for all that subtext. ‘Alpha Child’ starts with a rare happy occurrence for the beleaguered crew, the birth of a child, the first ever to be born on the base. Within two minutes, however, the tiny baby has turned into a healthy but deaf-mute five year old boy and the mother has gone into catatonic shock, so we’re back to square one on the jollity stakes (it should be noted that the baby's father is dead, killed when Moonbase blew up, so it was already fairly downbeat).

The suddenly a lot bigger child seems personable enough, really, although he has a peculiar interest in how everything works. For some bizarre reason, Professor Bergman, the cleverest bloke on the ship and the most useful, does most of the babysitting, which gives the kid all sorts of opportunity to check out all the technological stuff. All in all, the crew take to him, but not Commander Koening who hates his little guts and mistrusts him. But he’s not unreasonable:  'I know you've all accepted him,  but I have some questions' he says 'You see, I don't know why he is like he is; I can't explain it, nor do I understand it, but I'm not about to shoot him'.

As it transpires, the little big baby is actually Julian Glover in disguise, an alien criminal who, along with his mates, need host bodies to transfer into. Their plan is to simply starve the Moonbase crew of oxygen, and then just walk into their still warm but empty bodies. Sadly for the silver clad shape stealer and his pals, it all goes tits up when the intergalactic police catch up with them, a deus ex machina which proves, once again, for all their bluster, Koening and his companions are virtually helpless in the face of the infinite superiority and power of almost everyone they meet en route. On the plus side, the freaky kid turned creepy man goes back to being a proper baby - and is subsequently never heard of again in the annals of Alpha as it's just too bloody complicated to have a kid running around all over.

Going back to my first point, about the terrible mental anguish and sense of loss the crew must feel, there's a telling moment just after the baby is born when, in spite of herself, Sandra Benes begins to cry. Is she thinking of the limited opportunities this child will have, or perhaps of her own thwarted desire to become a Mother? Perhaps she has even left children behind, children who she will never see again, children who believe her to be dead. Sensing her distress, Koening intervenes, but to no avail. His reaction immediately explains why there might be a morale problem. Still, at least he's not about to shoot her.

  

W Is For Wyngarde

‘The Man Who Liked Lions’ is a 1966 episode of long running ITC series ‘The Saint’, starring an alternately smug and sulky (and surprisingly chubby) Roger Moore, although here the draw is an appearance by our old mucker, Sir Peter Wyngarde. Wyngarde isn’t in it that much, really, but, by Christ, he makes the most of his time onscreen.

He plays Tiberio Magadino, an Italian gallery owner who, in his spare time, is an international hit man. He likes lions (hence the title) and Romans and, in the episodes climax, fights a gladiatorial battle with The Saint while dressed as a Roman. Oh, and over an open trapdoor that leads to a cellar with a hungry lion in it. Wyngarde doesn't so much steal the show as simply stride up to it, shout 'I'm taking this', before putting it in his pocket and marching off. It’s a commanding performance, devoid of camp, although nothing he does is not without a wry, arch sense of amusement. I particularly like the sheer brio he brings to the scrapping, throwing his all into the sword play. It’s also inconceivable that any other actor could bring such clipped menace to lines like –

'I'm a great admirer of the early Roman culture. It had much to recommend it: force, compulsion, discipline and strength. At least it produced men, real men, unlike our sick, decadent society today. What has it produced? Long haired, self-absorbed effeminates.  I'd like to see most of them quietly exterminated'. 

There’s an interesting scene where Tiberio is being massaged by a muscular black man. When another heavyset man enters, the session stops, although the masseur apparently sneaks a quick peek at Tiberio’s exposed crotch. Interestingly, Tiberio then grabs the masseur’s hands and forces him to his knees, out of shot. In context, it is clearly meant to convey that Tiberio is a surprisingly powerful and dangerous man but, in reality, the whole thing reeks of homoeroticism. I’ll bet Peter would have found the scene terribly funny. I certainly did.

Indestructible

A selection of end credit art from 'Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons'. As a normal, healthy, bloodthirsty child these would always cause me to scurry away to my pencils and paper, eager to recreate these perilous situations, as well as inventing my own, usually involving crocodiles. I was always running out of red pens for some reason. 

Spectrum Is Green

'Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons' featured even more stylish hardware than its predecessor 'Thunderbirds', all absolutely integral to the plot and ready to be die cast by Corgi and sold to kids in their millions.