The Avengers 5.10

Never, Never Say Die

A motorist hits a man with his car. The man is taken to the hospital and declared dead on the spot. Moments later, without saying a word, the dead man comes back to life and leaves the hospital. Steed and Peel are called to the hospital to investigate. They talk to Whittle, the motorist, who is completely mystified by what happened but glad to know that he didn’t kill someone.

Steed and Peel's investigation leads them to a second meeting with Whittle, a fight with the undead man, a trip to the Ministry of Technology - Neotoric Research Unit (MOT-NRU), and the discovery of a plot to replace government officials with duplicates who like the one Whittle hit with his car.

Thoughts

I initially wrote a much longer, blow by blow, description of this episode. I scrapped it, keeping only the first paragraph.

This is the first episode I have watched of The Avengers in over ten years. The only other episode I have a record of watching (going back to 2001) is the first episode from Season 5. I know that I watched The Avengers at least a few times back in 1970s but I don't have any clear recollections of which episodes it is that I watched back then. I was watching on a black-and-white television back then so I'm not even sure if the episodes I saw were ones that were originally broadcast in color, like this one, or not.

There are definitely flaws in this episode. It doesn’t all add up or make sense but it was fun. I love the track suit that Diana Rigg wears in the second half of this story. It's nothing fancy but it gets the job done. The fight with the duplicates near the end of the episode wasn't great but like the rest of the episode it was fun.

Notes

Christopher Lee played the part of Professor Frank N. Stone. This is the first of two episodes of this show in which he appeared. I saw him a few days ago in an episode of Orson Welles Great Mysteries, 1.02 The Leather Funnel.

Christopher Benjamin played the part of Whittle. This is second of three episode of this show in which he appeared. I know him best from his appearances in two Doctor Who (1963) stories. 7.04 Inferno and 14.06 The Talons of Weng-Chiang.

Jeremy Young played the part of Doctor Penrose. This is the second of three episodes of this show in which he appeared. He also appeared in two Doctor Who (1963) stories, the first of which was 1.01 An Unearthly Child.