The Avengers Forever: The GLG Reports

	The GLG Reports Page 14 of 67

The Hour That Never Was
By Grant L. Goggans

"They've all gone away, haven't they, sir? Camp's closing down." This is a potentially good introduction for new fans to The Avengers, a well-structured, engaging story with lots of location filming, and plenty of scenes with just Steed and Mrs. Peel talking together as they investigate the air base. The direction is very good, with plenty of eerie, almost hallucinatory scenes of the deserted base. The only real problem is, despite a well-paced mystery about what is going on, the villainous plot is both a little mundane and far-fetched. It's quite clear that Marshall simply wrote an hour around the location (a very American approach to TV drama!) and seemed to fumble when he actually had to come up for a reason for the base being deserted. Nevertheless, while the plot's a little hard to swallow, it's not indigestible, and the production is so good it's easy to get over it. Guest stars Gerald Harper and Roy Kinnear do great jobs with their small roles.