I apologize for the disturbing picture on the left. It frightens me as I write this blog, but I thought it would set the mood for my "Too Many Christmas Trees" review. The main reason that I vote this episode as the best is that it takes a concept that is ridiculous by design (telepathy) and makes it cool. It reverses the Emma episode making it the first and only "Steed episode" that I have encountered (correct me if I'm wrong). It also contains some of the most funny, touching, witty, and entertaining Emma/Steed moments of the entire season ("I have always fancied myself in one of these," says Emma referring to the bed. Steed replies, "So have I-I mean, I have too.") Classic. And what's cooler than an evil Santa?
In this episode, Steed is under mind invasion by a group of telepathic people. He is the only one under attack, but Emma is by his side, trying to figure out what is wrong with him. It is interesting to know Emma's agenda without entirely knowing what is going on in Steed's mind (more mystery).
"Too Many Christmas Trees" also features some cool dream sequences which everyone loves featuring some chilling camera work (camera cuts back and forth from the guillotine, to Steed, to the basket lady as Steed waits to get his head chopped off, mimicking the cutting motion of the approaching saw). The side characters aren't very interesting (except maybe Janice Crane), but the rest of the episode makes up for it. I also think that the hook for this episode is one of the best hooks in any episode ever. It used to scare the pants off me as a child (stockings are transformed into a dead man's feet).
What else is there to say? This is a personal favorite of Pactrick Macnee's. Emma looks good as Oliver Twist. Metronomes make people sleepy. Santa should never be on a playing card. Butlers are very creepy. Never trust any mysterious people in your dreams. This is the closest thing that Avengers gets to perfection. And how ironic? A perfect Chirstmas show. This is one episode that you will want to see year round (and be sure to wait for the wonderful tag).
3 comments:
That picture is so not scary.
Otherwise, the descriptions of the episodes are giving a much better idea of what they include than did your previous entries. (The grammar's also better. Yay.) The only thing that really jumped out at me was "some cool dream sequences which everyone loves . . . " This is more of a grammatical issue; generally, not only do phrases set off with the word "which" need separation of some sort (ie, commas or parentheses), it also sounds like you're saying everyone would like those dream sequences specifically. I'm guessing you probably meant everyone likes dream sequences in general.
Besides my grammar lesson (whoo), this was a nice post. Good job.
I will take it all into consideration. Gracias.
Of course, I find this episode so very scary because Patrick McNee, who is often the amusing one of the pair, is obviously frightened and serious in a way we've not seen. But, I really love that he gets a Christmas card from Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman who had left THe Avengers for her role in the Bond hit Goldfinger, filmed at Fort Knox.) Emma says something like, "What's she doing in Fort Knox," a real insider moment in the series.
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