The Avengers (TV Series) Bizarre (1969) User Reviews

Tara's final case!

[ShadeGrenade · 8/10 · 11 August 2011]

A young woman ( Sally Nesbitt ) wanders dazedly across a snow-covered field, wearing nothing but a nightie. She remembers little of who she is or how she got there. Steed and Tara investigate. The girl - Helen Pritchard - was thrown off a train by Jonathan Jupp ( John Sharp ) whom she saw rising out of a coffin. Jupp is interred at Happy Meadows cemetery, an exclusive burial ground for the rich, run by the wonderfully-named 'Bagpipes Happychap' ( Roy Kinnear ). Jupp's coffin is dug up, and he is still in it. He was one of a number of businessmen who recently 'died' whilst under investigation by the Fraud Squad. Steed has all the other coffins exhumed - they are empty!

This final episode is a reworking of 'The Terribly Happy Embalmers', which Clemens wrote for the B.B.C.'s 'Avengers' rival 'Adam Adamant Lives!'. It also has a touch of Evelyn Waugh's 'The Loved One' ( a satirical novel about the commercialisation of death ). Not a great episode admittedly, but still fun. Alongside Kinnear we have Fulton ( 'Porridge' ) Mackay as the 'Master' of Mystic Tours, which for a large fee will fake your death and allow you to live out the rest of your days in an underground chamber full of beautiful girls! George Innes and Ron Pember play a couple of hired hoods named ( respectively ) 'Shaw' and 'Charley'.

Though the show was still popular in Britain, in the States it was beaten in the ratings by 'Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In'. As if to acknowledge that this was indeed the end, the 'tag scene' has Steed and Tara blasting off in a do-it-yourself rocket! On the ground, Mother addresses the audience: "They'll be back...you can depend on it! They're unchaperoned up there!".

Repeats kept the show in the public eye for some time to come, and the 'T.V. Comic' version lasted until 1972! In 1975, Macnee and Thorson did indeed come back, reunited for a French champagne commercial, which directly led to 'The New Avengers'. It was sad that Linda never got another season as she was beginning to settle into the role. Clemens has a very high opinion of the Thorson series, claiming it had more good scripts than any other. When Macnee watched them in the mid-'90's ( when researching his book 'The Avengers & Me' ), he said they came as a revelation, being better than he'd remembered. Despite a few clunkers, the series is worthy of a major reevaluation.

If you are reading this, Linda - thanks!

The end for Steed and Tara

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 19 November 2015]

This, the final episode of the original 'Avengers' opens with a woman, Helen Pritchard, walking barefoot in the snow, dressed in her nightwear. She collapses and there is no obvious indication where she came from. The case is to be investigated by Steed, Tara and Captain William Cordell. Cordell surmises that Helen must have either fallen or been thrown from the night train… she doesn't remember much but when asked about the train starts ranting about being on a train and seeing a dead man in a coffin who wasn't dead! There was indeed a coffin being transported on the train; its destination the Happy Meadows cemetery. Steed goes there to investigate and learns that the body has been buried. That might have been the end of the matter but soon afterwards a man tries to kill Helen; Tara stops him and he is killed in the attack… rather surprising given that he died and was buried at Happy Meadows some time previously! It turns out many people wanted for financial crimes 'died' and were buried at Happy Meadows. Exhumations reveal a lot of empty coffins.

This episode is a lot of fun and certainly lives up to its title… even by the standards of The Avengers it is delightfully bizarre. At first there is the question of what is happening to the bodies; then when we learn that they aren't dead there is the question of how they have been certified dead; Steed even confirmed that one of them was dead. We learn that these 'undead' are in fact living a good life attended by beautiful women in a cavern under the cemetery; this is a vision of paradise that could only have been imagined in the sixties! The guest cast were entertaining; most notably Roy Kinnear who played the delightfully named Bagpipes Happychap and Fulton Mackay who plays the character behind the mystery. As one would expect Patrick Macnee and Linda Thorson do fines jobs in this final episode… although Macnee would of course return in 'The New Avengers'. Watching the series again I can't help feeling that the 'Tara King' stories are somewhat underrated and her character overlooked compared to Cathy Gale and Emma Peel. The ending does feel a little tacked on and has no connection to anything we've seen before… clearly the writers knew this was to be the last series and decided to give Steed and Tara a memorable send-off… the succeeded!

End of an era, offbeat and funny.

[vonnoosh · 8/10 · 22 April 2021]

The last season of the Avengers is about as impossible to talk abput to casual fans of the show as discussing the best way to cook a burger with a cow. Their knowledge of the series likely began and ended with Emma Peel. At least it is true in my country. Actual fans of the show can find alot to like with each era because they are so different in alot of ways. Sure, there was always John Steed but that character evolved alot from a plain clothes police detective being aided by a vengeful doctor after his wife was murder to an overworked, ruthless, at times unhinged secret agent, to a confident, sure of himself in any situation agent and finally a mentor to a younger partner in the last season. The final dynamic had a false start with changing producers, perhaps that is what sunk the show but whatever the reason, it didn't have as much of a chance as 9ther eras and it deserves to be seen and enjoyed because most of the season is better written than the final season with Diana Rigg. That last season with Emma Peel had several stories which were remakes of Cathy Gale episodes. There are no remakes during the Tara King season.

Most of the stories are excellent and balanced well with the goal of keeping the plots bizarre and interesting without going a little too far into the realm of ridiculousness. It does however end as ridiculous as possible but it was the end so who cared anymore?

This episode follows a similar story line to Escape In Time. Crooks needing to escape justice die and are buried. Roy Kinnear, who is always entertaining on this show(he appeared in Cathy Gale episode earlier) plays the hapless owner of the cementary whose heart sinks with each exumation.

It is a solid send off and the final season is worth learning about if you thought the series and began and ended with Emma Peel.

Oh boy, it's like they're not even trying, now

[crystallogic · 6/10 · 8 December 2018]

Well, you can't win 'em all. This was the last aired Avengers episode (though not the last made, I understand) and it's kind of bad. It's definitely not made with serious intentions though and you should cut it some slack, however the plot barely hangs together and only seems to serve the purpose of stringing together a bunch of absurd situations.

Nowadays, we are used to TV finales being a big deal, so it's sometimes easy to forget when we watch old shows that people were just expected to tune in whenever they could or felt like it, and so the last episode of the season wasn't anything special. This would be one of those cases, except it ends with one of the weirdest in a long history of Avengers "final joke scenes", where we see that Steed has built a rocket; Mother admires its lines and contours, and Steeds invites Tara to blast off with him. They do, and Mother looks on, horrified that they are unchaperoned. Actually, I've noticed a sort of running joke in the last few season 6 episodes I've watched, where "gentlemanly" sensibilities are mocked more than ever. This is a side of The Avengers that I don't think everybody has picked up on: the sly digs at the conventionality of upper-crust society, especially where sexual mores are concerned. it's a nice touch, and while I didn't like this episode all that much despite enjoying the absurdity of the whole thing, that last scene had me giggling and saying "What the ****!" simultaneously, and it's about as fitting an end to The Avengers as I can think of: Steed and Tara King literally blasting off into the sky to who-knows-where.

If you must know, the plot concerns a bunch of bankers and financial investor types down on their luck who decide to "disappear" by pretending to be dead. They go to this garish funeral home which has its own cemetery, and pretend to be dead, only to be whisked away to some go-go club under the graveyard. I guess they are supposed to stay underground for two years, smoking cigars and drinking and having their way with voluptuous houris. "Paradise", as they say. Steed's sarcasm about all this once he gets to the club himself ("Wow, this is really living!!!)" is priceless. But there are major unbelievable plot holes, not least of which is Steed apparently being killed, funeraled, coffined and interred in the space of less than a day, so that Tara's barely had time to say "by your leave m'lord I'll be back in a jiffy" before she learns all this. And are we really supposed to believe that that Mr. Happychap had no idea what was going on under the ground? Still, his reactions to the idea of more and more corpses being dug up are amazing, and it gets even more hilarious when all of the graves turn out to be empty.

I don't know, it wasn't so bad, but I'd be highly surprised if this were among anybody's favourite episodes. Of course the production is nicely done, the acting great and the music ace (though you might get a little tired of one repetitive theme), but this does have a little bit of an appearance of a show running on autopilot. I'd expect a little better from Mr. Brian ClemenS, who only seems to care about the macabre eccentricity of his plot. The villains are also nowhere near as memorable as you'd expect, but then, if their imagination is really limited to "keep them happy with underground go-go club for years", maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

The final of an aera

[clweb-2 · 9/10 · 16 August 2023]

This episode is very special. Tara is not too active opposite other episodes of the serie.

What is interesting is the conclusion with the rocket. That reminds me the final of an other serie of this time. I mean "The Prisoner", where there is also a rocketstarting off.

It's a mark of the sixties where British humor often involves coffins.

Previous episodes of the Avengers had also coffins involved.

Tara was the most feminine Steed's partner opposite the cold Ms Gale and Ms Peel.

This final episode deals with death and it's also the death of this serie. The new avengers had mostly nothing to do withe the original one.

So RIP the Avengers.

The final episode or, The Great Grave Robbery

[kevinolzak · 6/10 · 18 May 2011]

"Bizarre" is not the best episode to end the series on, but it is what it is. A young woman (Sally Nesbitt, "The Joker") is found unconscious in a snow covered field, having been thrown off a train after discovering a coffin with a very live occupant. All the clues lead to The Happy Meadows, a cemetery run by 'Bagpipes' Happychap (Roy Kinnear, "Esprit De Corps," "The Hour That Never Was," "The See-Through Man"), in particular the section known as Paradise Plot, reserved only for the privileged. Steed must die to learn the secrets behind Paradise. The climactic fight is no holds barred, scored with a new version of the familiar theme, a fitting last hurrah. Also featuring Fulton Mackay ("Return of the Cybernauts" and "You'll Catch Your Death"), John Sharp ("Traitor in Zebra" and "Murdersville"), Patrick Connor ("Death on the Slipway"), and Ron Pember ("Double Danger"). This final episode ends with Steed and Tara blasting off for parts unknown, without a care in the world (at least until the champagne runs out). The series completed its final episode in March 1969, and Patrick Macnee would not return for THE NEW AVENGERS until 1976.

BIZARRE: THIS STORY COULD NOT HAVE HAD A BETTER TITLE

[asalerno10 · 8/10 · 16 June 2022]

It all starts with a rather creepy scene of a young woman walking confused through the snow in her nightgown and in a desolate place until she passes out. Once in the hospital how terrified that she was traveling on a train and that she had witnessed the return to life of a corpse that came out of its coffin and attacked her until she was thrown out of the car. The Avengers begin to investigate the unusual case and discover that there is an organization that makes eccentric millionaires pass for dead and organize their burial in a private cemetery where an underground city is hidden where the supposed dead can live their lives festively. A truly bizarre theme as the title says but that has both creepy and crazy comedy elements at the same time.

Bizarre by name.....

[Sleepin_Dragon · 6/10 · 19 September 2022]

Helen Pritchard is found wandering in the snow, claiming to have seen a corpse, rise up from a coffin. Steed and Tara investigate the funeral parlour that handled his death.

Somewhat disappointing, considering this is the final episode for this great series, I think the show deserved a lot better.

Definitely not in the recent style of straight up thrillers, this plays out more along the lines of an Ealing comedy.

The plot is very well conceived and imaginative, but the execution, for me feels like the last day of term at School, everyone is taking it easy, and going through the motions, knowing full well the next day, you can spend all day in bed, that's the focus.

Roy Kinnear just about manages to save it, Happychap is at least amusing in a good way, the hapless undertaker's lack of understanding, and bewilderment is enjoyable.

Nice to see Sally Nesbitt back, she deserved another episode after The Joker, although I thought she was great in that.

The main villains though, they're just not memorable, and dare I say, it feels as though there were elements sending the show up, I'll leave that thought for you to consider.

The final scene, amusing enough, I bet viewers were expecting the return of Steed and Tara, but on this showing, it perhaps ended at the right time.

Something of a disappointing end to a great series, 6/10.

And the series peters out...before blasting off...

[mcelhaney · 4/10 · 17 September 2012]

"Bizarre" is one episode that just seems flat to me, as in the writing, cast and the production department sensed that the show was ending and it shows on the screen with a somewhat interesting story that arrives at an obvious conclusion. Actors that look a little depressed knowing it's all coming to an end and sets that look like sets instead of even attempting a realistic look.

Still, it does have a few moments of spark, if only the final scene where Tara gets her wish to blast off alone with Steed. One curious development is how Rhonda, Mother's loyal, towering and silent assistant, disappears halfway through the episode for no obvious reason except that she must have gotten her pink slip early.

"Bizarre" is not the way "The Avengers" should have ended, but I get the sense that everyone knew this remarkable show was ending and sadly it shows a little too much.