The Town of No Return

Last updated

"The Town of No Return"
The Avengers episode
The Avengers Town of No Return.gif
Screen title.
Episode no.Season 4
Episode 1
Directed by
Written by Philip Levene
Produced by
Featured music Laurie Johnson
Original air date28 September 1965 (1965-09-28)
Guest appearances
Episode chronology
← Previous
"Lobster Quadrille"		Next →
"The Gravediggers"
List of episodes

"The Town of No Return" is the first episode of the fourth series of the 1960s cult British spy-fi television series The Avengers , starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg in her Avengers debut, and guest starring Alan MacNaughton, Patrick Newell, Terence Alexander. It was first broadcast on ABC Weekend TV on 28 September 1965. The episode was written by Philip Levene, directed by Sidney Hayers, and produced by Brian Clemens.

Contents

Plot

On a beach a shifty man is attending to his lobster pots when a man emerges from the tide concealed in a watertight black covering; he walks up the beach, removes the covering, and says good morning to the man and walks off.

After a bout of fencing at Mrs. Peel's flat, Steed and Mrs Peel leave on a train to visit Little Bazeley by the Sea, a village in Norfolk where agents have been reported to go missing. [1] On the train they share a carriage with a portly gentleman, Jimmy Smallwood (played by Patrick Newell, who would later become a semi-regular Avengers cast member playing spymaster "Mother"), who is going to visit his brother the local blacksmith. On arrival Steed, Peel and Smallwood are shadowed by the shifty local man from the beach. At the local inn, the Inebriated Gremlin, they are served by landlord Piggy Warren, who introduces them to Mark Brandon, the school inspector, and Jill Manson, a teacher. Mrs Peel announces herself as a new teacher, assigned by the ministry to the local school. When Smallwood leaves to visit his brother the blacksmith, several strange men in boots with rifles depart through the inn and follow him. Meanwhile, Steed and Mrs Peel find their rooms in a shabby state, with the shutters nailed shut. Smallwood fails to find his brother, and heads for the church, followed by the shifty local. Later the shifty local is seen hunting Smallwood across the landscape with bloodhounds. This is heard back at the village and dismissed by Piggy as "badger hunting".

The following morning Steed and Mrs Peel examine strange footprints leading out of the sea and up the beach and find Smallwood dead and buried in the sand to their dismay and confusion.

Mrs Peel visits the school and finds it and the teachers very unusual. She discovers that the school has been unused for years and a large number of adult sized Wellington boots are stored there. She visits the local church where the vicar shows her the parish records, of which several decades are missing.

Meanwhile, Steed investigates the old wartime airfield and finds it in a similarly derelict state. Steed discovers a mention of a pilot, killed in 1942, named Piggy Warren: the name used by the pub landlord. Both Mrs Peel and Steed learn that the village folk are impostors and are hiding something. They seek out Smallwood's brother and find the shifty looking local who owns the bloodhounds pretending to be the blacksmith. Earlier they had seen a photo of Smallwood's brother so they know that he too is an impostor.

While Mrs Peel is investigating the school, an elderly man – the real School inspector – runs in, pursued by the phony school inspector and the shifty local, and says little but "below, below" before dying. Mrs Peel revisits the church and confronts the vicar, who suddenly pulls out a gun and reveals he is also an impostor. Mrs Peel is tied up in the blacksmith's until Steed arrives, overpowers the shifty local and frees her.

In the school, Steed and Mrs Peel discover enough food to feed an army. Mrs Peel reveals a diagram on the back of the old blackboard of Britain and a submarine in the North Sea. Wondering where have all the people gone, they surmise that this is a gradual invasion by a foreign power: small groups have been dispatched from a submarine located in the North Sea, explaining the bootprints at the beach and adult sized Wellington boots at the school, replacing the locals one by one until only the invaders remain.

Heeding the dying man's words, they head to the old airfield's underground bunkers. There they discover a small army of enemy agents and a big supply of explosives and some high tech equipment. Steed and Mrs Peel are eventually found by some of the impostors; a fight ensues before they overpower them and leave after sealing the invaders permanently underground. They depart the village on a motor scooter driven by Mrs Peel.

Cast

Production

The beach scenes were shot on the dunes at Holkham in late July 1965 Holkam beach.jpg
The beach scenes were shot on the dunes at Holkham in late July 1965

The episode was originally shot between 29 October to 13 November 1964 with Elizabeth Shepherd. [2]

However, the producers decided that she was not right for the role and replaced her with Diana Rigg. The episode was re-shot sometime between 21 July and 30 July 1965 part way through the season. [2] The village scenes were shot in Wighton, the shoreline scenes were shot at Holkham Gap, and the airfield scenes were shot at then disused RAF Sculthorpe (which had, for some time prior, been a USAF base), near Fakenham, in Norfolk. [2] The sets were designed by Harry Pottle. The episode was first broadcast ABC on 28 September 1965. [2]

Reception

The episode was well-received; most striking in the oppressive and poignant atmosphere created by the derelict school and airfield abandoned since the war and the sheer decadence of the village depicted in it. In their book Reading Between Designs: Visual Imagery and the Generation of Meaning in The Avengers, The Prisoner, and Doctor Who, Piers D. Britton and Simon J. Barker stated:

Inebriated Gremlin, the village inn where Steed and Mrs. Peel stay, are manifestly created for emotional impact: as an environment, the pub is palpably hostile and almost viscerally nauseating. The lounge bar is thoroughly dilapidated and heavily cobwebbed, with a transistor radio perched on an old sofa cushion in lieu of the jukebox. Steed's bedroom is an even more powerful study in insalubrity. Chipped enamel basin, tarnished metal bedstead, tattered curtains and towels, a lumpy, ill-made bed, and a flypaper choked with its victims all proclaim the fact that visitors are not welcome. Pottle manipulated the very space of the set so as to ensure that it is unsettling: the strongly inclined coving of the ceiling creates an oppressive atmosphere, which resonates with Steed's discovery that the windows are boarded up on the outside. [3]

They believe that the underlying theme of the episode is a "near-the-bone expose of parochial insularity and xenophobia in rural Norfolk", and that Clemens intentionally laced the episode with black humour and clichés of a stereotypical rustic village with "inhospitable hostelry" and the "starkly silhouetted gothic church". [3]

A sequence of this episode (in which Steed arrives at Mrs. Peel's flat and then they practice fencing together while discussing their upcoming assignment) was included in the opening scene of the thirteenth episode of the second season of Outlander book series television adaptation, "Dragonfly in Amber."

Related Research Articles

<i>The Avengers</i> (TV series) British espionage television series created in 1961

The Avengers is a British espionage television series, created in 1961, that ran for 161 episodes until 1969. It initially focused on David Keel, aided by John Steed. Hendry left after the first series; Steed then became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants. His most famous assistants were intelligent, stylish, and assertive women: Cathy Gale, Emma Peel, and Tara King. Dresses and suits for the series were made by Pierre Cardin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emma Peel</span> Character in the television series The Avengers

Emma Peel is a fictional character played by Diana Rigg in the British 1960s adventure television series The Avengers, and by Uma Thurman in the 1998 film version. She was born Emma Knight, the daughter of an industrialist, Sir John Knight. She is the crime-fighting partner of John Steed.

"A Touch of Brimstone" is the twenty-first episode of the fourth series of the 1960s British spy television series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee as John Steed and Diana Rigg as Emma Peel. It was filmed c. December 1965, and was first broadcast on British television on 15 February 1966. The episode was directed by James Hill and written by Brian Clemens. The plot involves Steed and Peel infiltrating the Hellfire Club whilst investigating harmful pranks on high profile political and business figures.

Dr. Catherine "Cathy" Gale is a fictional character played by Honor Blackman, on the 1960s British series The Avengers. She was the first regular female partner of John Steed, following the departure of Steed's original male co-star, Dr David Keel. She made her first appearance at the start of the series' second season in 1962.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Steed</span> Character in The Avengers

Major The Hon. John Wickham Gascoyne Beresford Steed usually known as John Steed, is a fictional character and the central protagonist on the 1960s British spy series The Avengers and its 1970s sequel The New Avengers, played by Patrick Macnee in both; by Donald Monat in the South-African radio series adaptation of The Avengers; by Ralph Fiennes in the 1998 film of the same name and by Julian Wadham in various audio adventures from Big Finish Productions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Hour That Never Was</span> 9th episode of the 4th season of The Avengers

"The Hour That Never Was" is the ninth episode of the fourth series of the 1960s cult British spy-fi television series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg. It was first broadcast by Scottish Television on Tuesday 23 October 1965. ABC Weekend Television, who commissioned the show, broadcast it in its own regions four days later on Saturday 27 October. The episode was directed by Gerry O'Hara and written by Roger Marshall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Cybernauts</span> 3rd episode of the 4th season of The Avengers

"The Cybernauts" is the third episode of the fourth series of the 1960s cult British spy-fi television series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg. It was first broadcast by Scottish Television on Tuesday 12 October 1965. ABC Weekend Television, who commissioned the show, broadcast it in its own regions four days later on Saturday 16 October. The episode was directed by Sidney Hayers and written by Philip Levene.

A Surfeit of H<sub>2</sub>O 8th episode of the 4th season of The Avengers

"A Surfeit of H2O" is the eighth episode of the fourth series of the 1960s cult British spy-fi television series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg. It was first broadcast by Scottish Television on Tuesday 16 November 1965. ABC Weekend Television, who commissioned the show, broadcast it in its own regions four days later on Saturday 20 November 1965. The episode was directed by Sidney Hayers and written by Colin Finbow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">From Venus with Love</span> 1st episode of the 5th season of The Avengers

"From Venus with Love" is the first episode of the fifth series of the 1960s cult British spy-fi television series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, and guest starring Barbara Shelley, Derek Newark, Jon Pertwee, Jeremy Lloyd and Philip Locke. It was first broadcast in the Southern region of the ITV network on Monday 9 January 1967. ABC Weekend Television, who commissioned the show for ITV, broadcast it in its own regions five days later on Saturday 14 January. The episode was directed by Robert Day, and written by Philip Levene.

Deaths Door (<i>The Avengers</i>) 18th episode of the 5th season of The Avengers

"Death's Door" is the eighteenth episode of the fifth series of the 1960s cult British spy-fi television series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, and guest starring Clifford Evans, Allan Cuthbertson, William Lucas, and Marne Maitland. It was first broadcast in the Grampian region of the ITV network on Wednesday 4 October 1967. ABC Weekend Television, who commissioned the show for ITV, broadcast it in its own regions three days later on Saturday 7 October. The episode was directed by Sidney Hayers, and written by Philip Levene.

What the Butler Saw (<i>The Avengers</i>) 22nd episode of the 4th season of The Avengers

"What the Butler Saw" is the twenty-second episode of the fourth series of the 1960s British spy-fi television series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg. It was first broadcast by Scottish Television on Tuesday 22 February 1966. ABC Weekend Television, who commissioned the show, broadcast it in its own regions four days later on Saturday 26 February. The episode was directed by Bill Bain and written by Philip Levene.

The Gravediggers (<i>The Avengers</i>) 2nd episode of the 4th season of The Avengers

"The Gravediggers" is the second episode of the fourth series of the 1960s cult British spy-fi television series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg. It was first broadcast by Scottish Television on Tuesday 5 October 1965. ABC Weekend Television, who commissioned the show, broadcast it in its own regions four days later on Saturday 9 October. The episode was directed by Quentin Lawrence, and written by Malcolm Hulke.

"The Fear Merchants" is the second episode of the fifth series of the 1960s cult British spy-fi television series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, and guest starring Patrick Cargill, Brian Wilde, Annette Carell, and Garfield Morgan. It was first broadcast in the Southern region of the ITV network on Monday 16 January 1967. ABC Weekend Television, who commissioned the show for ITV, broadcast it in its own regions five days later on Saturday 21 January. The episode was directed by Gordon Flemyng, and written by Philip Levene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Escape in Time</span> 3rd episode of the 5th season of The Avengers

"Escape in Time" is the third episode of the fifth series of the 1960s cult British spy-fi television series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, and guest starring Peter Bowles, Geoffrey Bayldon, Judy Parfitt, and Imogen Hassall. It was first broadcast in the Southern region of the ITV network on Monday 23 January 1967. ABC Weekend Television, who commissioned the show for ITV, broadcast it in its own regions five days later on Saturday 28 January. The episode was directed by John Krish, and written by Philip Levene.

"The Bird Who Knew Too Much" is the fifth episode of the fifth series of the 1960s cult British spy-fi television series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, and guest starring Ron Moody, Ilona Rodgers, Kenneth Cope, and Michael Coles. It was first broadcast in the Southern and Tyne Tees regions of the ITV network on Wednesday 8 February 1967. ABC Weekend Television, who commissioned the show for ITV, broadcast it in its own regions three days later on Saturday 11 February. The episode was directed by Roy Rossotti, and written by Brian Clemens.

"The Winged Avenger" is the sixth episode of the fifth series of the 1960s cult British spy-fi television series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, and guest starring Nigel Green, Colin Jeavons, Jack MacGowran, and Neil Hallett. It was first broadcast in the Southern and Tyne Tees regions of the ITV network on Wednesday 15 February 1967. ABC Weekend Television, who commissioned the show for ITV, broadcast it in its own regions three days later on Saturday 18 February. The episode was written by Richard Harris, and directed by Gordon Flemyng & Peter Duffell.

The Living Dead (<i>The Avengers</i>) 7th episode of the 5th season of The Avengers

"The Living Dead" is the seventh episode of the fifth series of the 1960s cult British spy-fi television series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, and guest starring Julian Glover, Pamela Ann Davy, Howard Marion-Crawford, and Jack Woolgar. It was first broadcast in the Southern and Tyne Tees regions of the ITV network on Wednesday 22 February 1967. ABC Weekend Television, who commissioned the show for ITV, broadcast it in its own regions three days later on Saturday 25 February. The episode was directed by John Krish, and written by Brian Clemens.

"The Forget-Me-Knot" is the first episode of the sixth series of the 1960s cult British spy-fi television series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, and introducing Linda Thorson as Tara King. Its first broadcast was on the US ABC network on 20 March 1968. Its first UK broadcast was on 25 September 1968 by Thames Television, who commissioned this series of the show for the ITV network. The episode was directed by James Hill, and written by Brian Clemens.

"The Superlative Seven" is the twelfth episode of the fifth series of the 1960s cult British spy-fi television series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, and guest starring Charlotte Rampling, Brian Blessed, Donald Sutherland, and James Maxwell. It was first broadcast in the Southern and Tyne Tees regions of the ITV network on Wednesday 5 April 1967. ABC Weekend Television, who commissioned the show for ITV, broadcast it in its own regions three days later on Saturday 8 April. The episode was written by Brian Clemens, and directed by Sidney Hayers.

References

  1. ↑ Rogers, Dave (1983). "Fourth Season: M-Appeal". The Avengers . London: ITV Books in association with Michael Joseph. p. 78. ISBN   0-907965-09-1 . Retrieved 29 December 2023– via Internet Archive Book Reader.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "The Avengers Forever:The Town of No Return". The Avengers Forever!. Retrieved 5 April 2012.
  3. 1 2 Britton, Piers D.; Barker, Simon J. (2003). "Chapter Two: Agents Extraordinary". Reading Between Designs: Visual Imagery and the Generation of Meaning in The Avengers, The Prisoner, and Doctor Who (First ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press. p. 72. ISBN   978-0-292-70927-0 . Retrieved 5 April 2012– via Google Books.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.