The CLOSED Avengers International Fan Forum

darren · Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2013 12:19 pm Post subject: 3.14 - The Secrets Broker

Written by Ludovic Peters

Directed by Jonathan Alwyn

Production completed: 19 October 1963

Charlie Parker · Little Wonder Joined: 08 Sep 2008 Posts: 181

An underrated episode in my opinion. Jack May is great as the slimey Waller and the séance aspect while being a tad predictable works in the episodes favour. Never really got the huge dislike for this episode. Flawed yes, but it is an interesting mix of the second season while foreshadowing the next few years.

darren · Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 7:53 am Post subject:

It's a strange episode this with it's mix of situations. You have the electronics firm on the one side and seance and wine tasting on the other. But it kind of works. There's supposed to have been a chunk edited out of this prior to broadcast but I've never spotted the gap. I do like Jack May, he's wonderfully seedy in this.

It's not exceptional but there's some good stuff going on.

6/10

Lhbizness · Guest

This one continues to perplex me, and I've now seen it more times than even the far better episodes from Season 3 - I think because I want to define what it is. Some great elements are folded in: the wine store, the seances, the adultery, at least two really top-notch Avengerish baddies. But somehow it doesn't manage to marry those elements into something coherent. Maybe it's that we spend too much time hanging out with villains, whose villainy seems to lie more in their callous murders than in what they're actually do to undermine the government. Maybe it's the tiresome lovers - a trope that crops up a lot in the Cathy Gale series - who are so stupid and self-centered that they don't drum up much sympathy. But I keep having this sense that the whole thing should work really well; Cathy and Steed have some great moments together, Steed's forays into the wine shop are loads of fun. It's just...so very odd. I'm sure that I will write up a more complete review for my own blog, once I figure out what goes on with this episode.

Charlie Parker · Little Wonder Joined: 08 Sep 2008 Posts: 181

I think the Avengers Dossiers sums it up: One foot in the Avengers past and the other foot in its future. Agreed it never quite gels but there is some much fun going on I find it hard never to be entertained by the episode.

Ian Wegg · Have Fingers... Will Type! Joined: 15 Sep 2011 Posts: 436

I've just read the previous reviews having first watched the episode and they pretty much sum up my opinion. Some good individual scenes but I wasn't sure at any moment what was happening. Someone mentioned that there had been cuts and it seemed to e this was at the very start, I completely missed the explanation about why Cathy Gale and Steed had any interest in the wine shop.

A straight down the middle average 5 from me, which I now see is the lowest score anyone has given.

~iw

Rhonda · Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2018 3:08 am Post subject:

4 for me. I'm not sure how credibile the method is, in going to the extremes to conceal it, to steal military secrets. There's a difficult fine line between the clever and the contrived that has to be found in the writing (says me, what I wrote!).
_________________
Ron
Last Watched : Trap