Another globetrotting entry, "Propellant 23" was the third Cathy Gale episode shot, and the second to be broadcast. Continuing the improvement, it starts aboard a plane en route from Tripoli to Marseilles, as a passenger named Jules Meyer (Frederick Schiller) is alarmed by a seemingly innocuous message (in code) sent by Steed, taking refuge from impending doom in the cockpit. When Meyer dies after landing at the airport, Steed finds himself under suspicion by the local police, but Mrs. Gale is luckily on hand to help him complete his assignment, to deliver Meyer's hidden consignment of Chinese rocket fuel, disguised in a simple flask as well as a bottle of hair tonic. An excess of characters distract somewhat, but it remains the best Cathy Gale yet (this is the episode in which her awkward garter gun debuts). Making her second and last appearance on the show, Katherine Woodville ("Hot Snow") would later marry Patrick Macnee (divorced by 1969), and since 2006 was the widow of actor Edward Laurence Albert. Geoffrey Palmer also appeared in "Dance with Death," "Man with Two Shadows," and "A Surfeit of H2O," John Crocker did "The Medicine Men" and "The Winged Avenger," Nicholas Courtney did "Mission ... Highly Improbable," and Graham Ashley did "All Done with Mirrors." The fourth Cathy Gale episode would be chosen as the second season's debut broadcast- "Mr. Teddy Bear."
Review of Propellant 23
