User Reviews

One of the better episodes from series 2. The plot is a bit silly, but still with that sinister touch that distinguishes the best Avengers storylines. Michael Latimer is good as Reresby, the suave and corrupt quack at the center of the bogus health farm operation which is the focus here. Dinsdale Landen as Coldstream, the treacherous civil servant who brings him his victims form among the establishment is also good. There is a turn by a very young Lindsay Duncan as Coldstream's secretary (she is nevertheless one of the good guys).

The health farm plot is of course discovered, infiltrated and then destroyed by our trusty threesome. The conspirators make a fair but futile effort at resistance. There is a cool fight scene as three of the nurses at the farm attempt to stop our heroes by force and are physically subdued by Purdey. (The last one is actually taken out by Gambit who disarms her and knocks her out with contemptuous ease.)

There is I think a certain fault in the plot at the end, in that Gambit enters the maze to find Purdey and Steed after making one of the villainesses turn off the maze. Its not clear why she doesnt at that point turn it back on...

It was funny to watch this again years later and realize that the health farm people were actually supposed to be working for the Soviet Union. Because of the inherent artificiality of the Avengers world, I was amused at the thought of them being asked their reasons and them launching into a detailed critique of capitalist economics and the injustices therein. But of course, hokum must be allowed to be hokum.

The New Avengers never quite created a world for itself in the way that the original series did because it could never quite opt for total silliness and whimsicality, or total grittiness and realism, but rather tried to combine both in a way that never quite entirely worked, but nevertheless had its moments. 'Angels of Death' was one of these.