Lhbizness wrote:I think that's a wee bit of a stretch to assume that Olga speaks English, at least on first viewing, or that Gambit is in on the joke if she does - this is the first time that Gambit has seen her, obviously. She's presented initially not as a full person but as a pair of legs which Gambit drops into a crouch to view, compartmentalizing her and treating her as something there to be looked at and spoken about as though she's not even present - which is what Gambit proceeds to do. So this is what I mean by the show demonstrating casual sexism at times - a choice was made to film the scene this way, and it did not need to be quite so objectifying or, in my view, juvenile. Nor does she have even as big a role as some of Steed's girlfriends; she never appears again, so we never get a payoff scene in which, perhaps, she proves that she can speak English. But I'll just chock it up to something else I find off-putting about Gambit and leave it at that. TNA has a problem with casual sexism that extends into its male characters attitudes towards "throwaway" females that are not Purdey.
In general, though, shows often take the tack of threatening female characters with sexual violence, as though that is the only kind of violence that can be perpetrated against women. It has an undercurrent of titillation that is very disturbing. When you couple that with casually sexist scenes, as in this episode, it becomes a persistent problem. Even in this episode, Cromwell's creepy way of touching Purdey in several scenes is inappropriate, yet the script has her respond with a vague flirtation, as though his aggressiveness is acceptable to her, or at least something she can put up with.
I can't quite bring myself to excuse it because TNA is more gritty than The Avengers - TNA is often also a bit shallower and more ridiculous in its approach to female characters. (Though The Avengers does have villains that threaten sexual violence once or twice, it is not an ongoing feature).
None of this, by the way, is to say that it's wrong for viewers to appreciate the physical attributes of the actresses, or for the characters to flirt with or be attracted to each other. It's the effect of voyeurism and casual possession of women's bodies as nothing more than bodies that bothers me.
Yeah, I wish that Hendry and Macnee had actually been given a proper scene together. I don't see why they couldn't have cast him in another role - perhaps as one of Steed's superiors in a later episode - rather than palming us off with a scene in which the two original Avengers barely speak to each other. It's just lazy.
In general, though, I like the episode and I like seeing Hendry there. Just wish more had been made out of it.
I don't think it's a stretch at all--it's meant to be a joke. Steed says she doesn't speak a word of English, and she confirms it--in English! Gambit doesn’t take Steed’s protestations that she doesn’t understand seriously anymore than the audience does. The fact that the show has the scene at all is another issue entirely, but neither it nor the original series are blameless when it comes to those sorts of scenes. TNA may have more of it simply because they had the French backers were always putting pressure on them to make things “sexier.”
I’d argue that both Gambit and Steed treat the female characters other than Purdey pretty well, though. Gambit’s relationships with his girlfriends are actually one of my favourite aspects of the characters. There’s a nice reciprocity between them, lots of humour and friendly back and forths, rather than it being one-sided—they’re both there to enjoy themselves. He’s good at respecting boundaries, and is actually spends the majority of the time looking at their faces than anywhere else. And he seems to appreciate clever women. Purdey’s the most obvious example, but there’s also Penny the math teacher, Dr. LeParge the pathologist, and the German archivist.
The show certainly doesn’t condone actions like Cromwell’s, either, or that they’re meant to be seen in anything other than a negative light. He’s not portrayed as a likeable character even before we learn he’s the White Rat. Purdey is always portrayed as in control and capable of dealing with his advances. She keeps things light and finds subtle ways to fend him off, while also casually pointing out that she could break his back in three places if he doesn’t watch himself. The sense is Purdey will decide when she’s had enough and it’s time to put Cromwell in line. They also don’t make out that sexual violence is the only threat faced by Purdey, who also has to hold her own in fights. They have her leaving Larry because he hits her, and Peter Jeffrey’s character in “House of Cards” earns a knock-out punch for hitting her.
Anyway, bottom line is that I’m not saying the show was never sexist or what have you, and there are definitely scenes that I don’t care for (just as there are for loads of other shows from that period and the ‘60s), but as a whole I think it does pretty well, and with Gambit and Steed we got some pretty enlightened male leads.
Recasting Ian would be easier said than done. There’s no guarantee that Ian would have been available to film a different role in another episode, or even if he was, there’d be no guarantee that the episode in production would even have a suitable part for him. There was a similar case with Frederick Jaeger in “Last of the Cybernauts.” They would have been quite happy to have him come back as Benson, but the only gap he had in his schedule was when they were filming “Target!” Even then they only had him for two weeks, and “Target!” was plagued by rain delays that put it behind schedule. Jaeger couldn’t hang around to shoot the whole episode as he had other commitments, so they were forced to give him a small, one-scene role and put someone else in his part. The production schedule was breakneck, so they couldn’t wait around for individual actors any more than an actor could be expected to wait around for them. They made as many tweaks to the script as they could to take advantage of having Ian there without totally throwing off filming. I wouldn’t call it lazy, just a case of unfortunate production circumstances.
Love Olga's 'not a vord ' 
What's wrong with Gambit looking at a pair of magnificient legs 
Hope it was o.k. for us the viewers to get a peek at Purdey's 'pins' straight after Olga's 
Possibly Gambit was a LEGS man