The Avengers : Series 5 : Return Of The Cybernauts : trivia

3:00 - A dark smudge, possibly on the camera lens, appears on the centre top edge of the screen in the dramatic closeup freeze-frame of the cybernaut just before the titles appear.
3:03 - The caption scanner was very dirty so the freeze frame for the episode title has hairs and dust all over it. Rare at this stsage for "The Avengers" to use a freeze frame, it was a staple of "The New Avengers".
5:15 & 11:03 - Mrs Peel's handbag was not left where it was found the next day - the edge of the counter is clearly visible, and clearly empty, at 5:15.
6:00 - Mrs Peel uses a single finger to push over the damaged door, a reference (repeated later for anyone who missed the significance) to her toppling of the deactivated cybernaut in The Cybernauts.
7:47 - The scene of Dr Neville is missing from the old Australian broadcast master. A recent showing on Gem shows that a new print is in circulation.
9:00-10:45 et passim. - Dr Neville's attire varies greatly. When he is running to the car and drops his keys, and when he's removed through the roof of the car, he's wearing tan suede Chelsea boots, a brown jacket and grey trousers. However, when he's being carried to Beresford's house by the cybernaut (10:36), he's wearing black leather Oxfords, and a navy suit. Once in Beresford's lab and awake, he's back in his brown jacket, and one would assume, his suede boots.
11:31 - Shades of Get Smart - Steed has a phone in the Bentley.
16:15 - The colour balance is off in Beresford's close-up before the fade for commercial break.
16:27/17:58 - Steed's tie changes colour for no good reason from gold to orange, when worn with the same shirt and suit. Some time has elapsed between the scenes though.
21:48-21:58 - Paul Beresford holds a glass of wine up for Steed to look at and says it's definitely corked, and he'll have to get another - problem is, you detect if a wine is corked by smell, not sight - cork-taint is a fungal growth in the cork wood, not bits of cork floating in the wine!
22:57 - John Hunt's house is given the same address as Benstead's house in Dead Man's Treasure: High Pines, Edgington. But it's a different house! Beresford's house is Woolmers Park, Essendon Road, Letty Green, Herts., while Benstead's is Shenley Hall, Rectory Lane, Shenley, Herts. WD7 9AN.
23:35/25:42 - Steed is supposed to be in a hurry to get to Hunt's house, but arrives in a navy suit after leaving Beresford'a in a grey suit. Did he stop to change clothes? (Maybe the continuity girl - Gladys Goldsmith in this case - wasn't paying attention). No wonder people are always dying before The Avengers get there (a fact made fun of by Mrs Peel in Something Nasty in the Nursery).
23:55 - There's the usual colour shift in the back projection scenes.
24:00-25:25 - It's definitely Rocky driving the Bentley, especially at 25:24.
34:31 - When Steed's wrist is photographed to obtain details of his watch, the resulting black & white photograph has the watch the wrong way round on his wrist - the winder is towards his hand instead of towards his cuff, he's wearing a different suit and the time is different!
39:10/42:25 - Mrs Peel arrives at Steed's flat wearing the red tartan jacket and deep pink belt, with the belt wrapped around her counterclockwise (loose end to her left), but when she arrives at Beresford's house, the whole time in a trance-like state, the belt is worn clockwise, with the loose end to her right, especially obvious when Beresford starts removing her jacket, and flips the belt out to her left, exposing the white back of the belt.
40:15 - It's Cyd Child who walks to the car.
40:20-40:30 - There's colour shift as Emma gets in the car and when Steed tries to stop her - they've obviously been shot in the studio with a blue screen.
40:25 onwards - Cyd & Rocky do the driving and Rocky leaps over the Lotus as it speeds away.
41:05 - More colour shift for the close-up of Steed driving.
47:30 - Mrs Peel goes to push over the deactivated cybernaut but Steed stops her and says, "My turn". Another reference to Mrs Peel toppling the deactivated cybernaut in The Cybernauts with a single finger.
Running time: 49'14"
The Australian broadcast master of "Return of the Cybernauts" has a great many cuts taken out of it to allow more advertisements. The scene where Dr Tingwell is captured is cut just as he evades the cybernaut, then we see Steed and Mrs Peel arriving at Beresford's - a good 1:50 of footage is missing. That's not the only bit, either. Most of the cars chases - when Mrs Peel's in a trance, Benson driving to Hunt's place - are missing, as is most of Steed's second conversation with Rosie.

A note on the timecodes
Where I have listed two sets of timecodes, the first is from the 2009-11 Optimum Releasing/Studio Canal DVD sets, any other timecodes are from the A&E and Contender DVD sets from a decade beforehand.
The new releases have been remastered and their frame rate has been changed, resulting in a shorter running time. However, the picture quality has increased markedly. I assume this is because they used a simple 2:2 pulldown (24 @ 25) when converting from the original film masters (film runs at 24 frames per second, while PAL runs at 25fps, the new DVDs are in PAL format).
This pulldown was also the cause of audio errors on many episodes, especially for Series 5, as the audio sped up to match the new rate (4% faster), rather than being properly pitch-shifted. Checking the dialogue sheets, which list the feet and frames of the reels, it looks like the speed change is around 5.04%, so there may be some cuts as well - probably from around the commercial breaks and ends of reels, as they amount to about 25 seconds. All my assumptions are based on the episodes having been filmed on standard 35mm film, which has 16 frames per foot and runs at 24 frames per second, so a minute of footage uses 90 feet of film (1,440 frames).
These audio errors have been corrected in the currently available DVDs, but the 2:2 pulldown remains. There is also the addition of a Studio Canal lead-in, converted to black and white to match the episode for Series Four, but colour for Series Five, adding an extra 18 or 19 seconds to the runnning time and making it harder to match timecodes with previous releases. It's annoying that it has been slapped on every single episode, Series 1-3 didn't suffer this indignity.
The previous Contender and A&E DVD releases didn't seem to suffer from these problems, so I assume they either used soft telecine and preserved the original 24fps rate of the film (my preferred option in DVDs) or they used 24 @ 25 pulldown (2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:3 Euro pull-down). Let's hope the much-rumoured bluray release will revert to native 24fps with soft telecine so we won't have these problems again.

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The Episode Guide to Series 5B (1967) of The Avengers

Episode 17 - Return Of The Cybernauts