4.12 - Silent Dust

[peabody]

Discuss, review and rate Silent Dust, produced c. Monday 14th June 1965 to Friday 2nd July 1965.

Teleplay by Roger Marshall
Directed by Roy Baker

[Rodders]

Underrated, agoraphobic and atmospheric. Plenty of wit and some darker moments.

[Frankymole]

I agree, it's a gem of some considerable brilliance.

Full of the spirit and vigour of The Avengers at their best and with some well-drawn guest and incidental characters, married with the skewed vision of the British countryside that is also a quintessential part of the Avengerland atmosphere.

On top of all that it manages to include topical themes of ecological disaster, extortion and terrorism, even more pertinent today, and some musings on the class system that the Avengers usually only managed to lampoon in a heavy-handed manner. Here the achievement feels effortless, which goes to show how hard to do, and how rare it is.

An incredible script and brought to the screen with immense style and a superb cast. Even the opening feels full of biological warfare-ish dread in a way the grimmer stories of the Cathy era (Golden Eggs) or New Avengers (Midas Touch) managed. Can an episode be heavyweight and quirkily entertaining at the same time? Emphatically yes - this one can!

Just when you think it can't get any better, Macnee gets to deploy his equestrian skills.

[Rhonda]

I gave 8

[Mona]

I agree, it's a gem of some considerable brilliance.

Full of the spirit and vigour of The Avengers at their best and with some well-drawn guest and incidental characters, married with the skewed vision of the British countryside that is also a quintessential part of the Avengerland atmosphere.

On top of all that it manages to include topical themes of ecological disaster, extortion and terrorism, even more pertinent today, and some musings on the class system that the Avengers usually only managed to lampoon in a heavy-handed manner. Here the achievement feels effortless, which goes to show how hard to do, and how rare it is.

An incredible script and brought to the screen with immense style and a superb cast. Even the opening feels full of biological warfare-ish dread in a way the grimmer stories of the Cathy era (Golden Eggs) or New Avengers (Midas Touch) managed. Can an episode be heavyweight and quirkily entertaining at the same time? Emphatically yes - this one can!

Just when you think it can't get any better, Macnee gets to deploy his equestrian skills.

Agreed. Absolutely marvelous in every way.

Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring", about the environmental dangers of pesticides, particularly to birds, came out in 1962, and I can only believe that this episode was clearly written with her book in mind.

All the characters are interesting and well delineated.

I would say that Steed's recovery from 1) shotgun wound and 2) steel trap enclosing his ankle shows his remarkable healing ability, nearly along the lines of Wolverine's mutant healing factor, even with Emma performing surgery in a barn. Sure, we have one scene with his arm in a sling but then, he is leaping over a fence one, two, three.

This episode was societally relevant, environmentally responsible and enjoyably delightful, from the get go, without any flaws or slow areas. One of the best!

[Lee]

The final in my marathon watching evening as my wife was away with friends, and, once again, selected because it is an episode about which I had little recall. Certainly, this seemed a little like watching a new episode at time. I thought I knew all the series 4 stories like the back of my hand, but I obviously do not return to this one as much as others.

Seeing the name Roger Marshall come up on the titles leads to excitement - some of his episodes really cracking examples - but I felt this one didn't live up to some of the others. Perhaps it was more in the execution of the story than the writing, though.

As others have said, a very relevant story in terms of its ecological message, however I believe it was slightly diluted because it was a deliberate attempt to bring about destruction rather than man's destruction of the environment through his thoughtless activity.

I felt some of the execution of the story reduced some of the threat and tension. The sequence of Steed's dream with Emma as a wild West doctor was a bit silly and I feel reduced the level of threat for our hero. Similarly, when Emma was being chased across the fields by two of the fiends at the end of the episode, some of the directorial decisions made it seem less dangerous by having Emma constantly adjusting her bowler hat and smiling at camera. Having just watched two Cathy Gale episodes prior to this, I couldn't helping thinking that Honour's reactions would have made it seem a little more realistic. I know towards the end of series 4, some of the more quirky elements were beginning to take over increasingly, which, in my opinion, lead to some of the more fantastical elements of series 5 and 6 - but I'm not sure they fitted in this episode, which was generally played more straight than fantastical.

I gave this a 6.

[Ian Duerden]

Lounging in the punt Steed informs Emma that they are there to investigate the disappearance of the martlets. The injoke here is there is no such bird, simply a mention in Macbeth and a mythical bird in heraldry. (It has no feet and can never land, living only on the wind.) This is an excellent episode for mischief with literacy quotes.

[Frankymole]

Roger Marshall greatness, again.

[mousemeat]

Lounging in the punt Steed informs Emma that they are there to investigate the disappearance of the martlets. The injoke here is there is no such bird, simply a mention in Macbeth and a mythical bird in heraldry. (It has no feet and can never land, living only on the wind.) This is an excellent episode for mischief with literacy quotes.

you can tell the writer, knew his stuff...lol..and the cast seemed to enjoy the dialogue , etc

[Rhonda]

I suppose I thought it was just the name Steed's ancestors had used for sand martins or similar. Yes, clever of the writer to give us the name martlet and thanks for explaining it! The Avengers often nicely leaves things that can be found out about later.