Series 4 — Episode 18
The Thirteenth Hole

Regional broadcasts

TV Times listing

International broadcasts

Episode Rating

A satellite receiving station under a bunker? I ask you. Still, there’s lots of red herrings and action aplenty to keep the episode ticking along.

The Fashions

The Cars

Who’s Killing Whom?

Click a name to see the face

Continuity and trivia

1. 3:20–3:50 (3:10–3:40) - Despite the fact that he ambushes Emma in Ted Murphy’s flat and that she calls out" “Steed?” twice as she enters, Jackson apparently doesn’t recognize her on the golf course and neither does the name Steed ring a bell for him.
2. 3:35 (3:25–3:32) - Emma’s stunt double when ‘she’ jumps over the desk in pursuit of Jackson during the fight in Ted Murphy’s flat is very obviously a man in a wig, which slips off. It’s probably Billy Westley or Ray Austin.
3. 4:22 (4:13) - Still in Ted Murphy’s flat, while opening the desk drawer, Steed’s voice says “I had hoped we might find a lead here”, but it’s been overdubbed - his lips seem to only mouth “Something odd”.
4. 4:47 (4:40) - Still in the flat, Emma points out Murphy’s new clubs, only a few days old, and Steed comments that “poor Ted” never got a chance to swing his steel-shafted handle-to-head balanced niblick. So, what clubs was Murphy using when he was shot? And if these were the clubs he was using when killed, how did they get back to his flat? [Ed: Ted seems to be only carrying a sand wedge when shot, but his bag must have been around somewhere. ]
5. 
   ©1961–9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd
   
   5:12 (5:07) - Recognise that gate? The same location is used at the beginning of The Girl From Auntie as the Town Hall, Pendley (the venue for this year’s MFU Charity Fancy Dress Ball) and in The Thirteenth Hole as Craigleigh Golf Club. It’s actually Dyrham Park Golf Club Gateway, Trotter’s Bottom.
6. 
   5:23–5:57 (5:16–5:50) - As Steed parks his Vauxhall at the Craigleigh Golf Club, there are two cars parked directly behind them, one of which is a black (or maybe red) TVR Grantura Mk IIa. A moment later, as Steed and Emma get out, there’s only one car parked behind them, the black TVR having vanished. Looks like Brian Clemens went home early!
7. 6:40–7:58, 32:47–33:05, and throughout - the actors are standing too close to the backdrops and you can see their shadows on it, and the gleam off the finish. During this tee-off scene, shadows are cast from two different light sources. The same two-way shadow effect occurs during Emma’s (nighttime!) fight with Collins (22:00). Later, Reed and Steed have the same backdrop issues during their game (32:47).
8. 7:00–7:08 (6:55–7:03) - While Steed is first teeing off, Emma is standing about a foot to his left. However, when Reed steps in and stops Steed’s swing in mid-air, she’s a few more feet away! The perils of mixing studio and location shoots for the same scene...
9. 
   ©1961–9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd
   9:20–9:25 (9:25–9:30) - When Collins and Watson enter the pro shop, Collins ‘notices’ Steed and addresses him, looking straight ahead, although Steed is to his left in the practice net. Watson, meanwhile, looks obliquely to the left (i.e. the correct direction). As they walk forward, Collins suddenly looks sharply to the left, where Steed actually is and speaks to him again. It’s as though Collins suddenly realizes Steed isn’t standing where he thought he was going to be!

10. To Steed	To Collins	Reverse angle

    
    ©1961–9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd
    10:05 (10:00) - In the pro shop, when Col. Watson is getting a lesson from Collins, Steed and Collins are in front of Watson, with Collins on the right (directly ahead of Watson) and Steed to the left, as seen from Watson’s perspective. However, when talking to Steed, Watson looks straight ahead, where Collins should be, and then, as he frowns at Collins, he turns to the left, where Steed should be!
11. 
    10:37–10:45 (10:44–10:52) - During Reed’s and Adams’ first round of golf, Reed sends a drive up the fairway, with Adams ball a few feet in front of him, Mrs. Peel closing in one them; we cut back to the players, Adams still leaning on his club, Reed starting to walk up the fairway, and Adams’ ball has vanished!
12. 10:55–11:05 (11:06–11:15) - As she trails Reed and Adams, Emma fails to see the lurking Jackson as she walks past him, even though he’s only three or four feet away from her, wearing a black sweater and black pants, and camouflaged by only a few leaf-covered tree branches! Added to that, he drives off in a noisy caddy car.
13. 
    11:23–11:53 (11:30–12:00) - As Reed and Adams approach the 13th hole, Reed places a nice chip shot which stops about a foot short of the hole. Adams’ ball is already there, about three feet short of the hole. Cut to Emma, then the approaching players. We can’t see Reed’s ball near the hole anymore (11:39/11:46), and it’s not until a wider shot establishes the setting (11:46/11:53) that we see it’s now about 8 feet beyond the hole!
14. 
    12:39–12:50 (12:50–13:00) - When the golf cart is driven at Mrs. Peel, it comes to rest completely on its side, and the seat fall out, but when Mrs. Peel goes to investigate it, it’s only tilted a bit and its seat is back in place.
15. 15:17 (15:25) - Later on in the pro shop when Reed and Jackson leave, the door slams before the receding footsteps stop! Then, Steed looks in Reed’s golf bag and finds the .303 and the bullets for it, hidden in a tee holder. After briefly examining the bullets, he puts the holder back (16:05/16:10), without taking any bullets with him. Moments later Collins arrives, and Steed leaves shortly afterwards. He goes to the clubhouse, sits with Emma (17:08/17:20), and shows her one of the bullets!
16. 16:45 — Just before leaving the pro shop, Steed comments on a ‘professional touch’ needed to fire a golf ball hard enough to dent the middle of the hole marker, but when the ball crashes through the window (16:05/16:17) we clearly see it just barely clip the edge of the marker and bounce off the back wall. It’s not until after Steed picks up the ball at 16:14/16:25 that the flag is dented at all.
17. 21:55 — That’s Ray Austin doing Francis Matthews’ stunts
18. 22:48 — Sand is dislodged from the back of the bunker when Collins is thrown against it by Mrs. Peel, but neither ot them notice or investigate the wooden door to the underground control room that has been revealed.
19. 
    ©1961–9 CANAL+
    24:40 — After Collins is killed and Steed is looking at signs of the struggle in the bunker, Mrs. Peel calls him from a distance... but the shadows of the points of her shoes can be seen on the sand, only a foot away from Steed!
20. 24:50 — Steed notices the footprints of Emma and Collins in the bunker after the their fight, and correctly deduces what occured; however, there’s apparently no footprints leading up to the secret door in the bunker, where Collins’ body was taken (likely by a person or persons with feet!)
21. 32:15 (32:30) - During his match with Steed, Reed chips a modest shot down a fairway with no visible obstructions except one small, short bluff, yet in broad daylight from a fairly short distance he fails to notice Emma - dressed in a black leather sleeveless jumpsuit with a white shirt and shoes - as she jumps out from the border hedges, runs ten feet, stops and grinds his golf ball into the turf, then runs back!
22. 443:00–46:00 — As Adams waits for Steed to set off the mine, he ducks down in his small, shallow bunker. After the mine explodes, he’s now inside an enormous, deep bunker!
23. 
    45:11 (45:43) - when Steed approaches the hole and sees the mine, his ball which had stopped near the lip of the cup (44:11) is nowhere to be seen. It’s back in place at 45:32 (46:05) when he plays his billiards cannon shot.
24. 47:00 et seq. - Lots of stunt double regulars in the bunker - Billy Westley (Mrs. Peel), Peter Clay (Steed), Rocky Taylor (Reed) - Victor Maddern does his own stunts, surprisingly enough, but we only see him in CU where it would be impossible to substitute him.
25. 48:09 — the flare guard comes into shot as the camera tilts upward to follows Steed’s swing.
26. 48:16–26 — the flare guard remains in shot for the whole scene where Steed asks, “How about finishing the game? What’s your handicap?”
27. Running time: 49′46″