Series 5 — Episode 4
The See-Through Man
by Philip Levene
Directed by Robert Asher and Roy Rossotti
Steed makes a bomb -
Emma is put to sleep!
Production No E.66.6.5
Production completed: December 1 1966. First transmission: January 30 1967.
Regional broadcasts
| Broadcaster | Date | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Rediffusion London | 3/02/1967 | 8:00pm |
| ABC Midlands | 4/02/1967 | 9:10pm |
| ABC North | 4/02/1967 | 9:10pm |
| Anglia Television | 3/02/1967 | 8:00pm |
| Border Television | 5/02/1967 | 8:10pm |
| Channel Television | 3/02/1967 | 8:00pm |
| Grampian Television | 20/12/1967 | 8:00pm |
| Southern Television | 30/01/1967 | 8:00pm |
| Scottish Television | 4/02/1967 | 9:10pm |
| Tyne Tees Television | 1/02/1967 | 8:00pm |
| Ulster Television | 21/12/1967 | 7:30pm |
| Westward Television | 3/02/1967 | 8:00pm |
| Television Wales & West | 1/02/1967 | 8:00pm |
TV Times listing
8.0 The Avengers
starring
Patrick Macnee
as John Steed
and
Diana Rigg
as Emma Peel
in
The See-Through Man
By Philip Levene
In which Steed makes a bomb — and Emma is put to sleep!
Cast also includes
| Elena | Moira Lister |
| Brodny | Warren Mitchell |
| Quilby | Roy Kinnear |
| Ackroyd | Jonathan Elsom |
| Sir Andrew Ford | John Nettleton |
| Ulric | Harvey Hall |
| Wilton | David Glover |
Designed by Wilfrid Shingleton
Music by Laurie Johnson
Directed by Robert Asher
Produced by Albert Fennell
and Brian Clemens
Executive Producer
Julian Wintle
ABC Television Network Production
International broadcasts
| Broadcaster | Date | Time |
|---|---|---|
| ABN2 Sydney, Australia | 2/05/1967 | 8:00pm |
| ABV2 Melbourne, Australia | 1/05/1967 | 8:00pm |
| ABC New York, USA | 3/02/1967 | 10:00pm |
| ORTF2 France | ||
| Suisse Romande, Switzerland | 13/05/1968 | 8:35pm |
| French title | L’homme transparent | |
| ZDF Germany | 21/11/1967 | 9:15pm |
| German title | Die Durchsichtigen | |
| KRO Netherlands | 2/04/1968 | 9:10pm |
| Dutch title | En de onzichtbare man | |
| Svizzera Italiana | 11/01/1974 | 9:00pm |
| Italian title | l’uomo invisibile | |
| Spain | 4/09/1967 | 4:10pm |
| Spanish title | El hombre invisible | |
Episode Rating
| Subject | 0–5 |
|---|---|
| Direction | 3 stars |
| Music | 2½ stars |
| Humour | 2½ stars |
| Intro/tag | 3½ stars |
| Mastermind | 2 stars |
| Plot | 2 stars |
| Emma | 3 stars |
| Set Design | 2½ stars |
| Overall (0–10) |
5½ stars |
Well, they really did miss the mark on this one, didn’t they? Nothing really engaging - I would think not one viewer would buy the invisible man story for more than a minute. Not as funny as it should have been (or they thought it was??) and not villainous enough either.
Mrs. Peel is surprised to find a message on one of her
microscope slides, saying she’s needed to investigate an
apparently invisible man.
Ambassador Brodny is convinced that Major Vazin, a top agent
recently arrived in England, has acquired the secret of
invisibility. A front for their government, The Eastern Drug
Corporation, recently purchased the formula from Quilby - a
mad professor expertly played by Roy Kinnear. It is all a plot
to fool the British government into diverting much needed
resources into pointless research but the Avengers see through
the scheme.
They dispatch the villains, and flummox Brodny, before going
out for something to eat, if they can catch up to the old
Rolls that has a will of its own!
The Cars
| Marque/Model | Colour | Number Plate |
|---|---|---|
| Mini | red | 735 CMD |
| Lotus Elan S3 | glacier blue | SJH 499D |
| Bentley Speed Six 1926 | British racing green | RX 6180 |
| Austin Taxi (late 40s/early 50s) | fawn, purple curtains | PXL 748 |
| Jaguar Mk II 3.8 | bronze/brown | 711 TPC |
| DAF 44 | dark green | KLW 363D |
| Bedford tiptruck | beige | - |
| Austin A110 Westminster | grey | - |
| Rolls-Royce 40/50 Siver Ghost, 1909 Owned by Lord Montagu and on display at Beaulieu - National Motor Museum. This particular car was originally a limousine supplied to Colonel Fergusson of Dundee. It was found in the mid-1950s as a breakdown truck at Berwick-on-Tweed. The reproduction bodywork was constructed by Leslie Willis in the style of a Barker Roi des Belges. |
white/silver | R 1909 |
Who’s Killing Whom?
| Victim | Killer | Method |
|---|---|---|
| Lord Daviot [big] | Alexandre Vazin V* | Shotgun |
| Ackroyd | Alexandre Vazin V* | Strangled? |
| Professor Quilby | Alexandre Vazin V* | ? |
Click a name to see the face
The Fashions
Continuity and trivia
- 7:43 and throughout - The robot in Quilby’s lab was originally made for the film, “Mother Riley Meets the Vampire” (1952). It’s had the glass dome replaced with a more bulbous version and the dials on the stomach panel seem to have changed.
- 12:33 — Brodny’s entry into the Vazin’s quarters was filmed as slate 25.
- 13:35 - The scene where he accompanies Elena back in and queries the expenses the Vazins are incurring was filmed as slate 28.
- 15:17 - His later tiptoe through the suite was filmed as slate 26, it took two takes.
- 21:45–23:20 — Reference is made to Brodny’s appearance in Two’s a Crowd in more ways than one - even the props department played a hand, putting a bottle of Creme des Violettes on his desk, next to the bottle of Smirnoff. Unfortunately, they weren’t so attentive to the characters - Brodny says (23:10) his first names are Vladimir Jaroslav but in Two’s a Crowd he claimed his mother called him Sergei.
- 21:52 — Smirnoff product placement.
- 23:43, 26:05 and 27:19 — back projection colour shift of Elena and Emma - there was colour shift earlier in another driving scene but it was much less apparent.
- 25:27 — same reel-to-reel tape player as in From Venus With Love.
- 27:54 — the studio shot of Mrs. Peel getting out of her car is in the exact same spot as when she was supposed to be pulled up at the roadside, watching Elena and Ackroyd at 26:10.
- 29:55–30:00 — When Steed shows Quilbey Elena’s photograph, the long shots of the photo are different to the closeup, which is the same photo which they pull from Elena’s dossier.
- 33:00 — the turnstile in the park is rather obviously a studio set.
- 34:57 — Mrs. Peel says, “Yeuch!” looking at the blue chemicals, then promptly drops some of it on her hand!
- 36:50 — Mrs. Peel is chloroformed by Vazin.
- 46:55 — Brodny, trying not to get sent back behind the Iron Curtain, declares “I have tickets for the next Beatles concert”. However, this was filmed in November 1966 and broadcast in 1967; the Beatles had stopped touring by then - their last English concert (not counting the impromptu gig on top of Apple Corp in 1969) was at Empire Pool, Wembley (now Wembley Arena) on 1st May, 1966. Their last ever commercial concert was at Candlestick Park in San Francisco on 29th August 1966. Of course, the scriptwriter and producers couldn’t have known that at the time.
- Running time: 49′10″
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).
Thankfully, the new blu ray releases for series 4–6 appear to use native 24fps with soft telecine so the running times and pitch all seem to be correct again along with a much grreatly improved picture quality, most notably in the Tara King episodes which are finally back to their original glory.
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).
Thankfully, the new blu ray releases for series 4–6 appear to use native 24fps with soft telecine so the running times and pitch all seem to be correct again along with a much grreatly improved picture quality, most notably in the Tara King episodes which are finally back to their original glory.
Cast notes
- Three actors are uncredited, anyone know who they are? I suspect Daviot was just played by a member of the crew (or the unstoppable Peter J. Elliott), he just lies face down in the duck pond for a couple of seconds. Vazin is played by a costume specialist, he was last seen (if that’s the word) as the bloke masquerading as a murderous old woman in The Girl From Auntie. I think he is Art Thomas from A Touch of Brimstone.
Have a look at these pictures:
Lord Daviot
Major Alexandr Vazin
Embassy Guard
