Series 5 — Episode 14
Something Nasty In The Nursery
by Philip Levene
Directed by James Hill
Steed acquires a nanny
Emma shops for toys
Production No E.66.6.14
Production completed: April 3 1967. First transmission: April 19 1967.
Regional broadcasts
Broadcaster | Date | Time |
---|---|---|
Rediffusion London | 21/04/1967 | 8.00pm |
ABC Midlands | 22/04/1967 | 9.10pm |
ABC North | 22/04/1967 | 9.10pm |
Anglia Television | 21/04/1967 | 8.00pm |
Border Television | 18/02/1968 | 7.25pm |
Channel Television | 10/07/1968 | 8.00pm |
Grampian Television | 21/02/1968 | 8.00pm |
Southern Television | 21/04/1967 | 8.00pm |
Scottish Television | 22/12/1967 | 8.00pm |
Tyne Tees Television | 19/04/1967 | 8.00pm |
Ulster Television | 29/02/1968 | 7.30pm |
Westward Television | 10/07/1968 | 8.00pm |
Harlech Television | 2/06/1968 | 7.25pm |
TV Times listing



8.0 The Avengers
starring
Patrick Macnee as John Steed
and
Diana Rigg as Emma Peel
in
Something Nasty in the
Nursery
By Philip Levene
In which Steed acquires a Nanny — and Emma shops for toys!
Cast also includes
Mr. Goat | Dudley Foster |
Miss Lister | Yootha Joyce |
Beaumont | Paul Eddington |
Webster | Paul Hardwick |
Sir George Collins | Patrick Newell |
Gen. Wilmot | Geoffrey Sumner |
Gordon | Trevor Bannister |
Martin | Clive Dunn |
James | George Merritt |
Nanny Roberts | Enid Lorimer |
Nanny Smith | Louie Ramsay |
Nanny Brown | Penelope Keith |
Dobson | Dennis Chinnery |
Designed by Robert Jones
Music by Laurie Johnson
Directed by James Hill
Produced by Albert Fennell
and Brian Clemens
Executive Producer
Julian Wintle
ABC Television Network Production



International broadcasts
Broadcaster | Date | Time |
---|---|---|
ABN2 Sydney, Australia | 27/06/1967 | 8.00pm |
ABQ2 Brisbane, Australia | 31/07/1967 | 7.30pm |
ABV2 Melbourne, Australia | 26/06/1967 | 8.00pm |
ABS2 Adelaide, Australia | 8/08/1967 | 7.30pm |
ABC New York, USA | 5/05/1967 | 10.00pm |
ORTF2 France | 27/08/1968 | 8.30pm |
Suisse Romande, Switzerland | 8/04/1968 | 9.15pm |
French title | Rien ne va plus dans la nursery | |
ZDF Germany | 13/02/1968 | 9.15pm |
German title | Eins, zwei, drei — Wer hat den Ball? | |
KRO Netherlands | 4/11/1969 | 9.45pm |
Dutch title | On rust in de kinderkamer | |
Svizzera Italiana | 31/05/1974 | 9.00pm |
Italian title | ritorno all’infanzia* | |
Spain | 13/11/1967 | 4.10pm |
Spanish title | Algo desagradable en la guardería |
This was the last episode of the first run of series 5 for Australian broadcasts, it would recommence 3 months later.
* Italian listings showed this as 10pm, as Italy observed Summer Time and Switzerland did not.












Episode Rating
Subject | 0–5 |
---|---|
Direction | 4 stars |
Music | 3½ stars |
Humour | 3½ stars |
Intro/tag | 2½ stars |
Mastermind | 3 stars |
Plot | 3 stars |
Emma | 3½ stars |
Set Design | 3½ stars |
Overall (0–10) |
7½ stars |
A fun episode, all hallucinogenic drugs, espionage and mayhem; and damned close to being in my top ten. It falls short due to the spotty direction and annoying trimming for transmission. We needed a more careful editor on this one.
Mrs. Peel is roused by a toy merry-go-round — another of
Steed’s quirky summonses.
Military bigwigs are returning to the nursery and divulging
sensitive secrets in their childlike state. The Avengers are
led to the Guild of Noble Nannies, formerly run by the
official’s old Nanny, now under the guidance of Goat who,
disguised as Nanny Roberts, has been visiting her old charges
and using a drugged bouncing ball to make them spill the
beans. Steed’s on the spot at the last attack, but the
villains don’t notice his gloves and think him back in the
nursery also. In the ensuing fight, Goat loses his hair and
Wilmot shoots the fraud.
The Avengers retire to gaze into a crystal ball, revealing
that viewers should tune in the same time next week. Steed’s
visions are too much for Mrs. Peel, who demurely covers the
ball.
The Cars
Marque/Model | Colour | Number Plate |
---|---|---|
Lotus Elan S3 | glacier blue | SJH 499D |
Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III | white | CKP 500C |
Jaguar 420G | blue | OGX 923E |
wheelchair, motorised | black and chrome | - |
Morris Mini van | grey blue | 994 JOD |
Bentley Speed Six 1926 | British racing green | RX 6180 |
(various Austins, Minis, Morrises etc. Also a Rover 110 and Brian Clemens’ black E-type Jaguar, 140 MPH) |
Who’s Killing Whom?
Victim | Killer | Method |
---|---|---|
Dobson | Mr. Goat V* | Pistol |
James | Mr. Goat V* | ? |
Martin | Mr. Goat V* | Booby-trapped Jack-in-the-box |
Nanny Roberts ?? | Gordon V* ? | lethal injection |
Mr. Goat V* | Wilmot | Pistol |

The Fashions
Continuity and trivia
- 2:10 — The red leather armchair from the opening titles is in the room of Wilmot’s house that Dodson breaks into.
- 4:20 — There’s hair and dust on the caption scanner, especially in the top left quadrant of the screen.
- The toy carousel with the "Mrs. Peel, We're Needed" message is reminiscent of the BBC Children's Television ident from the mid to late 1950s.
- 5:14 — Crime show cliché — Steed describes Dodson as being “one of our best agents”.
- 5:30 — Sir George Collins is revealed to be the son of the Attorney-General, Viscout Frederick Webster, DSO and bar, and Lord William Beaumont is second cousin to an unnamed prince.
- 8:00 — Upon arriving at Lord Beaumont’s, Steed is in the car wearing his brown sports jacket and cravat, but once inside is wearing the grey suit with yellow shirt and blue tie again. He changes back into the brown suit again (21:30) when he visits the Guild of Noble Nannies.
grey suit brown suit grey suit
(6:26/6:20)
(8:00/7:54)
(8:30/8:24) - 9:40 — Cyd Child is standing-in for Diana Rigg in the garden shots (when shot from behind).
- 6:30–10:00 — Beaumont is wearing an Eton tie, Sir George is wearing what looks to be a Jesus College tie.
- 11:06–11:30 — When Webster comes out the door, Mrs. Peel appears to head for her car but after Webster drives off you see the stand-in run across the lawn towards the car.
- 11:40 — When Mrs. Peel drives away, it’s clearly sped-up footage.
- 19:33 — The carousel toy from the opening tag scene is in Martin’s Toy Shop.
- 25:25 — How did Mrs. Peel end up at the Guild of Noble Nannies? Did Webster tell her about it?
- 32:20 — Moët et Chandon product placement.
- 33:00 — Steed puts the bomb in the tuba and blows the blast out the window... or does he? The picture to the left clearly shows the bomb falling out of the tuba seconds before it goes off. The glories of the one-take world of Sixties television. (Also, at 33:32 the tuba has been stretched out straight by the blast, but that didn’t happen at all in the previous shot).
- 34:25 — How come Martin doesn’t realise Goat is not a woman? He’s not wearing a veil.
- 36:10 — Why does Miss Lister think Steed “knows about Wilmot”?
- 36:38–37:37 — It looks like Paul Weston standing-in for Patrick Macnee for the action and long shots.
- 39:20 — That’s not Diana Rigg in the over-the-shoulder shots but it doesn’t look like Cyd Child either.
- 42:06–42:23 & 45:16 — Steed avoids being drugged by wearing gloves, but at the beginning of the scene you can see that he’s not wearing any gloves. At least, you can if you’re watching it on a modern television — older televisions and monitors chopped the picture off with the screen curvature so audiences of previous years — and possibly even the production staff — might never have seen the continuity error.
In a way, there’s no error — we don’t see Steed’s hands at any time after the ball bounces through the window until we see the loves at 45:16, and he’s already explained his suspicions of the balls to Wilmot. He may have bent down, then put his gloves on and not touched the ball at all, but he should have removed the gloves when behind the books.
- 43:48 (45:16) — Goat marks the map with rough squares around the model missiles (Airfix Bristol Bloodhound kits, by the way) (), but just before Steed tears up the map, they’re marked with circles. (44:41/46:08) Also, the residents of Norwich will be happy that the missile has moved from the centre of town, down towards Eccles.
- 45:55–46:02 — Goat is lying in from of armchair, on the carpet, after being thrown over it by Steed in their fight but when he gets up and grabs the Miss Lister’s gun, he’s down the other end of the room.
- 46:43 — How did Mrs. Peel know Wilmot’s nursery name ‘Cuddles’, when she wasn’t present when Steed learned it?
- 48:00 — Breaking the fourth wall — Emma sees a prediction in her crystal ball that ends with the words “Watch next week”.
- Running time: 49′18″
- Steed’s Bentley was damaging during filming when a generator being swung on a pulley chain clipped the bonnet.
A note on the timecodes
Timecodes for episodes are problematic as each release has its own quirks so the 2009–11 Optimum Releasing/Studio Canal DVD sets have different run times compared to the A&E and Contender DVD sets from a decade beforehand. The newer Studio Canal & Via Vision blu rays seems to be back in line with the earlier releases, except they often have StudioCanal idents lasting 20 to 22 seconds added to the beginning.
The Optimum Releasing/Studio Canal DVD releases were 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).
The 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 running 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 greatly improved picture quality, most notably in the Tara King episodes which are finally (mostly) back to their original glory.
Cast notes
- What happened to Penelope Keith?
Given what Ms Keith looked like in The Murder Market (left), I think all her scenes ended up on the cutting room floor.
She appears in a black & white promotional still, Steed looks like he’s about to talk to her... (right)