Series 5 — Episode 18
Death’s Door
by Philip Levene
Directed by Sidney Hayers
Steed relives a nightmare
Emma sees daylight
Production No E.66.6.17
Production completed: June 13 1967. First transmission: October 4 1967.
Regional broadcasts
| Broadcaster | Date | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Rediffusion London | 5/10/1967 | 9:00pm |
| ABC Midlands | 7/10/1967 | 9:05pm |
| ABC North | 7/10/1967 | 9:05pm |
| Anglia Television | 7/10/1967 | 9:10pm |
| Border Television | 8/10/1967 | 10:05pm |
| Channel Television | 5/01/1968 | 7:30pm |
| Grampian Television | 4/10/1967 | 8:00pm |
| Southern Television | 6/10/1967 | 8:00pm |
| Scottish Television | 7/10/1967 | 9:10pm |
| Tyne Tees Television | 7/10/1967 | 9:10pm |
| Ulster Television | 12/10/1967 | 7:30pm |
| Westward Television | 5/01/1968 | 7:30pm |
| Television Wales & West | 8/10/1967 | 7:25pm |
TV Times listing
7.15
The Avengers
Patrick Macnee
Diana Rigg
Death’s Door
By Philip Leven
Steed relives a nightmare and Emma sees daylight! ‡
| John Steed | Patrick Macnee |
| Emma Peel | Diana Rigg |
| Boyd | Clifford Evans |
| Stapley | William Lucas |
| Lord Melford | Allan Cuthbertson |
| Becker | Marne Maitland |
| Dr. Evans | Paul Dawkins |
| Pavret | Faure Michel |
| Saunders | Peter Thomas |
| Dalby | William Lyon Brown |
| Haynes | Terry Yorke |
| Jepson | Terry Maidment |
Designer Robert Jones
Director Sidney Hayers
Producers Albert Fennell
Brian Clemens
Executive Producer
Julian Wintle
International broadcasts
| Broadcaster | Date | Time |
|---|---|---|
| ABN2 Sydney, Australia | 24/10/1967 | 8:00pm |
| ABV2 Melbourne, Australia | 23/10/1967 | 8:00pm |
| ABC New York, USA | 31/01/1968 | 7:30pm |
| ORTF2 France | ||
| Suisse Romande, Switzerland | 22/01/1968 | 9:10pm |
| French title | La porte de la mort | |
| ZDF Germany | ||
| German title | Der wahrgewordene Alptraum | |
| KRO Netherlands | 9/01/1968 | 9:10pm |
| Dutch title | De deur des doods | |
| Svizzera Italiana | 7/12/1973 | 9:00pm |
| Italian title | la porta della morte | |
| Spain | 15/01/1968 | 4:10pm |
| Spanish title | La puerta de la muerte | |
This episode was not broadcast in France or Germany in 1968.
Episode Rating
| Subject | 0–5 |
|---|---|
| Direction | 4½ stars |
| Music | 4 stars |
| Humour | 4 stars |
| Intro/tag | 2½ stars |
| Mastermind | 3 stars |
| Plot | 4½ stars |
| Emma | 2½ stars |
| Set Design | 4 stars |
| Overall (0–10) |
8½ stars |
This was in a five-way tie for the #5 spot of my top episodes, pipped at the post by The Joker. It is one of the finest of the season and well worth you’re seeing.
Government officials trying to attend a peace conference have
been having disquieting dreams, which become reality with
fatal results.
The Avengers are called in to ensure they do finally attend,
but the next official tells Steed of a missing button on his
butler jacket, and seeing a lion before he died, all of which
come true. The Avengers babysit the next man to fill the post,
but all three feel a sting on their necks and fall asleep,
troubled by nightmares. It’s all a plan of Becker, an Eastern
European observer at the conference, and his cohorts, but
Steed and Emma individually find the storage area where the
delegates have been drugged and brainwashed. Stapley is
exposed as the inside man, the bandaid on his cheek covering
no wound and he dies by one of the of deaths predicted in the
dreams - crushed by a chandelier.
Mrs. Peel predicts a visit to the theatre.
The Cars
| Marque/Model | Colour | Number Plate |
|---|---|---|
| Bentley Speed Six 1926 | British racing green | RX 6180 |
| Morris 5-ton ballast lorry | white | 704 CUT |
| Daimler Majestic Major Limousine | black, champagne upholstery | AUV 719B |
| Alvis TE21 limousine (or maybe a TD21 Series II) | blue | CAN 972D |
| Austin Princess 3-litre Limousine by Vanden Plas | black | 347 BXX |
| Austin Princess 3-litre Limousine by Vanden Plas | black | - |
| Bedford J10 pickup | red & white | 484 GNM |
| bicycle | black | - |
| Jaguar S-type | white | LMU 364C |
| Lotus Elan S3 | glacier blue | SJH 499D |
Who’s Killing Whom?
| Victim | Killer | Method |
|---|---|---|
| Sir Andrew Boyd | Jepson V* | Run down by car |
| Jepson?? V* | Emma | Karate blow (this is according to the original synopsis). |
| Alfred Becker V* | Steed | Fires bullet through hole in target. |
| Stapley V* | Steed, Emma, Haynes & himself V*, sort of) | Crushed by falling chandelier |
Click a name to see the face
The Fashions
Continuity and trivia
- 3:07 — This was the first episode produced without the “Steed does this, Emma does that” subtitles.
- 6:50–7:43 — There’s colour shift in the close-ups due to back projection.
- 7:00–7:40 — Stand-ins were used in the actual driving shots & long shots, Patrick Macnee & Diana Riogg are in the close-ups with back projection of passing scenery.
- 7:24–7:42 - Steed swerves off the road down Spout Hill to avoid that white truck, which we see then pass behind them over his shoulder. A minute later, when they’re discussing what to do, it passes them again - you can just see it over Mrs. Peel’s shoulder.
- 8:10–8:40 — Sir Andrew gasps “How did that get there?” when he hears the ashtray hit the floor. How indeed - it was on the coffee table in front of Steed only seconds earlier.
- 10:00 — The same newspaper as seen in "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station" is being read by Sir Andrew Boyd in the back of the limo with Steed. Note that both the front and back pages carry the same headlines.
It wasn’t the same page when first given to him by Dalby however!
In Dalby’s hand...
Death’s Door
A Funny Thing... - 10:00–10:35 — There’s colour shift in the close-ups due to back projection.
- 12:30 — tall dark str. / back of car
- 15:01, 39:42 and throughout -
The same outsized desktop calendar as seen in "Mission... Highly Improbable" is used by the villains in their dream-inducing warehouse.
Death’s Door
Mission... - 18:52 (bluray) / 17:42 (dvd) - we see the shadow of the boom mic on the ceiling
- When Steed is walking to the car with Lord Melford, he’s suddenly in a different navy suit that is never seen again after this short scene - was it Macnee’s own suit?
- 18:48–19:20 — There’s colour shift in the close-ups due to back projection.
- 28:35–29:10 — There’s colour shift in the close-ups due to back projection.
- 31:30–31:40 — There’s colour shift in the close-ups due to back projection.
- 34:04 (bluray) - we see the edge of the lighting gantry above Steed’s ‘ceiling’
- 33:38 & 35:03 — We see a close-up of the target Becker is shooting at as Steed arrives (33:38), but when Steed goes to change the target we discover that none of them has the same pattern of bullet holes as first seen. (35:03).
©1961–9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved
Before
After - 46:02 and throughout - Diana Rigg does some of her own stunts in the fight scene and at the end of it (47:08) she’s limping as she rejoins Steed. It’s the kick at 46:56 that does it, a lot of the rest of the sequence is Cyd Child sparring with Terry Yorke.
- 46:32 — Patrick Macnee and William Lucas, however, have stunt doubles do all their dirty work except the close-ups that were filmed after the master shot was compiled - Joe Dunne for William Lucas and Paul Weston for Patrick Macnee.
- 46:50 — the order of the delegate placenames on the table changes during the fight sequence.
- Running time: 49′19″
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.