Series 5 — Episode 25
The Forget-Me-Knot

Regional broadcasts

TV Times listing

International broadcasts

* Italian listings showed this as 10pm, as Italy observed Summer Time and Switzerland did not.

Swiss viewers in 1969 may have been confused as Suisse Romande showed this episode on 15^th April 1969, sometimes mistitled as N’oubliez pas in TV listings, but on 10^th April 1969 Allemande II (ZDF Germany) showed a music special called Vergißsmeinnicht - translated in French language newspapers as Ne m’oubliez pas.

The Dutch newspaper Dagblad de Stem has a publicity still from the scene where Emma hands over to Tara on the stairs in their edition published on December 29 1967, announcing that Linda was replacing Diana. The existence of a publicity still which had been sent overseas would suggest a finished episode rather one that was halfway through production. However, as the stairway scene was apparently filmed on December 19 1967, it is possible that the production dates are correct. (The production date of January 19 1968 is the documented date for the end of exterior and location filming.)

Episode Rating

Why have the cross-over episode? After all it’d never been done before. Maybe Clemens was worried about the quality of the new material (as was Macnee!) and wanted to associate it with that which came before. On reviewing, I’d have to say that it’s not a bad story, and pretty engaging, but would have been better without the slapstick humour.

The Cars

Who’s Killing Whom?

Click a name to see the face

The Fashions

Continuity and trivia

1. 
   1:26 — Notice the variation in the opening credits? Steed makes a golf swing with his umbrella, instead of one of his fighting-stick moves.
2. 1:34 — Another variation in the opening credits - Steed and Mrs. Peel are facing away from the camera in silhouette, instead of towards it as usual.
3. 5:00 — Why do Steed and Mortimer come in the kitchen door? Is there a quick side entrance Steed prefers to use?
4. 6:38 and throughout - Steed’s yellow front door doesn’t seem to appear in the street scenes at all, it ought to be nearly opposite the black door with the marble heads, but there is a row of blue stable doors instead.
5. 9:06 — There are curved corners at the top and bottom left corners of the screen, presumably from a large flare guard on one of the cameras, as they come and go throughout the episode: They disappear abruptly at 24:57, return at 28:10, dispappear at 34:16 then immediately reappear at 34:21 for the close-up of the crossword. At 34:55 they’re back, then disappear again at 36:10. I can only assume they were on Camera 1 as they appear so often.
6. 9:10 — There’s a hair caught at top left of the screen, probably on the camera lens as it remains for the duration of the shot then vanishes.
7. 9:33 — Emma tries to jog Sean’s memory with some word association:
   black/white, up/down, bed/sleep, attack/motorbike
8. 17:30 — Steed takes 3 lumps of sugar in his tea.
9. 21:07 — The “Glasshouse” is the disused “Mitrum Glass Works”.
10. 23:00 — Filson is very quick to decide Steed is a traitor, does he have a grudge against Steed?
11. 25:10 etc. - Flashbacks: When Steed is coming round in the county hospital, where he’s being treated by the shockingly unsympathetic Dr. Soames (see below), he experiences a couple of flashbacks to previous episodes with Mrs. Peel as he gazes at the lovely Sally. He also experiences some flashbacks when he sees Tara, and when he gets home.
    
    • 25:10 and 26:00 — “Escape in Time”
    • 26:40 — the tree fallingm and ensuing crash and fight, as well as “Escape in Time”
    • 26:58 — Sally blurs out and becomes Emma in “Escape in Time”
    • 30:18 — Tara blurs out and becomes Emma in “Escape in Time”
    • 33:21 — back home: “Escape in Time” again, the kitchen conjured up “Return of the Cybernauts” and the sofa reminds him of “You Have just been Murdered”

    Nurse Sally	Escape in Time	Return of the Cybernauts	You Have Just Been Murdered	Tara King

12. 25:55 — Dr. Soames doesn’t bother with the medical evidence and leaps to the conclusion that Steed is a drunk. He then makes the worst possible medical decision and prescribes him a sedative. Nurse Sally is suitably shocked.
13. 28:30 — Tara wears an outfit very similar to that worn by Mrs. Peel in Dead Man’s Treasure - tan overcoat with a green scarf.
    
14. 29:35 — “he loves me, he loves me not” - leads Emma to think of Steed
15. 31:56 — There’s an obvious model hotel & railway bridge outside Tara’s window. The curtains earlier appeared in the offices of The Litoff Organisation in The £50,000 Breakfast.
16. 34:21 — The crossword is filled with gibberish, and none of the answers is “anecdote”.
17. 36:10 — Music from the Mackiedockie Court scene in “Escape in Time” plays as Steed enters the grounds.
18. 37:25 — Steed knocks Filson out with metal bowler
19. 47:14 — he likes his tea stirred anti-clockwise
20. 47:25 onwards - Peter Peel is played by Patrick Macnee for the close ups and mid shots, while Paul Weston does the driving away in the long shot.
21. 47:25 — the view of the Rolls from Steed’s window is impossible - the car couldn’t have been driving directly away from it down the street.
22. Running time : 49′17″

Production notes

1. Some people have claimed that there’s proof that this episode was started before Diana left the show, then completed later, as Steed’s sideburns change length in different scenes, but I couldn’t see it myself. .
   Brian Clemens, in fact, revealed in the commentary for Split! and Murdersville in the Optimum DVD releases that The Forget-Me-Knot was not an unfinished Diana Rigg episode that was reshot, as has been claimed in the past - he wrote it in three days when reinstated as producer and convinced Diana to return to take part in four days of filming.
2. Brian Clemens revealed in the commentary for Split! in the Optimum DVD release that the idea of Mother’s office set from The Forget-Me-Knot was stolen from a Powell-Pressburger film (Guards/Guardsmen??). He also revealed that the set was not “dismantled and too expensive to build again” - one need only look at it to see how cheap it would be to build. They simply wanted to have Mother appear in different locations all the time.
3. The production date is very misleading, as it is the documented date for the end of exterior and location filming. However, The Dutch newspaper Dagblad de Stem has a publicity still from the scene where Emma hands over to Tara on the stairs in their edition published on December 29 1967, announcing that Linda was replacing Diana. The existence of a publicity still which had been sent overseas would suggest a finished episode rather one that was halfway through production. However, as the stairway scene was apparently filmed on December 19 1967, it is possible that the production dates are correct.