The Diabolical Masterminds of Series 6 (1968–9)

Incarcerated years before by Steed, Kafka springs from prison after sending his henchmen on ahead to clear the way - Steed is trapped in a ministerial recuperation facility called Department S, and wheelchair-bound. He bribes Carson, one of the medical staff, to kill the guard on the main gate and destroy the defences so none of the patients can escape, then moves in by helicopter for the kill - but he hadn’t counted on Tara’s resolve or Steed’s cunning, and they are all defeated.

Board member of a large construction company, the greedy Seagrave sought to gain total control by killing off his fellow board members. He tricks old music hall performers, disgruntled by the company closing down their theatres, into doing the killings but his merry crew of vaude-villains are no match for “Gentleman Jack” Steed and the death-defying Tara.

Bunch of mercenaries steal top secret new BA assault rifles, then auction them off to the highest bidder. Yawn.

Arcos plans to destroy hopes for world peace by killing delegates at a conference in England. He kidnaps Steed and uses new, highly unstable, plastic surgery techniques to create a double of Steed who will infiltrate the conference and detonate a bomb. Steed is too wily for him, however, and dispatched extra double-of-Steed kits, and there is soon a profusion of Steeds wandering around the country house grounds. The real Steed finally prevails and Arcos, now resembling Steed as well, is gunned down by his meme.

A group of Chinese agents subverts a British Army training facility and turns it into a security leak. Agents and military personnel are summoned to the facility, apparently at Mother’s behest, in order to determine their TOHE ability - that is, their resistance to interrogation. One by one, the agents are all deemed to have passed their test without revealing any secrets, and then proceed to do so when plied with drink by the supposedly friendly NCO at the bar. When important contacts start dropping dead, the Avengers step in and flush out the treacherous soldiers running the faciltiy.

Timber mogul Wainwright plans to hold Britain to ransom with his instant dry rot formula, but first he must kill off the scientists who worked with him in a government lab when it was first developed. A trail of sawdust from deceased expert to deceased expert eventually leads to Wainwright’s offices, where his feeble pretence of death is seen through easily, and his escape route is dissolved from under him.

Quasi-nazi jackbooted teens are being churned out by the suspiciously right-wing Alpha Academy, led by the headmaster Brett, who plans to freeze his atheletic scholars and fire them into space where they will become the ruling force of the galaxy. What drugs was he taking??

Merridon and Brinstead hire an architect to create a building that can kill, then kill him with it. The building is then ‘set upon’ British Security agents, but is finally hampered by its inability to get away when the authorities come knocking.