1.1 - Hot Snow

Hot Snow marks the first story of the original series of The Avengers and sadly it doesn’t exist in its entirety. In fact there are only two episodes of the entire season with John Keel. I should point out that I have never really watched The Avengers especially the early years. I have listened to the audio version released by Big Finish which is where my intrigue for this show started to go. So there is only 15 minutes of this story that exist.

The first thing that strikes me about this episode is the rather basic opening titles. It looks like someone has just stood in front of a camera with the credits. I know that it’s harsh to compare 1961’s standards by 2015 but two years later Doctor Who does a hugely better opening credits so quite why ITV could stump up the cash for better title credits. You can’t judge a show on the titles thankfully and the fifteen minutes that exist take place pretty much in the GP surgery and feature Keel, Peggy, Doctor Tredding and Quigley.

Spicer (Godfrey Quigley) who is the first person we see in the show spends the entire quarter of an hour dropping of a parcel and hiding from Peggy, Dr Tredding and Keel. It does seem like someone is having a bit of fun with him trying to hide. It does stretch believability as to how he is able to avoid being noticed by anyone. After about ten minutes he leaves. It’s quite a impressive opening ten minutes despite the stretch in credibility.

There is a bit where a mysterious man is stroking a dog which does seem to be similar to Blofeld in the James Bond films.The frustration of this not existing in its full form hits around the 13 minute mark because this is where Quigley, Charlie and the other guy are about to kill Peggy. The final two minutes see Peggy killed on the orders of the mysterious man. The last shot is of Keel looking around. Before Big Finish made this story for audio, it must have been mighty frustrating to have an idea of what went on. How do Steed and Keel first meet and how do they end up working together?

If you listen to the Big Finish version then you will get a pretty good idea of what comes next and it’s a good solid opening story. Sadly Patrick McNee doesn’t feature in this bit but that’s the worst thing I can say about this portion. I think that I will enjoy watching the seven series of the Avengers but I know that the first season is very different to the rest.