There’s more than a passing similarity between the agresso-therapist and Quite Quite Fantastic in Honey For The Prince. This is a iittle darker and more down to Earth, with the fantasies being a form of (quack) psycho-therapy rather than simply wish fulfilment, and the murders commited by duped patients rather than a straightforward bad-guy using a rather convenient but otherwise benign exclusive service. It’s interesting to compare the show from the tail end of the black and white era, when things had been so wonderful but silliness was becoming a scourge, to this mid Tara King era effort which is so far from the fantastical extremes that period of the show is known for. The Tara King episodes are wildly variable, but this one does very little wrong with an interesting and almost credible plot. However, it just isn’t as entertaining as its counter-part because it lacks any of the flair, and, well… Diana Rigg.
It does deserve credit for Peter Vaughan as the almost forgivable duped quack. His performance is mesmeric, particularly in his scene with Steed, outrageous accent notwithstanding This is also the last of Philip Madoc’s five Avengers, although (as with his last appearance) he is under-used.
The plot calls someone to see Steed as their nemesis, so we Tara gets a suitor in the form of Teddy (who is so like Freddie in My Fair Lady I keep expecting him to break into On The Street Where You Live).
In Tara’s flat she is assailed by a baddie and in the fight, a sword falls off her wall and skewers him. Ow! Hope she did a risk assessment when she hung those.
It wasn’t clear that Teddy had every been to Steed’s flat – we only see him in Tara’s – before he goes to fulfil his dream, so how could he dream it in suitable detail? Also, using a gun rather than a knife requires firing it in the consulting room, which seems quite implausible. A knife I could believe. But from dinimutiveness of the nits I am picking, you can tell I didn’t think this was a bad episode. After all, it didn’t have Mother in it, and that’s got to count for something.
