The Avengers: Ashes of Roses

This is another first series Avengers episode which no longer exists and this post is entirely based on the original camera script which you can read here (which is also my source for the illustration and most of the information for this post). I think I used to think that I shouldn't write about series 1 of The Avengers because I would work my way through the episodes, and should cover them sparingly and gradually. I have now changed my mind and can see no reason why I wouldn't blog about the alomst-completely-missing series. If I get to the point where I've blogged about them all there is also no reason I can't blog about one or more again.

Ashes of Roses is a bit different from the rest of series 1 because Dr Keel hardly features at all. Instead all the action centres on Steed and Carol, Dr Keel's assistant. According to Dissolute (link above) this was probably deliberate and would have depended on Ian Hendry's acting schedule.

It is also a bit different from the other series 1 episodes I have blogged about in that the plot is an absolutely straightforward detective story, with none of the labyrinthine twists I have found in either Double Danger or Dance with Death. Both of them required some work to read the script, but I found that Ashes of Roses was a pleasure to read and a literal page-turner.

The premise is once again that Steed (we still don't know quite what he is) is investigating a very obvious insurance job where a business has been burned down shortly after the insurance was hugely increased. The difficulty is that the insurance company was obviously already suspicious and had put their own man in undercover as a security man, who has been killed in the fire. Steed discovers that there is a connection with a beauty salon and also with a criminal who is known to him, so the investigation revolves around the beauty salon and Carol goes to get her hair done.

How Avengers is that? The staff of the salon are exactly what we would find in a later Avengers series, and it's exactly the sort of innocuous setting the series uses so well as a setting for crime.

And Steed comes across as a magnificently dirty old man. He seduces one of the staff of the salon, takes her back to his flat before telling her why he really wants to talk to her and then proceeds to seduce her after she agrees.

It's not really a criticism, but this is a straightforward detective play where we pretty much know how it's going to end very quickly, so all the interest is in the action in between. If you want a mystery, this isn't it. If you want a plot criticism I'm a bit sceptical that even in the early 1960s insurance companies would agree to insure a building and then go into an extensive and expensive investigation because it sounds dodgy. I think they would just have refused the insurance when the business was obviously over-insured. But this feels nit-picky again.

A rather different first series episode of The Avengers which is a really good read.

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