The Avengers Dossier, Page Twenty-Four

It's time for another look at a guest star from the fourth season of "The Avengers"!

JACQUELINE PEARCE
In "A Sense of History", Jacqueline Pearce was a co-ed keeping a dark secret.

Born in 1946, Jacqueline Pearce was just starting her career as an actress when director John Gilling declared that she had a "wonderful face for film" and cast her in key roles in some of the most gothic of gothic horrors from Hammer Films--"Plague of Zombies" and "The Reptile", both released in 1966.

Although Pearce made a number of film appearances over the years, her career was focused mostly on the small screen, with her distinctive face and attractive figure being seen regularly on British television from the mid-1960s through the late 1990s. As anticipated by her debut roles, she appeared primarily in horror and sci-fi programs, but also appeared in thrillers, dramas, and spy shows (such her appearance on "The Avengers". 

Pearce primarily played shady characters or outright villains, but no matter how evil the person she was portraying, she still managed bring humanity and humor to the role. Well... and a strong air of danger or spookiness, depending on the role. She is best known for her role as the villainous Servalan on the grim space opera series "Blake's Seven", but she also appeared in numerous anthology horror series, such as "Shadows", "Leap in the Dark", and "Dead of Night".

Pearce retired from acting in 2007 and moved to South Africa to take care of orphaned vervet monkeys. She returned to England shortly before her death from lung cancer in 2018.

The Avengers: A Sense of History

A Sense of History (1966)

Starring: Patrick Macnee, Diana Rigg, Patrick Mower, Nigel Stock, John Ringham, and Jacqueline Pearce

Director: Peter Graham Scott

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

John Steed (Macnee) and Emma Peel (Rigg) go undercover at an elite university to find who murdered a leading economist by shooting him in the back with an arrow. They discover a plot to shape the economic future of a united Europe by murdering key politicians and researchers. But which scholars are involved, and who is the mastermind?

I am torn when it comes to this episode. There are things I really like and there are things I can't stand.

On the one hand, I love the set-up and the nature of villains, from how they're characterized, to what motivates them, and through to the plot twists and turns of who the mastermind behind the plot truly is. I also loved the way one cliffhanger resolved into another cliffhanger as the episode reached its climax during a masquerade ball.

On the other hand, the mix of the sinister and the goofy stereotypical Sixties Youth Culture that embodies the student group at the heart of the episode gets tiresome quickly. It becomes downright annoying once it's clear how wrong-headed they are in their destructive beliefs--I just wanted Mrs. Peel to punch each of them in the mouth as soon as it they opened them--but maybe it's a combination of the passage of time and my own worldview that's causing that reaction, or maybe those characters were just supremely annoying. (They're in the same mold as the villains in "A Touch of Brimstone", but far more irritating, partly because their evil here is flavored with wholly undeserved self-righteousness.)

I also felt like the writers wasted too much time on the hipster evil of the young set. This is an episode with a really convoluted plot and a story that is slightly over-stuffed with characters, and some of it doesn't reach its full potential because of the writers belaboring certain social points. 

 

The student group was so annoying to me that I almost rated this episode at the low-end of average (which is a Five of Ten Stars here at Shades of Gray), but as I thought about it, the witty banter between Steed and Peel, plus the Robin Hood puns and sly references scattered throughout, turned my attitude toward "A Sense of History" (even if one of them was a bit forced and nonsensical plot-wise). Emma Peel crossdressing as Robin Hood in short-shorts also went a long way to improving my outlook... 

All things considered, this isn't a terrible episode, but it's far from one of the best. (The end-of-episode gag with Steed and Peel driving off on a motorcycle--with Peel driving and Steed in the sidecar--is, however, among the best of those.)

Jacqueline Pearce has passed away at age 74

Jacqueline Pearce, who is perhaps best remembered for her role as Servalan on "Blake's 7" (a space villain who could teach Darth Vader and the Emperor a thing or two about villainy) died from lung cancer at the age of 74 on September 3, 2018.

Although most of her career was spent playing intense and villainous characters on television, she was the best part of two of Hammer's great gothic horror flicks, "The Reptile" and "The Plague of the Zombies", both directed by John Gilling who declared she had a "wonderful face for film". Pearce retired from acting in 2007 and moved to South Africa to take care of orphaned vervet monkeys, but she returned to her native England toward the end of her life.

She was a great talent who rarely got to show her full range, but she truly and thoroughly excelled at playing villains which you'd never realize just looking at photos of her. (Yes, I was a fan!)