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In "The Living Dead," reports of a ghost seen in the chapel of a private estate, owned by the 16th Duke of Benedict, bring agents John Steed (Patrick Macnee) and Mrs. Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) into the British countryside to investigate. Another agent is killed while looking for evidence, and soon after, Mrs. Peel disappears. What Steed finds while searching for his partner is a particularly imaginative invention by writer-producer Brian Clemens, a nice blend of science fiction, conspiracy tale, and the usual unflappable charm of the two principals. In the second episode on this DVD, "The Hidden Tiger," the villains within an organization called PURRR intend to overwhelm England with ordinary household kittens who are made savagely violent by radio transmitters altering their brain waves. The script by Philip Levene is a succession of clever little mysteries (how did a big-game hunter get mauled to death while he was inside a cage?), and the outrageousness of several scenes (a seemingly doomed Steed is tied to a chair, surrounded by furry kittens) is a hoot. Steed and Mrs Peel are paired off with their Russian counterparts in "The Correct Way to Kill," a Brian Clemens story in which a finishing school called Snob is churning out English gentlemen outfitted exactly like Steed and providing cover for murder. A good episode but not a great one, although one gets to see Mrs. Peel fencing, and the understated satire on Steed's British conformism is fun.
--Tom Keogh
