The Secret Service – 11. School For Spies

The episode opens at the World Army Experimental Weapons Division. Once again I should point out that the “World Army” designation is not present in the original script and would have been an addition by the effects designer. It was their attempt at adding a sense of uniformity to the military organisations of the later Supermarionation series, forgetting though that The Secret Service was supposed to be set in 1969 where a world military force didn’t exist.

This opening is also noteworthy because it’s not actually where the script starts. Donald James’ teleplay instead opens with a daytime sequence featuring a jet aircraft swooping and diving impressively at high speed before visibly malfunctioning and crashing spectacularly into an airbase and destroying it. The destruction would have been watched by two vicars shaking hands. “Highly satisfactory,” Brother Thomas says, “I shall recommend to the Archdeacon that you pass.” At this point, we would then cut to the wire mesh gates of the Experimental Weapons Division as we see in the finished episode. We’ll explore why this first sequence might have been cut in a moment, but first let’s continue with what we actually got on-screen.

Lots of familiar elements on display here, of course. The sign, the fencing, and many of the buildings are pretty much identical to the base of the World Army’s Experimental Vehicle Division seen in Recall To Service. Driving past the gates is the U87 from the Joe 90 episode, The Race, also bearing a World Army logo. It occurs to me that the uniform approach to the design of military insignia and signage across the later Supermarionation series may have had less to do with wanting to create a consistent shared universe, and more about how easily earlier models and stock footage could be recycled without redressing them or shooting new material. Another example of potential cost-cutting having an impact on The Secret Service.

Nearby, two vicars – the same ones who would have featured in the deleted opening scene with the aircraft crash. I’m sure they’ve just come out to bless the experimental weapons. Sprinkle a bit of holy water around the nukes, that sort of thing.

A few moments of quiet before it all kicks off. The effects department gets to blow up some more countryside – something they’ve gotten especially good at as The Secret Service has gone on. The clergymen seem unmoved by the devastation. The Sunday morning church services must be rough in their parishes.

It’s time for Brother Thomas and his colleague to depart. While the scene does more or less play out as scripted, there are some curious omissions in the final version that are worth highlighting.

20. INT. CAR NIGHT

BROTHER THOMAS has a pad in one hand and pencil in the other.

BROTHER THOMAS: (HE LOOKS DOWN AT HIS PAD) Yes, congratulations brother – eighty five percent. The Archdeacon will be delighted (pause) I think we ought to go.

Suddenly, the episode’s title, School For Spies, makes a whole lot more sense. Details such as Brother Thomas taking notes on a pad, and his colleague receiving some sort of 85% grade suggests that this pre-titles sequence was all some sort of test for the other vicar. The deleted scene featuring the destruction of the aircraft would have reinforced this. The “school” element of the title was supposed to be based on the fact that the hopeful enemy agents were being assessed and marked for carrying out their sabotage plots. For whatever reason, those elements have been carefully trimmed out of this opening sequence. How curious…

Anyway, it turns out that this sort of sabotage business has been becoming more common recently and the Bishop doesn’t have a clue who’s behind it or why they’re doing it, but he wants Father Unwin to stop it. Bish, bash, bosh. Setting up a plot for The Secret Service doesn’t really get much simpler than that. We pretty much could have guessed the content of that entire scene without needing to hear it. Alas, the Bishop doesn’t contribute much else to the episode. Sometimes, there was just too much stuff going on in the episodes for him to be involved, but I wish he could have been because he’s such an intriguing character.

Unwin proceeds with orders received. At this point, the script cuts to a deleted short scene by the greenhouse. The vicar arrives and encourages Matthew to join him in the study to read through the file provided by the Bishop. Again, all very routine stuff that we honestly just don’t need by this point in the series because we know the setup.

An idyllic countryside scene… except it’s clearly a model shot rather than location footage which means it’s probably all going to get blown up shortly. A truck drives by a hedge – a truck instantly recognisable to fans of the Joe 90 episode Colonel McClaine… or to readers of the superbly brilliant Joe 90 Project 90 Technical Operations Manual that I definitely don’t have a vested interest in shamelessly promoting.

I almost don’t need to see what happens next because it’s so mind-numbingly obvious. It’s another naughty vicar with his eyes on something blasty-blasty-bang-bang-kaboomy.

Yup. Saw that one coming. I suppose while everything we’ve seen so far has been incredibly familiar Secret Service fodder, it’s important to remember that first-time viewers might have been perplexed as to how a group of priests might be involved with all of this. It’s certainly an intriguing element of the story. Are they connected to BISHOP somehow? Why else would saboteurs be using the priesthood as their cover?

With “Project Roadway” completed, Brother Gregory takes his leave. The dialogue in the script matches what’s in the finished episode so there’s no reference to a test or any other schooling going on here that we’ve missed. The car that Gregory’s driving is exactly the same one used by Brother Thomas in the opening sequence – the modified version of Sam Loover’s car from Joe 90 which was last seen driven by Agent Blake in The Cure. The effects department were obviously limited in their choice of model cars because the art department only had so many sets for car interiors on the puppet stages. They clearly didn’t have the time or budget to come up with a new car set, so the same one gets used repeatedly.

Oh no! A cart! And ample space on the other side of the road for cars to pass it! Whatever will happen next?!

Is he gonna… nah… surely not? 

He is…

He’s only gone and binned the bloomin’ thing through a fence. Okay, that was a twist I was not anticipating. I wouldn’t have minded something a bit more exciting than swerving to avoid farm equipment, but it’s refreshing to have the bad guys take a hit so early in the story. Normally the villains are portrayed as unbelievably suave and smart and unstoppable right up until the moment at the climax of the episode when Father Unwin needs to inexplicably win the day with his suitcase and his old banger. It would seem that the dynamic in this situation is going to be something a little bit different…

Back at the vicarage, the lads are hard at work. Matthew’s got his serious stance on. They discuss the vicar spotted near the airbase when the Mach 4.5 aircraft was sabotaged… which doesn’t mean much to us because that whole sequence was cut from the beginning of the episode.

From what I can make out, the piece of paper that Father Unwin is referencing is actually an alphabetised list of locations around London. The puppet’s finger hovers over an entry for “The Tower of London,” but other places listed include St. Paul’s Cathedral, The Monument, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. A proper HD restoration of the episode would, of course, make it much easier to read.

Unwin is already up to speed on the plot, explaining to Matthew that another vicar has been found near the site of a blown-up army truck, and the fellow was taken to Stonehouse Hospital following a car crash. Wow, really not wasting any time this week. It’s unusual for Father Unwin to be the one with all the intel. He’s usually the last person to find out anything. I’m all for this approach to getting on with the story though.

No idea. This moment isn’t scripted. I think the inference is that Father Unwin is now keeping the real Gabriel in ultra-miniaturised form on his desk, having figured out he could shrink down his beloved Model T last week in The Cure. Alternatively, he might just keep a nice model of the car in his study. It’s a nice opportunity for us to get a close look at what was probably the special effects unit’s smallest model of the vehicle. We can admire all the detail that went into something which was usually only seen at a relatively great distance from the camera. The tiny number plate and even tinier tax disc on the windscreen, for example. It’s a beautiful thing. 

If this is supposed to be the real Gabriel after a blast from the Minimiser, it raises two questions. The first is whether Father Unwin has some form of control over how powerful the Minimiser’s shrinking ray is. Clearly, Gabriel is much smaller than one-third normal size which is the scale Matthew is usually reduced to (for the convenience of filming puppets on live-action sets and locations). Secondly, Mrs Appleby is bound to ask a few questions if and when she starts to notice that Father Unwin’s pride and joy has disappeared from the garage… although she’s not actually in this episode so maybe Unwin’s decided to keep the car indoors just while the housekeeper is away on holiday. Hope she’s gone somewhere nice. Perhaps some sort of gardener tolerance camp?

Out on location, the live-action Stanley Unwin has been called upon for more thrilling stunts. Today, he has to park the Model T next to a Hillman Minx and then… wait for it… open the door and climb out. FEEL THE RUSH.

The location itself is Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, one of the few Anderson filming locations you can arrive at in an ambulance. The relatively modern concrete and glass block was completed in 1965 and probably had that semi-futuristic look that the Century 21 team were going for with The Secret Service.

Inside Gregory’s room, the radio is playing Barry Gray’s most excellent pop composition originally from the Captain Scarlet episode, White As Snow. It’s a banger, no question about it. Father Unwin arrives and turns on his silly old vicar act. This is a really neat setup. Normally, Unwin sticks out like a sore thumb wherever he goes, and struggles to hold authority when trying to innocently pay a visit to a particular suspect. He flaps about, distracting their attention with as much drivel as possible until Matthew gets out of the case successfully, and then he leaves. Here, Unwin is able to play into the fact that he’s a priest visiting another priest. Both of them might be undercover agents, but Father Unwin has the advantage since he happens to be a bonafide man of the cloth himself. It’s just a nice twist on what would otherwise be a routine bit of business that we’ve seen before.

More high octane stunts now as live-action Stanley Unwin walks across the room holding Matthew’s case. I do wonder just how much of this material was undertaken by the real Stanley Unwin. I can’t honestly believe he would have to come to the studio just to do this type of thing. I know he was contracted to do it and all that, but it must have been so tedious, and in most of the shots we don’t see his face anyway.

While Unwin attempts to make small talk with a complete stranger, Matthew is encouraged to get out of the case underneath the hospital bed. Jeremy Wilkin (Gregory) and Stanley Unwin play the dialogue beautifully. Their delivery quietly gets across Gregory’s nervousness surrounding his false identity, and Father Unwin maintains the upper hand throughout the conversation by just being his normal self, rather than making a big song and dance. Unwin plays it cool, and in a way this disturbs Gregory more than if he’d obviously been up to something. Of course, we get a very, very small dose of Unwinese which causes the veil to slip slightly. Nevertheless, the fact that the Unwinese factor is so tiny in this and more recent episodes suggests that the writers had effectively given up with the gimmick. They had to use it a minimal amount purely to justify having Stanley Unwin of all people in the series at all, but it’s clear there were no new ideas about how to use it in the stories.

With Matthew safely concealed under the bed, Unwin takes his leave and Gregory puts his radio back on. Matthew is baffled by the fact that Brother Gregory prefers loud pop music to hymns. Call me disrespectful if you like, but I’ll wager that most vicars would rather listen to The Beatles than a church choir. I mean come on, they’re people, not God-robots.

Father Unwin decides that the best place to stop and chat to Matthew is right in the middle of the entrance to the hospital car park. Seems a bit bloomin’ dangerous to me. Both Unwin and Matthew scoff at the thought of Brother Gregory being a real vicar. Father Unwin is disgusted that he didn’t even seem to know what “pastoral duties” were. Ummm… when was the last time you dedicated any time to your own parishioners, mate? When you’re not fighting crime, you’re sitting in your garden reading, eating boiled eggs, or tinkering with your car.

A Ford Corsair arrives at the hospital and Father Unwin immediately clocks that the driver is another chap in a cassock. Blimey, the Slough area seems to be overrun with priests. He warns Matthew of the approaching visitor.

Unwin then finally decides to get out of the flippin’ way of the entrance to the hospital, and stops just down the road to listen in on the juicy gossip. Looking at Google Street View, you’d struggle to find a parking place anywhere near that hospital entrance on Wexham Street nowadays. It’s next to gate number two of the hospital if you’re ever taking your bright yellow Model T for a spin and want to try re-creating the moment.

While Matthew thinks on his feet and climbs into Brother Thomas’ bag, we get some more plot dropped on us. Apparently, the group’s most important operation to date, Operation Fish, is due to happen soon and Brother Gregory probably won’t be able to take part because of his condition, and because of the spectacular blunder he made crashing the car during an assignment in the first place. This Archdeacon fellow sounds most formidable. In the Anglican Church, and indeed other Christian denominations, an archdeacon acts as an assistant to a bishop and essentially handles a lot of the admin and busy work involved in managing a bishop’s flock. So quite high-ranking, but maybe not quite so grand as the job title suggests. Nevertheless, for the purposes of this episode, he’s portrayed as the big bad in charge of this little criminal operation. In the same way that Brother Gregory isn’t a real priest, the inference is that nobody in this particular gang is a genuine, ordained member of the clergy.

Matthew is going places. Inside the bag, he’s surrounded by papers including what is clearly a piece of production documentation. It includes a note for the Art Department detailing a “Thick file of reports. Potted plants on table. Potted plant for Matthew” for Props: “Trowel – Scene 28.”, for the Puppet Workshop “Unwin – hearing aid and glasses,” and then further notes referring to scene numbers in the Vicarage’s bedroom. All of the notes seem to correspond with the shooting script for School For Spies. Scene 28 would have been the deleted scene featuring Matthew in the greenhouse, holding a potted plant, while Father Unwin walked into shot carrying the thick file. Always fun to get a little glimpse at the day-to-day admin involved with shooting Supermarionation.

Father Unwin is tasked with following the Ford Corsair while Matthew rides along in the back seat. Classic Secret Service business all this. How many times have we seen Matthew secretly hitching a ride in a car or another mode of transport? It’s fine – sometimes that sort of thing just needs to happen in every plot –  but perhaps having an agent who can shrink down to one-third normal size doesn’t open up quite as many varied storytelling opportunities as the premise might initially suggest…

Now here’s a very grand location standing in for Pennyridge Seminary. This is New Lodge in Winkfield. The house was built in 1857 as a private residence on the site of an early modern Royal Hunting Lodge. At the time when this location footage was shot in late 1968, the building was owned by the British Transport Commission and used for training railway catering staff.

Father Unwin pulls up outside the gates of the seminary, in reality the entrance to the New Lodge estate on Drift Road in Windsor. Relatively speaking, we’re quite far away from the location unit’s usual Burnham Beeches stomping ground… a whole five miles away.

Some quite unusual scenes from the script have been cut from the finished episode which would have further suggested that this group is acting as a school for training spies.

97. INT. BACK OF BROTHER THOMAS’ CAR

CLOSE on to the case.

SOUND: A burst of gunfire O.S.

CUT TO:

98. INT. THE GLADSTONE BAG

Sounds of gunfire continue.

MATTHEW: I think we’ve arrived Father – it sounds like a battlefield out there. I’ll report as soon as I can.

CUT TO:

99. INSERT: GUNFIRE BURSTS FROM THE MUZZLE OF A BREN GUN

CUT TO:

100. M.S. BREN GUNNER

Lying behind the gun. He is dressed in a cassock.

CUT TO:

101. C.U. TARGET

As the rounds rip through the centre of the bull…

CUT TO:

102. INSERT: HAND GRENADE

The hand grenade curves through the air, drops and rolls to a halt.

It is within a foot or two of a cardboard target shaped like the outline of an advancing infantryman.

SLIGHT PAUSE, then the grenade explodes, shattering the target.

CUT TO:

103. INT. OFFICE – DAY

INSERT: A hand holds the case and places it on the floor

SOUND: O.S. Of gunfire and exploding grenades.

As you can see, Matthew was clearly supposed to arrive at the seminary and hear the sounds of some sort of training exercise involving a man of the cloth using a machine gun and a hand grenade. It wouldn’t have contributed much to the plot, or told us anything we weren’t already fairly aware of. However, from the way Donald James has written the sequence, it was obviously supposed to be quite a fast-paced, disorientating moment, and I think it would have helped to sell the surreal quality of having priests running around using weapons and blowing stuff up. It would have just ticked the absurdity box a little more firmly as these later episodes of The Secret Service really seem to be going for. Without this sequence to bombard the senses and go over the top with the contrast between vicars and acts of war, I don’t think the episode quite reaches its full potential. 

The sequence may have been cut for timing reasons – we’ve already discussed how much plot is getting crammed into this episode. It may have been cut because of an all-encompassing decision to reduce the training school aspect of the storyline as per the changes to the opening scenes. Or someone might have considered it a step too far to show a vicar tearing into a person-shaped target with a machine gun.

Inside the house, Brother Thomas updates Brother Simon on the condition of Brother Gregory. They really are just a whole bunch of bros. It turns out that Gregory was a demolitions expert vital to the success of Operation Fish… whatever that is. It sounds like a trout fishing expedition. But don’t worry! Brother Jess, a new recruit from Section Six.. whatever that is… has been recommended by the Archdeacon.

Father Unwin is obviously intrigued by Operation Fish. Matthew plans to hang out in the bag and do some snooping around once it’s dark. These two are such a well-oiled machine at this point that we all knew the plan was going to be something like that.

A reasonably effective day-for-night shot of the house establishes that nighttime has fallen and it’s time for Matthew to get to work. One of the brothers is enjoying some quality time with the piano. In the script, no such thing is happening – the office was supposed to be deserted, and Matthew would have cut himself out of the bag using the blade of a knife. Instead, he stands up without any need for hacking his way through the leather. He spots the safe and makes his way over to it.

Yet again, Father Unwin is asleep on the job and Matthew has to wake him up. Seriously mate, just drink a coffee and stay up when your buddy’s out on a mission. It’s just the most decent thing to do.

The dialogue indicates that Matthew overheard the code for the safe and turns the dial to 36, 42, and 19. On-screen, Matthew’s little hand clearly struggles to turn the dial and the numbers don’t move at all while we cut away to Father Unwin to avoid actually having to show the puppet turning the dial. A trademark piece of Supermarionation editing trickery.

It doesn’t take Matthew long to uncover the truth. The brotherhood is in fact a mercenary operation sabotaging military equipment for cold hard cash. The Mach 4.5 aircraft which should have featured in the opening scene but didn’t, earned them £25,000, the Army truck was £15,000, and the mysterious Operation Fish is set to bring in £75,000. Big money, but unfortunately no further detail on what’s involved.

At this point, the finished episode diverts wildly from the original script. On-screen, Matthew happily closes the file and returns to the bag, while Unwin goes back to bed. Their exchange of dialogue has them agree to wait until the morning before they take action involving Brother Jess. Then we head into the commercial break. In stark contrast, the script goes as follows once Matthew has found the invoice for Operation Fish and Unwin asks for more info:

130. INT. SAFE – NIGHT

MATTHEW: That’s just it – it doesn’t say.

We hear a noise of a door opening

MATTHEW: Someone’s coming I can’t talk anymore.

131. INT. OFFICE – NIGHT

BROTHER THOMAS and BROTHER SIMON stand with drawn guns in the office. BROTHER SIMON pans a flashlight.

132. P.O.V. shot

Pan with the flashlight from their P.O.V.

BROTHER THOMAS (V.O.) There’s no one there.

BROTHER SIMON: I heard something I tell you… Look.

The pan stops on the open safe.

133. TWO SHOT

THOMAS and SIMON start to move forward.

134. INT. SAFE – NIGHT

MATTHEW waits tense

CUT TO:

135. C.S. SAFE (EXTERIOR)

The safe door is opened. The flashlight pans inside. No sign of MATTHEW.

CUT TO:

136. TWO SHOT

SIMON and THOMAS

SIMON: There [sic] no-one. You must have forgotten to close the door. Come on.

THOMAS leans to the door.

137. INT. SAFE – NIGHT

The door is slammed shut. Darkness then MATTHEW turns on his light, as he bobs up from his hiding place.

MATTHEW: Father

FR. UNWIN (V.O.) Yes Matthew

MATTHEW: I’m afraid I got myself locked -in the safe.

CUT TO:

COMMERCIAL BREAK

So, in short, the script had Matthew getting trapped inside the safe while the revised scene in the finished episode has Matthew return to the comparative safety of the bag. Since the dialogue between Matthew and Unwin was also changed, it’s fair to assume that the version of the script that’s available in the Network DVD’s PDF archive is an earlier draft which was presumably rewritten by the time the episode’s dialogue was recorded. Alternatively, the episode’s dialogue may have been re-recorded at a later date.

A scene which we’ll come to later would have seen Unwin quietly break Matthew out of the safe once he’s entered into the brotherhood under the guise of Brother Jess. It doesn’t impact the plot that much whether Matthew is in or out of the safe since he’s mostly served his function now by getting the information. The tone is certainly different though. I can imagine it being quite a scary scene to have Brother Simon and Brother Thomas going around the dark office with guns, and shutting Matthew away with the firm slamming of a safe door. Presumably the change in outcomes was made for the finished episode to keep the running time down, or to simplify an already quite dense storyline, or because for some reason doing more business with the safe on-screen was deemed impractical.

With all that being said, I’m glad Matthew got out okay in the end. The poor kid deserves a break after all the nonsense he’s put up with in previous weeks.

Back on the road, an obviously evil-looking priest (previously seen as Captain Mitchell in Recall To Service) is struggling with some basic geography. This was filmed at the junction of Fulmer Lane, St. Huberts Lane, and Hawkswood Lane in Gerrards Cross. Meanwhile, the signpost specially mocked up for filming is indicating Downham Village and Pennyridge Seminary. Downham is indeed a village but it’s in Lancashire while the closest approximation of Pennyridge is the village of Penny Bridge in Cumbria. They’re about 60 miles apart. I know you didn’t need to know any of that but it keeps me entertained.

Oh no, here comes Britain’s least helpful motorist.

Brother Jess seems like a nice enough chap but apparently Father Unwin rubs him up the wrong way. In a slight diversion from the script, Jess becomes very defensive of his map, and decides to follow the signpost which Unwin suspects might have been tampered with. Suit yourself, mate.

Brother Jess pops off down the road in his shiny Ford Zephyr. I’d have thought the Century 21 team would be close to running out of new cars by this point in the series.

Oh dear. Looks like Father Unwin’s been up to something a bit cheeky. It turns out the sign was tampered with but it was him that did it! Very sly. I actually adore the subtle fact that Unwin did suggest to Brother Jess that this might have happened, which in Unwin’s head probably absolves him of all guilt surrounding the little bit of deception. It’s just so in-character and delightful. He could have tried to steer Jess away from questioning the sign but I genuinely don’t think Father Unwin can manage that level of dishonesty… Well, unless he’s lying to Mrs Appleby about his real job, that is… he seems okay with that.

Contrary to what I just said, it seems that the Century 21 team has indeed run out of new cars. This “police” car is in fact the same Jaguar Mk. 2 that belonged to Sir Humphrey Burton in the episode, To Catch A Spy. Apparently, the cops have been tipped off about Brother Jess and are after him… even though he hasn’t actually done anything wrong yet…

And so, with the real Brother Jess out of the way, Father Unwin is all set to assume his identity and head over to Pennyridge. Curiously, the dialogue in the finished episode retains the line from Unwin to Matthew, “I’ll arrange your release as soon as I can.” This would obviously make more sense in the context of Matthew being locked inside a safe. I suppose freeing him from a bag is also a kind of release, but it’s a bit of a stretch and the line probably should have been changed a tad.

It’s the end of the line for the real Brother Jess, but for the fake Brother Jess the adventure is just beginning as he drives towards the seminary. Quick question – was Pennyridge Seminary a seminary before it was taken over by a gang of murderous mercenaries? If so, where have all the real priests gone? If not, wasn’t anyone in the area a bit curious about a new seminary popping up quite recently – especially if the deleted scenes are to be believed and they like to chuck hand grenades around all day long?

It’s very pretty footage, but it must have been so darn boring for Stanley Unwin to keep finding new ways to drive up to a house, get out of the car, and ring the doorbell every week. New Lodge is a lovely-looking location though. It was also used for the Man In A Suitcase episode, Essay in Evil, and later the horror movies Trog (1970) and Asylum (1972).

Father Unwin wanders into the room to meet with Brother Simon and Brother Thomas. The dialogue plays out quite a bit differently in the finished episode when compared to the original script because of the added complication involved with getting Matthew out of the safe at this point.

Notice how the number has been crossed out on the rotary phone. Have you noticed? Good. It’s literally of no consequence whatosever.

While Brother Thomas chats to the Archdeacon, Unwin is able to quietly pop his case down next to Matthew’s bag and tell him to jump inside as soon as possible. In the script, with Matthew locked in the safe this all gets quite a bit more complex:

155 C.S. FATHER UNWIN

BROTHER SIMON: (V.O.) You’re an explosive expert.

He moves towards the safe.

FR. UNWIN: If you say so. Ah, I see you have a safe.

CUT TO:

156. C.S. BROTHER THOMAS:

BROTHER THOMAS: Yes it’s a triple number combination. Absolutely thief proof… you should know.

CUT TO:

157. C.S. FATHER UNWIN

Now by the safe.

FR. UNWIN: Indeed, indeed… (quietly) What was that combination Matthew.

158. INT. SAFE DAY

MATTHEW: 36… 42… 19

159 INT. OFFICE – DAY

We hear the telephone ring, pan to BROTHER THOMAS who answers it.

BROTHER THOMAS: Yes… Yes Archdeacon… Yes Sir he arrived a few seconds ago.

CUT TO:

160 C.S. FATHER UNWIN

He tinkers with the combination.

BROTHER THOMAS (V.O.) I understand… As far as I know Sir…. Right….

CUT TO:

161. INT. SAFE – DAY

The door opens to give a spill of light. 

FR. UNWIN: (V.O.) Get into the case as soon as you can, Matthew. It’s just by the safe.

162. TWO SHOT

BROTHERS THOMAS and SIMON.

BROTHER THOMAS: The Archdeacon’s on his way.

SIMON: Look the safe…. He’s opened it.

163. C.S. FATHER UNWIN

He stands by the slightly open safe door.

THOMAS (V.O.) I don’t understand.

SIMON: It’s unbelievable

FR. UNWIN: Oh it was nothing. (MORE IN UNWINESE)

SIMON: I didn’t quite follow that.

FR. UNWIN: (More UNWINESE)

THOMAS: Quiet. We’d better take our places for the Archdeacon.

CUT TO:

165. INT. SAFE – DAY

MATTHEW goes to leave the safe.

And there you have it. It’s quite a lot of waffle for very little payoff, and would have taken up several minutes of screentime. I’m not surprised the whole subplot was cut out. Curiously though, it would have been the scene used to reach our Unwinese quota for the episode so maybe Tony Barwick as script editor was simply fed up with allowing subplots constructed around the gobbledygook gimmick to derail the rest of the show for a few minutes. Instead, we remain focused on the action and the main problem at hand. All that said, there is a publicity photograph in existence of Unwin standing next to the open safe, so it’s possible that all of this material was actually filmed and changed later.

While the brothers wait for the Archdeacon by what appears to be a randomly selected map of Scandinavia, Matthew gets back in the case. In the script, Unwin, Thomas, and Simon are supposed to be seated and facing a curtained wall behind the desk.

The map pops up to reveal a television screen. Not exactly cutting edge technology but it’s interesting enough.

And this is the great and glorious Archdeacon himself. Again, the script has very specific recommendations for the grand reveal of the big bad which don’t quite match the finished episode:

170. INT. OFFICE – DAY

BROTHER SIMON: Here he is now.

There is a faint whirring of machinery and the curtains draw across the window, darkening the room. 

Almost simultaneously the drapes behind the desk part and reveal a large Television Screen.

There is a click and the screen is filled with green light.

Now close on it as a round benign face comes forward to fill the screen – beneath the chin we can see a ‘dog collar’.

The effect is of an ethereal face appearing from a vast distance – the screen remains strangely green – the background indistinct.

ARCHDEACON: Welcome Brother Jess – we are expecting great things of you.

The end result isn’t nearly so dramatic. They’ve attempted to get that ethereal green glow on the screen, but without the cloak and dagger business with the drapes and the indistinct background it doesn’t have anything close to the same effect. It’s a reasonably intriguing moment in the end just because of the Archdeacon’s chair spin, but it’s not nearly as surreal and absurd as the script was aiming for. Again, I assume time restrictions held the team back from including all the other dramatic details.

The Archdeacon seems to take a shine to Unwin as Brother Jess, but wants him to prove his expertise in the field of explosives which silly Unwin just blindly agrees to. Matthew, fully aware of the vicar’s lack of ability regarding anything vaguely technical, advises extreme caution. I don’t blame him. There’s a reason Mrs Appleby has to cook all his boiled eggs.

The seminary appears to have its own laboratory which looks like a bit of a mess to be honest. To demonstrate his non-existent skills, Unwin is asked to identify three detonators. Yet more dialogue has been cut which would have shown Matthew guiding Father Unwin from inside the case with exactly the right things to say in regards to the equipment. Matthew’s view becomes obscured when Unwin is then asked to identify a flask full of Nitroglycerine, which he splashes around accidentally. A few drops detonate with small but intense explosions when they hit the ground and scare the willies out of Brothers Thomas and Simon. Again, this must have all been cut for timing reasons.

Meanwhile, Brother Gregory has discharged himself from hospital. I struggle to believe they would have kept him there for several days with just a broken arm, but I’m not a bloomin’ doctor.

Then the trouble starts. Gregory immediately identifies Father Unwin as an impostor. We hear what remains of the dialogue from the deleted Nitroglycerine scene, with Brother Simon sounding out of breath and panicked for seemingly no reason as he explains, “Anyone who treats Nitro like that must be an expert.”

Despite the setback, the Archdeacon has no intention of postponing Operation Fish. Good for you, buddy. I’m sure having a double agent in your midst won’t cause you any issues whatsoever…

And this is what Operation Fish has been all about – a submarine known as the Invincible. That name is practically an open invitation for someone to come and have a pop at it. The model set recycles several elements from the desalination plants seen throughout A Question of Miracles.

The next sequence of model shots is rather stunning as the Model T and the truck drive down the coastal path onto the beach and release the speedboat. Once again, the original script has a lot more detail about how all this plays out, and would have seen the convoy start its journey from the seminary, and various extra bits and pieces of dialogue from the brotherhood as they drop the boat into position and such like things. I can’t emphasise enough how much editing this script must have received to bring it down to time. That said, the model shots aren’t exactly pacey. Gabriel and the truck take their sweet time getting down to the beach. And on that subject, why the heck did they allow Father Unwin to bring his bright yellow, noisy antique car on a top secret mission which requires stealth and camouflage?

Brother Gregory jumps out from behind Gabriel like the world’s worst jack-in-the-box. At least he was decent enough to wait until Brother Thomas had explained that the speedboat is radio controlled and will be packed full of explosives. More dialogue trimmed from the script would have seen Father Unwin quipping about Brother Gregory discharging himself from hospital and Thomas giving the order for Simon to tie up our heroic vicar. Look, if you only read one script for The Secret Service, read this one because there’s tons of bits and pieces missing from the finished episode. It’s all there in the PDF archive of the Network DVD set.

Back at the seminary, the Archdeacon is having a whale of a time on the piano. Guess what? The script has something totally different:

227. EXT. PENNYRIDGE SEMINARY NIGHT

One single light burns – at the office window.

The atmosphere is sinister – augmented first by night noises of owls and distant barking dogs and then by the thin sound of a violin playing. 

As we CLOSE on the single lighted window the sound of the violin increases as we see that a light blond or net curtain obscures the outline of a short fat figure – playing a shadowy violin.

Why was the violin swapped for a piano? Probably because puppets aren’t very good at doing intricate things with their arms without a lot of assistance. The Thunderbirds episode, The Perils of Penelope did feature a violinist, and I don’t think you could get away with those kinds of big exaggerated movements from one of The Secret Service’s correctly proportioned puppets. Of course, it’s entirely possible that Donald James was envisioning the whole sequence playing out with a live-action double obscured by the net curtain. Also, the later Century 21 shows didn’t really have any puppet bodies to represent a “short fat figure.” In the future, everyone will be slim and six-foot tall.

Back at the seaside, the brotherhood of twerps have turned nasty and tied up Father Unwin aboard the boat. With the explosives ready and so-called Brother Jess doomed to die in the destruction, they set off in their truck. The scenario is looking quite grim! I don’t think we’ve seen Father Unwin in quite so much distress before. He’s utterly helpless. Did they really have to gag the poor fella?

Matthew is ready to save the day! Good thing the brothers were kind enough to let Unwin keep his case with him before he died. The truck trundles up the road as Thomas and Simon get ready to do their thing. I wonder what they did before all this pretend-priest nonsense. Brother Thomas puts me in mind of an overzealous bank manager, while Brother Simon looks like he’s finally retired from a lifelong career running a garden centre.

As the radio antenna on the control panel rises into position, it’s time for Matthew to do his own thing while a dazed and confused Unwin can only watch and panic.

Oof… I don’t think you need me to tell you what’s wrong with this shot.

Even Matthew is ashamed of that floor puppeteer blunder.

Over in the truck, it’s time to start the party. Oh for a high definition transfer to read the smaller print and work out what this ‘EMD’ prop was really for.

Experts such as myself call this manoeuvre, “falling arse over tit.”

Incidentally, this WASN’T in the script. Ken Turner just felt like drowning Father Unwin that day. Can’t think why.

The boat sets off with Matthew still aboard. Unwin manages to surface before his lungs fill with seawater so I guess that’s a win. Look at Matthew’s cute little shoes standing on top of the case. Ain’t it adorable? Ain’t it so cutesy-wootsy?

The Invincible’s not looking quite so invincible right now. Seriously, what a stupid name for a submarine.

Soggy Unwin is now standing on the beach screaming Matthew’s name. Just like last week in The Cure, he’s all out of options and his friend is in terrible danger. Stanley Unwin puts great emotion behind the delivery of the lines. Matthew’s steely silence is surprisingly powerful as he continues to aimlessly poke and prod at the control panel. Live-action hands for this scene might have been a bit more effective… particularly with the floor puppeteer’s fingers so obviously visible at Matthew’s elbows. Nevertheless, I’m very invested in this action-packed climax!

Kerblam-o!

Unwin is visibly distraught as he shouts for his colleague across the sound of alarms and sirens wailing. The close-up of his eyes is an amazing touch. Puppets really can express an extraordinary range of emotions just from the way they’re filmed.

All is well. Matthew was thrown clear somehow, having broken the radio control signal and steered the boat off course just in time. Someone grab a fishing net and bring that tiddler in.

Well obviously this scene is adorable. Little Matthew has caught a little cold from his little dip. Probably would have been a more satisfying joke if Unwin hadn’t also fallen in the water and gotten wet, but I totally get what they were going for. The Bishop is working late again and agrees to track down the brothers in their truck. Mrs Bishop must be a loud snorer or something.

The Archdeacon is still banging away on that old piano, playing Igor Sladek’s recital from the Joe 90 episode, International Concerto. He’s obviously quite surprised to see Father Unwin alive and well. This scene was supposed to be the grand reveal of the Archdeacon – his face having previously been obscured by the green light on the screen and the curtains at the window. But because we’ve already seen him clearly, none of this business is quite as rewarding as it was so obviously intended by Donald James in the script.

The Archdeacon has a gun. Father Unwin has a test tube full of Nitroglycerine. That’s a stalemate and really quite bloomin’ dangerous. Except Nitroglycerine isn’t bright green so you do have to suspend your disbelief a little bit. All of this is a callback to the earlier deleted scene when Unwin was playing around with the explosives. As it is, just enough of that scene’s dialogue was retained for us to understand what’s happening here.

Ultimately, the Archdeacon surrenders just as we hear the Constabulary arrive. Woop-woop, that’s the sound of da police. Unwin continues his bizarre and completely unfounded cat metaphor from earlier by saying that, like a tiger, explosives are only dangerous if you show your fear… Not exactly the anti-violence, anti-war stance we’ve heard from the vicar previously and it happens to be total rubbish.

Oh look. If you chuck a test tube of a highly volatile substance out of a window it’ll explode. Who’d have thunk it?

Seriously, why did you just do that you absolute dipstick? Ya could’ve bloomin’ killed someone you soppy tart.

And on that ridiculous note, the episode ends exactly as scripted, which is frankly something of a miracle considering all the other deleted scenes from this instalment.

I think School For Spies is a really strong case of The Secret Service trying to be The Avengers… which is annoying for me because I’ve barely seen The Avengers so don’t have a lot to say about it. But I do know that The Avengers’ third season literally features an episode about a crime syndicate called Bibliotech who are all disguised as clergymen – it’s called The Little Wonders and it was made in 1964, four years before Donald James wrote School For Spies. This isn’t the first time The Secret Service has crossed paths with The Avengers and done some very similar plots. No story can ever be entirely original, and it obviously makes sense that The Secret Service would do a story about a mercenary gang of priests – it fits the format like a glove. Not to mention, Donald James actually wrote his own episode of The Avengers for the sixth season so there are bound to be some similar notes to them. So I don’t really have an issue with two television shows having vaguely similar episodes.

What I do find more Avengers-esque about this episode is the tone. The Avengers is unapologetically weird. Steed and his colleagues inhabit an inherently surreal world that differs from our own and sometimes defies logic. A criminal gang disguising themselves as clergymen doesn’t need an explanation in The Avengers because it’s par for the course. The Secret Service has started to go in a similar direction at this point. Last week it was things like Father Unwin suddenly being able to shrink and grow his car in an instant despite never being able to do it before. This week, the bad guys are priests because… well, because it’s just an interesting visual, I guess? 

I think that all this stems back to the puppet and live-action combination not working and the Century 21 team finally just deciding to own it as a bizarre and off-putting quirk of the show. In the same way that it defies explanation that a puppet should suddenly turn into a human being just to ring a doorbell, the writing is trying to match that same level of absurdity and illogical fantasy. Either you’re on board with that as a viewer, or you aren’t. Previous Supermarionation shows have compelled viewers to believe in everything that’s happening because the artificial world is balanced with stories that function logically – even if there are fantasy elements like The Hood’s telepathy, or the Mysterons bringing people back to life, there are still rules and limitations to those premises that apply and allow the viewer to feel that with those rules in place, the goodies have a chance of overthrowing the baddies, or run the risk of failure because those limitations won’t allow them to succeed. Those rules of logic need to be consistent in order to maintain dramatic tension.

The last few episodes of The Secret Service have thrown out the rulebook and that might make it a bit annoying for some viewers. It’s the reason I finished this particular episode feeling a bit odd. Not hating it, just feeling like I’d missed something. It’s because someone’s let the handbrake off and the series is rolling down the hill on an insane and uncontrollable ride. Sometimes you’ll enjoy that sensation, and other times you’ll fear for your life. The Minimiser can now shrink anything down to any size – not just Matthew shrinking down to one-third normal size, but mad stuff like Gabriel potentially shrinking down to become a desk toy depending on your interpretation of that scene. Bad guys can run around pretending to be priests when it’s previously been established that Father Unwin is really only a secret agent because a very specific department of the British Intelligence Service has been set up to accommodate it. The series has given up on asking the audience to suspend their disbelief because the writers know that the audience can’t believe in a puppet turning into a real person every five minutes. So instead, let’s just enjoy and celebrate the disbelief instead, and have some fun with it.