"A Sense of History" is another classic episode, featuring a youthful cast of familiar faces. Recalling the earlier "School for Traitors" (with Emma Peel replacing Venus Smith), we find ourselves at university, where all the students are part of a violent cult who mock the theories of their professors while following the dictates of a secret mastermind who has authored a devastating thesis designed to alter history. Dressed in Robin Hood apparel, wearing masks, and sporting accurate bows and sharp arrows, they murder eminent economist James Broom (an unbilled Kenneth Benda, later seen in "From Venus with Love"), now setting their sights on his associate Richard Carlyon (Nigel Stock, previously seen in "Concerto"), who hopes to continue his late colleague's dream of ending world poverty. Patrick Mower ("The Devil Rides Out," "Bloodsuckers," "Cry of the Banshee") heads the cast of bad boys, who make up in numbers what they lack in experience, with Peter Blythe ("Frankenstein Created Woman") second in command (he would return for "The Positive Negative Man"). It doesn't take them long to realize that the ever smiling, unflappable Steed is dangerous when crossed, and the frantic finale, with Emma's delectable derrière in plain sight in decorative Rag Week costume, gives new meaning to the term "merry men." Robin Phillips, so despicable as the villain who drives kindly Peter Cushing to suicide in "Tales from the Crypt" (1972), and Jacqueline Pearce ("The Plague of the Zombies" and "The Reptile") have less to do as frightened hangers on, along with Peter Bourne, later seen in "You'll Catch Your Death." Among the suspicious academicians are John Ringham (previously seen in "The Secrets Broker"), John Glyn-Jones (later seen in "Noon-Doomsday"), and John Barron.
Review of A Sense of History
