"A Chorus of Frogs" was the last of the six episodes featuring Julie Stevens as nightclub singer Venus Smith, and the weakest since the first. The two songs she sings are the worst yet, and the ho-hum plot never really gets moving, but an excellent cast makes up for the dullness. Michael Gover, last seen in "Man in the Mirror," makes his second and last appearance as One Six, who here summons Steed away from a Greek vacation to investigate the mysterious diving death of Andreas Stephanopoulus (Makki Marseilles), member of a small time group of international smugglers known as The Frogs. Steed stows away on board a ship owned by Mason (Eric Pohlmann), where Venus Smith is currently singing, and meets up with other Frogs- Ariston (John Carson), Helena (Colette Wilde), and Jackson (Alan Haywood, later seen in "The Gilded Cage"), all vengeful as to how and why their fallen comrade died. Mason's ship houses a secret laboratory where Dr. Pitt-Norton (Frank Gatliff, previously seen in "One for the Mortuary" and "The Sell-Out," later seen in "Love All") conducts experiments mixing gases to grant deep sea divers greater safety to go further down, while villainous foreign agent Anna Lee (Yvonne Shima) tries to keep things under wraps by harpooning a spying Jackson, whose murder is branded an accident (Stephanopoulas is revealed to be a willing volunteer for a fatal experiment in a mini-submarine, his body pulled up and later dumped overboard). The last of the globe-trotting episodes not set in Britain, with little banter between Steed and Venus, who initially responds angrily to discovering his unwelcome presence in her cabin, but later reverts to her usual smiling pushover (the climactic fisticuffs find her crawling along the floor to a secure hiding place). From here on, it would only be Honor Blackman, Diana Rigg, and Linda Thorson for the final 111 episodes. Eric Pohlmann's voice is instantly recognizable as that of the unseen Blofeld in the James Bond features "From Russia with Love" (1963) and "Thunderball" (1965), while pistol-happy Colette Wilde, best known as one of the scantily clad beauties in the shocking "Circus of Horrors" (1960), was later seen in "The Grandeur That Was Rome." The most humorous performance belongs to John Carson, a standout actor who did two later episodes, "Second Sight" and "Dial a Deadly Number," but remains best known for roles in Hammer horrors "The Plague of the Zombies" (1966), "Taste the Blood of Dracula" (1969), and "Captain Kronos:Vampire Hunter" (1972), directed by AVENGERS writer Brian Clemens, and featuring a cameo from Ian Hendry (the original AVENGER himself, David Keel).
Review of A Chorus of Frogs
