The Avengers (TV Series) Who's Who??? (1967) User Reviews

A different Steed and Mrs Peel

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 28 February 2015]

Basil and Lola, two enemy agents, have a dastardly scheme to assassinate Britain's top agents; they will become Steed and Mrs Peel. This will be no mere impersonation; first they plant clues that leads Steed into their trap; once they have him they use a devise that literally swaps Basil and Steed's minds! With Basil now occupying Steed's body it isn't long before they trap Mrs Peel and swap her with Lola. The real Steed and Mrs Peel manage to escape but with their current appearances it will be hard to catch the villains whose appearance has enabled them to start bumping off agents. Things get more dangerous for Steed and Mrs Peel when the villains decide they like living as Steed and Mrs Peel so order the real duo shot on sight! If they are to survive they will have to find the mind-swapping device and get Basil and Lola to return to it.

This episode was a lot of fun; the premise may be silly but it was well executed and provided some moments one didn't expect to see. Most notably the fake Steed and Mrs Peel sharing kisses and Mrs Peel bopping around while chewing gum! Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg certainly appeared to be having fun playing the villains for a change. The episode also works because Freddie Jones and Patricia Haines do a good job while playing the real Steed and Mrs Peel despite looking and dressing nothing them. It was also nice to learn more about the agency Steed and Mrs Peel work for; led by Major 'B' and staffed by agents whose buttonholes match their floral codenames. Overall this episode was much better than I expected given its unlikely premise… definitely not one to miss.

Who's Who's???

[guswhovian · 7/10 · 11 September 2020]

A mad scientist swaps Steed and Mrs Peel's minds with two enemy agents.

Who's Who's??? is implausible but entertaining. It's fun to see Steed and Mrs Peel acting out of character, including Mrs Peel chewing gum!

Freddie Jones and Patricia Haines are very good as the two enemy agents, especially Jones. The script is very good, particularly the scene where Steed laments that Basil bit the ends off some of his cigars!

Imaginative, fun, very different episode.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 2 August 2022]

In a fiendish plot to infiltrate national security, a clever Doctor invents a mind swapping procedure, his subjects Basil and Lola.

It's a riot, one of those wonderfully unique and original episodes. The title was perfectly chosen, as there are times where you simply don't know who's who, you have to concentrate, or you'll get lost in the madcap plot.

Such is the accepted wildness and wonder of this show, anything is possible, even changing the identity of the two lead actors. I wondered initially if it was written to give the pair a break, but they're as involved as ever, and both clearly having a riot.

It's so funny to see Steed and Emma behaving so differently, flirting, chewing gum, even looking unkempt.

Rigg and Macnee are fabulous and always, nice to see them behaving so differently, Patricia Haines was very good, Freddie Jones was terrific.

Very enjoyable, 8/10.

Sheer perfection!

[kevinolzak · 10/10 · 8 October 2008]

Surely a top ten entry on anyone's list of favorites, this episode has two enemy spies swapping identities with Steed and Mrs. Peel so as to bump off the Avengers network from the inside. Philip Levene, along with Brian Clemens, was clearly among the series' best writers (and here puts in a cameo as Daffodil), and this ingenious script allows Sir Patrick and Dame Diana to indulge in all the delightful carnage they wouldn't ordinarily do (Mrs. Peel chewing gum, Steed planting a big wet one on Emma's luscious lips!) Often overlooked is the excellent work from top billed Patricia Haines (previously seen in "The Nutshell" and "The Master Minds") and Freddie Jones (Hammer stalwart of "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed" and "The Satanic Rites of Dracula"), the only time two different actors enacted the roles of The Avengers, having no success in convincing their superiors of what has transpired (Question-"Do you take me for a perfect idiot?" Answer-"No one's perfect!") Another favorite line concerns Steed noting that Basil bites off the ends of his cigars, remarking that such a man is capable of anything! (longtime viewers remember that Steed himself did just that in previous seasons). Things really start to heat up once the villains realize that they much prefer their new bodies over the old, ordering Steed and Mrs. Peel to be shot on sight! This was the only time during the Emma Peel era that we see one of Steed's superiors, here called Major "B" (Campbell Singer, previously seen in "Six Hands Across a Table"), running 'a bouquet of agents,' somewhat similar to Patrick Newell's Mother, who would soon arrive on the scene. Sit back and enjoy the two stars having the time of their lives, and let the narrator be confused for a change. Peter Reynolds previously did "Double Danger," Malcolm Taylor had done "Mission to Montreal," while Arnold Diamond (playing the inventor of the transmigration machine) returned for the excellent "Fog," but Patricia Haines ("The Night Caller," "The Virgin Witch"), the lovely former wife of actor Michael Caine, was making her last appearance on the show (her tragic death in 1977 at 45 was due to cancer). This gem was the only episode to be directed by veteran John Llewellyn Moxey, who did the classic "City of the Dead" (1960), before emigrating to Hollywood to become even more prolific in TV movies like 1971's "The Night Stalker," which inspired the cult series that followed in 1974.

One of the top episodes

[Joe_Stretch_Paul · 10/10 · 1 July 2015]

Definitely a top Avengers episode, and probably the best of Season 5. Fantastic guest stars Patricia Haines and Freddie Jones as Lola and Basil, the criminals who switch bodies with Emma and Steed. While in this switched state, we see Mrs. Peel do some groovy dancing and Steed plant a kiss on her lips, as well as some other uncharacteristic behavior for our heroes. At the same time, the real Emma and Steed, now in the bodies of Lola and Basil, must figure out a way to switch things back, providing some great humor and action for the viewers. I watched this on DVD shortly after the news of Patrick Macnee's passing away. He was brilliant as Steed and had unmatchable chemistry with Diana Rigg. The Avengers enabled many other great British shows like Benny Hill, Monty Python, and Doctor Who to cross the pond into our television sets in the USA. The thought and detail that went into every episode makes it watchable some 50 years later. Very few great shows like this on modern TV. Game of Thrones is one of them (any coincidence that Diana Rigg is on this show as well?). A disappointing effort to start a film franchise some years back as even great actors Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman couldn't come close to recreating the magic of Macnee and Rigg.

AN EXTREMELY FUN EPISODE

[asalerno10 · 9/10 · 7 June 2022]

To achieve their purposes, a couple of agents lead Steed and Emma to an abandoned sawmill where they hide a machine capable of inverting people's personalities, thus managing to pass into the bodies of The Avengers to commit crimes with impunity, leaving their real bodies occupied by the personalities of Emma and Steed. This leads to a series of hilarious events as the vigilantes look like the villains and vice versa. All four actors excel in their performances in this episode which gives us the opportunity to see Mrs. Peel dancing sexy and seducing Steed and the pair of villains played by Patricia Haines and Freddy Jones are perfect when they play the role of Steed and Emma. A very funny episode from start to finish.

Great Episode, but You Must Know the Characters

[aramis-112-804880 · 10/10 · 25 August 2019]

For what it's worth this is one of my top episodes of "The Avengers", probably because I'm a big fan of Freddie Jones, who looks thin and fit here (rather than portly as he does later, making movies for the likes of David Lynch).

In this episode Steed and Mrs. Peel undergo a Bugs-Bunny-type brain transplant with a couple of foreign agents who look like cheap hoods (Freddie Jones and Patricia Haines). The plan is to murder as many of Steed's fellow agents as possible then change back and have perfect alibis while Steed and Mrs Peel take the rap. But then, the hoods decide they like their new bodies better.

So how do the new Steed (Freddie Jones) and Mrs. Peel (Patricia Haines) get their lives back, with all the surviving secret agents in Britain chasing them?

Excellently plotted and full of good laughs, especially when they come back from commercial breaks to explain what's going on.

Maybe the best episode of the whole show....

[searchanddestroy-1 · 9/10 · 9 April 2021]

Maybe, because there are so many of them. It is very difficult to be absolutely sure. But I admit that having watched John Woo's FACE OFF, just before helped me a lot to follow this story, because the 1997 thriller has a topic, a scheme very very close to this one, with good "guys" changing faces and taking the bad guys' ones, and vice versa. And of course the most delicious is following the behavior of the supposed goods and the behavior of the supposed uglies...very funny, very amusing, both in the modern action film and this delicious AVENGERS episode.

What a hoot

[robert3750 · 8/10 · 27 June 2023]

A pair of enemy agents are working with a scientist who's invented a mind swapping device. They swap minds with Steed and Peel, causing devastation in British intelligence, since Steed and Peel are regarded as extremely trustworthy at the highest level. It's amusing to see Macnee and Rigg acting as lovers instead of friends, with an edginess and bawdiness not normally seen. It's all great SF/fantasy fun. I didn't realize while I was watching that the male enemy agent was played by Freddie Jones, who became very familiar to me for his roles in 80s movies such as Dune, Krull, Firefox, and other such films.

Great episode all due to beautiful guest Patricia Haines

[bobforapples-40146 · 10/10 · 26 August 2023]

She is simply fabulous as the sexy, beautiful gum chewing infiltrator Lola. She swaps bodies with Mrs. Peel. Her performance then becomes more sincere. Every minute Haynes is in camera is a pure delight.

The machine that switches minds is thankfully real (see my reviews). The rest of the guest cast are ineffectual ( even the actor playing the German (?)scientist). But, again, it's Haines so simply beautiful in this and makes it all so very worth your time. I give it 10 stars officially but thanks to Haines' great face predominating I actually give it 12 stars. Watch her and enjoy it very much!