S1.E20

Tunnel of Fear

Episode aired Aug 5, 1961
TV-14
1h

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Patrick Macnee and Miranda Connell in The Avengers (1961)

Action Comedy Crime Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Thriller

Top-secret documents are disappearing, and Steed trails them to a tawdry fairground in Southend. He's captured, hypnotized and left bound in a train tunnel to await his fate.Top-secret documents are disappearing, and Steed trails them to a tawdry fairground in Southend. He's captured, hypnotized and left bound in a train tunnel to await his fate.Top-secret documents are disappearing, and Steed trails them to a tawdry fairground in Southend. He's captured, hypnotized and left bound in a train tunnel to await his fate.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.7/10

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

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Storyline

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Trivia
The vast majority of the first series of The Avengers (1961) is sadly missing from TV archives and likely lost forever - only the first 15 minutes of this first episode and three complete later episodes, Girl on the Trapeze (1961) (which incidentally does not feature the character of Steed), The Frighteners (1961), and Tunnel of Fear (1961) (found in the hands of a private collector in 2016) have been recovered and preserved.

Goofs
At around 11 minutes, the establishing shots filmed at an actual funfair keep switching between day and night time.

Quotes
Dr. David Keel: Prison clothes.
Carol Wilson: What?
Dr. David Keel: By the look of it, he dived head first through a window. Think we'd better call the police.
Carol Wilson: [sighs] He seemed awfully frightened.
Dr. David Keel: Hm, with good reason I should think.
Carol Wilson: Got a nice face, too...

User reviews4

Review

Featured review

8/10

A wonderful find, cracking episode.

Keel and Steed are made aware of a case of espionage by desperate man on the run Harry Black.

Underneath a show of bowler hats and scantily clad lovelies is a cracking story, a very well crafted tale of stolen secrets and espionage. The fairground setting adds to the mystery, and in fairness looks pretty great.

I loved how it played out, it was well paced and intriguing. Each character had a part to play, nobody felt there to make the numbers up.

How wonderful that this rare gem was discovered, how incredible would it be if a few more were found, we can all live in hope.

I'm surprised by how big a part Keel has played in these early episodes, I was really expecting The Steed show, and here it's mainly Keel that drives the story, with Steed naturally playing a vital part.

Anthony Bate plays the man on the run incredibly well, he was a wonderful actor, charismatic, handsome, and versatile, in his later years he was regularly cast as lords and upper class grandeurs, here we see a more down to Earth character, he's excellent.

Class, 8/10.