The Avengers: "The House That Jack Built"

'The Avengers'': "The House That Jack Built." 16 May 1966. Don Leaver, dir. Brian Clemens, script.

A country house converts into a metaphorical "electronic mousetrap," more literally "an elaborate, computerized 'fun house' complete with music boxes, mazes, tigers, and a giant, spinning 'radiometer'"—all part of a plot to drive Emma Peel insane, and to suicide. Note motif of threatening containment inside a computerized setting combining an "old manor house and its historical artifacts with the cold, op-art, futuristic settings," for an antithesis designed to destroy Mrs. Peel. (Source: James Murray, "The 'Avengers' Top Twenty Episode Guide," Cinefantastique 30.3 [July 1998]: 53-54.)

(RDE, 10/06/98); RDE, Title, 22Aug19