There Are Never Too Many Christmas Trees

A Robinson tradition since 1990

The Avengers festive episode from 1965, “Too Many Christmas Trees,” has been an annual tradition of mine since 1990 — although I probably watched it for the first time just prior to Thanksgiving. The Avengers episode that the A&E network aired on Christmas Eve 1990 was Season Seven’s “Look — (Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One) But There Were These Two Fellers ...” There’s no Mrs. Peel, but there are killer clowns (or “red-nosed comedians,” as the Brits call them) plus guest appearances from John Cleese and Bernard Cribbins, who played the horrible gag writer Bradley Marler. “It has a certain humorous shape” is a line I’ve used often. (Watch below.)

(Cribbins would later star in the 2009 Doctor Who special, “The End of Time,” which actually aired on Christmas Day.)

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Mrs. Peel, You're Still Needed: Discussing 'The Avengers' With Author Michael Scott Phillips

I still watch “Look — (Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One) But There Were These Two Fellers ...” every Christmas Eve, but usually with my morning coffee. It’s light and funny, whereas “Too Many Christmas Trees” is strictly nighttime viewing while sipping a good brandy. (I didn’t start adding the brandy to my holiday screening until the late ‘90s.)

The first full episode of The Avengers I ever saw, “Too Many Christmas Trees” immediately hooked me with its spooky opening, where Steed has a terrifying dream encounter with a sinister Santa Claus (or “Father Christmas,” as the Brits call him). Roy Ward Baker’s moody and atmospheric direction never lets up.

Hoping to take his mind off these nightmares, Mrs. Peel (Diana Rigg) invites Steed to a Christmas party at publisher Brandon Storey’s palatial country estate. Mrs. Peel asking, “How’d you like to come away with me for Christmas?” was the subject of many of my own teenage dreams.

Christmas is considered a family holiday, so a house party on Christmas Eve seems a little odd, though my younger self relished the thought. It’s even a costume party (or “fancy dress,” as the Brits call it — they have better names for everything). You’re probably wondering why it’s a Christmas episode at all. A fancy-dress Halloween party might better fit the story’s mood, but the yuletide theme makes everything much creepier. The intro’s closing shot of a maniacal Father Christmas pointing and laughing at Steed is downright chilling and far more effective than if he were just a guy wearing a pumpkin head.

The invitation comes from Mrs. Peel’s friend Jeremy Wade, a studious young man who deals in “old prints and manuscripts.” As Steed puts it, he’s after Mrs. Peel’s “first edition.” Storey (Mervyn Johns) is obsessed with Charles Dickens. A bust of the author is prominently displayed, and his work provides the fancy dress theme. Mrs. Peel makes a delightful Oliver Twist. (Neither 1960s Britain nor 1990s Greenville, South Carolina, seemed to have a problem with Rigg’s Christmas cross-dressing.)

“Nothing like a Dickensian Christmas,” Storey tells Steed and Mrs. Peel. “Try to keep on the pattern he set.” Of course, Dickens’ work explored issues surrounding poverty, social justice, and the struggles of the working class. It’s not much of a spoiler to reveal that Storey has zero interest in any of these issues. Beneath all the Dickensian cosplay, this is just a rich guy indulging his personal monomania.

The Dickens theme has a meta element, as well. Mervyn Johns played Bob Cratchit in 1951’s A Christmas Carol (or Scrooge, as the Brits call it), and Patrick Macnee played a young Jacob Marley in the film.

“Too Many Christmas Trees” is an Avengers standout in both quality and tone. Tony Williamson delivers a tense, chilling script that’s still brimming with the show’s unique wit and charm. The stakes are perhaps the most compelling of the entire series. Murders were often treated with an arch sensibility but here, death feels real and terrifying.

Early Christmas morning, Mrs. Peel ventures into the “Hall of Great Expectations” to check out a lead. (I always wanted a house large enough to have themed rooms, but I didn’t score well enough on my diabolical mastermind exams.) The house feels empty, almost haunted, as if she’s all alone in an old house that was filled with guests just a few hours earlier. The food from the evening’s festivities lies abandoned and rotting on the banquet table.

Inside the “Hall of Great Expectations,” a white mouse helps itself to the frosting on an old wedding cake. Mrs. Peel doesn’t deliver one of her usual droll remarks but instead gasps in horror when she discovers a corpse wearing an unfortunately prescient Marley’s ghost costume. The victim’s body is covered in cobwebs, as though he’d been dead a long time.

And it gets darker from there.

Our heroes eventually triumph over the bad guys, of course, but not before a thrilling showdown inside “The Mirror Room,” which recalls the climax to Orson Welles’ film noir classic, The Lady from Shanghai. (Dickens is believed to “haunt” a mirror at the Parker House Hotel in Boston.)

The episode’s final scene features a very cozy Steed and Mrs. Peel in a horse-drawn carriage. Steed produces a sprig of mistletoe as Mrs. Peel places his bowler on his head with an expectant look. The rest is left to our imagination, though I suspect Father Christmas himself might have reason to blush.

Merry Christmas, everyone (or “Happy Christmas,” as the Brits say).