SPYDER'S WEB

 

One of my recent YouTube discoveries is the complete 13-episode run of the 1972 British TV series SPYDER'S WEB, which featured my dear friend Veronica Carlson. 

SPYDER'S WEB deals with the adventures of Charlotte Dean (Patricia Cutts), who runs a documentary production company called Arachnid Films. The company is actually a front for Charlotte's activities as a secret agent for Britain--she takes her orders from a mysterious entity known as Spider. (SPYder's Web--get it??) Charlotte's partner in espionage is ex-military man Hawksworth (Anthony Ainley). The very small staff of Arachnid Films is made up of secretary Wallis Ackroyd (Veronica Carlson) and cameraman Albert (Roger Lloyd-Pack)--the duo do not know about the spy stuff going on. 

While watching all 13 episodes over the past few weeks, it became rather easy to realize why the show didn't last very long--it wasn't very good. SPYDER'S WEB tries to be in the manner of THE AVENGERS, mixing bizarre espionage adventure with quirky humor. The difference is THE AVENGERS had style and flair, and it was genuinely entertaining. SPYDER'S WEB comes off as clunky and weird. 

One big problem the show has is that the interiors were shot on videotape, and the very few location scenes were shot on film. This was a standard practice for British television at the time, but it's very disconcerting for viewers not used to it. The majority of scenes for all the episodes of SPYDER'S WEB were shot on videotape, and this format limited what the show could do. There's way too much talk and not enough action in the episodes, and what action is shown is handled in a haphazard fashion. 

The main characters of Charlotte Dean and Hawksworth are not all that appealing either. Anthony Ainley (best known for later playing the arch-villain The Master on DOCTOR WHO) gives Hawksworth an unctuous manner, and he also constantly has a creepy grin on his face. The result is that Hawksworth seems more like a threat than the actual bad guys in the episodes do. Patricia Cutts (who played Vincent Price's unfaithful wife in THE TINGLER) for some reason shouts most of her dialogue, and the byplay between Charlotte and Hawksworth doesn't come off very well (the two are a far cry from John Steed and Mrs. Peel). 

Despite the show's attempts at ironic humor, there's plenty of characters killed off in each episode, mostly by Charlotte and Hawksworth. The combination of weird sarcasm and spy intrigue doesn't work--one wonders what type of show the producers and writers of SPYDER'S WEB were trying to make. The episodes run about an hour long, but honestly this could have been a half-hour show. Every episode has a lot of extraneous scenes that just seem to pad out the running time. 

SPYDER'S WEB was filmed in color, but only two episodes survive in that format--the rest of them only exist in black and white. Even if I had been able to watch all the episodes in color, I don't think that would have improved things much. The sets and production design are very perfunctory--this show obviously didn't have a large budget. The best looking things in SPYDER'S WEB by far are Veronica Carlson and her wardrobe. 

Speaking of Carlson, even though she got third billing in the credits, she wasn't given much to do in the series. She's basically eye candy (a task that she was eminently suited for). Her Wallis is always wearing either mini-skirts or shorts, and she's always showing plenty of cleavage. I assume that if the series has lasted, her character probably would have been given more to do. (Veronica herself wasn't very impressed with how the series turned out.) 

The best episode of SPYDER'S WEB by far was the second one, titled "The Executioners". This story is enlivened by the presence of Hammer regulars Andre Morell and Charles Lloyd-Pack (father of Roger). Morell plays an aristocrat who has a very unusual way of dealing with those he feels has contributed to the "moral decline" of Great Britain. It feels very much like an episode of THE AVENGERS, and you also get the bonus of seeing Veronica Carlson disguised as a nun. 

I always wanted to watch SPYDER'S WEB because Veronica Carlson appeared in it. I have to say, though, that some of the episodes were a slog to get through (especially the scenes in which Veronica didn't appear in). It might be unfair to judge a TV series based on only 13 episodes--it might have turned out to be something quite different if it had lasted. The thing is, I don't think it would have lasted very long unless major changes in the show's format were made. The main interest one would have in watching SPYDER'S WEB is in the horror/science-fiction associations that Patricia Cutts, Anthony Ainley, and Veronica Carlson had.