| "Three's a Crowd" | |||
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| Joe 90 episode | |||
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 17 |
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| Directed by | Peter Anderson | ||
| Written by | Tony Barwick | ||
| Production code | 5 | ||
| Original air date | January 19, 1969 | ||
| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of Joe 90 episodes | |||
"Three's a Crowd" is the 17th episode of the Supermarionation television series Joe 90. It was the fifth episode to be produced. Its original UK air date was January 19, 1969 on ATV Midlands. It was written by Tony Barwick and directed by Peter Anderson.
Contents |
When Mac falls for an attractive reporter, Joe is suspicious of the smooth girlfriend. Concerned by the potential security risk, Sam enlists Joe's help in exposing the woman's true intentions – with the aid of the BIG RAT.
In a Far Eastern jungle fortress home to crime baron "The General", a firing squad executes an agent who has failed in one of his missions. Observing is a mysterious woman, whom The General sternly warns of the penalty for failure in his organisation. Some time later, the new female agent - an American named Angela Davis - arrives at the McClaine cottage in Dorset, England. Posing as a writer for a women's magazine who is currently documenting old English houses, she interviews Professor McClaine on the subject of the cottage. Just as Davis is about to leave, Mac learns to his pleasant surprise that she is familiar with his electronics work and invites her back into the house for a debate. Within days, Mac has become attracted to the journalist, seeing her regularly for restaurant and concert evenings. This is to the dismay of Joe, who is upset that Mac is now spending less and less time with him and suspects that the smooth-talking Davis has an ulterior motive for wanting to be romantically involved with his father.
Mac's relationship also raises the suspicions of WIN, who are concerned that Davis' proximity to the Professor poses a risk to the security of the BIG RAT project. At WIN Headquarters in London, Shane Weston orders Sam Loover to visit the cottage and convey the seriousness of the situation in plain terms. However, Loover's comments are badly received and Mac angrily storms off. Loover and Joe ally themselves and decide to uncover Davis' true intentions while she stays at the cottage for the weekend. With the help of a concealed antenna, they record her brain pattern on the BIG RAT, which Loover then transfers to Joe. With this knowledge and experience, Joe confirms that Davis is an enemy agent plotting to steal the designs of the BIG RAT, before going on to theorise how this may be accomplished: during the night, while Mac sleeps, Davis will infiltrate the laboratory and blow open the safe containing the blueprints with plastic explosives. She will then be picked up from the cottage in a car driven by two accomplices, Carlton and Andrews, and the three will fly east for a meeting with The General. The reward for the secrets of the BIG RAT will be gold.
Loover is horrified by Joe's prediction and vows to inform Mac at once, but Joe knows how to foil Davis' scheme without seeing his father's heart broken. The next day, wearing his BIG RAT spectacles, the boy corners Davis in the lounge. He declares her true identity before bombarding her with a series of questions to which he, still equipped with her brain pattern, automatically knows the answers. Realising that she has underestimated Mac's son, Davis has no choice but to comply with Joe's order to leave. Ending her relationship with Mac on the pretence that she does not want to interfere with either his or Joe's lives, she boards a monorail train, only to be quietly arrested by Loover. Mac is left to ponder the brief romance, still none the wiser as to who his girlfriend really was.
In speaking order: