I’ve never been completely on board with Brian Clemens’ “Murdersville,” despite its many charms. I think I’d just seen the trope of the Little Town With a Big Secret one time too many before finding this episode*. The only thing this one does that actually aggravates me is doing an equally tired trope of introducing a childhood friend of one of the main characters just in time to get killed. If you’ve known Mrs. Peel since she was just six or seven, you’re a dead man.
In its considerable defense, the location that they used for the delightful village of Little Storping-in-the-Swuff is incredibly charming. They’d driven through it just a couple of weeks previously, in “Dead Man’s Treasure”, actually! It’s got a few actors I enjoy in small roles, including Tony Caunter and Robert Cawdron. There’s also a great bit where a character played by Andrew Laurence – in a very, very small role – is all set to shoot a man in cold blood, until the village librarian reminds him that he shouldn’t make noise in a library.
Our son was pretty annoyed on Mrs. Peel’s behalf as she comes to realize that it’s not just one or two villagers who are up to no good. He became restless and I could see his lip curl as he figured out that the problem wasn’t just that nobody believed her, but that she didn’t have any help available. Things improved for him by the end, and while the concluding fight scene is deeply silly, even for this show, he enjoyed the mayhem. Villains and diabolical masterminds should know better than to leave a table of custard pies where a fight is likely to break out.
Fire Breathing Dimetrodon Time 
If you’d like to see the “Little Town With a Big Secret” done in an episode that I can totally get behind, track down a second season episode of Mission: Impossible called “The Town.” That’s a fantastic hour of television.
I would have liked this one better if Mrs. Peel hadn’t acted like such an imbecile. As soon as she figured out that the entire town was in on it she should have made tracks and headed back to London to get Steed. Instead she went back into town all by herself and, not surprisingly, got captured.