What are people's best/favourite uses/depictions of the M, Moneypenny and Q throughout the the series?
Here are mine:
M - DR NO: the pipe-smoking, silver-haired, clear-eyed Admiral, with no room for sentiment and no second chance for any failed weapon. "Oh, 007. Just leave the beretta".
Second place: MOONRAKER: The brief scene between him and Bond in Venice, after the Minister of Defence has ordered Bond taken off the assignment. The co-conspiratorial wink as they discuss where Bond is going for his "leave". Maybe I'm giving it too much weight in light of the of the fact that this is Lee's last film, but the conversation always feels to me like that of two long-time allies who find themselves now deep into the December of their long collaboration. M's closing line "no slip-ups, or we're both in trouble", shows a willingness to share the risk and responsiblity. He's with Bond (compare with BrownM's comforting "you're on your own" when Bond is dropped off in Germany in OCTOPUSSY.
Moneypenny - OHMSS: Her inteception of Bond's "heat of the moment" resignation letter to M, deftly preventing the unstoppable force and the immovable object from colliding. What would they do without her?
Second place: DR NO: Her soft "good luck" as Bond departs for his latest assignment. They don't always come back, you know?
Q - GOLDFINGER: The humourless nit who never jokes about his work and who seems more concerned with the safe return of this equipment than the safe return of the agents he equips. Q's impatient nattering, and Bond bored bordering on contemptuous glances - in later films the "comedic" needling gets a touch forced - but here they're genuinely irritating eachother just by being themselves. They try the same thing again with the Q scene in THUNDERBALL, but I'm not sure it goes quites as well with the rest of the that film and it comes across a touch laboured.
Second place: DIE ANOTHER DAY: Rubbish gadgets in this one, but I think John Cleese mades an okay armourer/gunsmith.
The worst for all three: THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN: Everyone seems mean and testy and grumpy and irritable in this one. Probably because they're all stuck in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN. Moneypenny's "because they couldn't find the bullet, darling", Q's sighs because Bond doesn't know who or what Lazar is, and everything the exasperated M says and does, not exactly "lovable" or "endearing" (not that these characters need necessarily be "lovable" or "endearing", but still, a curious route to take).