The Avengers Forever: The Young Avenger

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Hostage
By Joseph A.P. Lloyd

Direction: Four and a half out of five. Just watch that dark shadow of the fake Steed as he crosses the car park towards Walters. A superb scene, very well done. Just a taste of the incredibly good direction that is found here, using cameras in all sorts of places to get the tone right. Succeeding too, in this area is hard, but again, Sidney Hayers has the talent.

Plot: Two out of five. All right, I will come clean this time. It has been done before in "Who Was That Man I Saw You With?" and "Medium Rare," but I think that it is better than both, somehow. It goes to far greater lengths than normal, especially towards the end.

Music Cheese Factor: Three out of five. Not as bad as "Trap," but still with some very bad scoring, this one definitely could have done with some better music to help it along. Please cut those guitars!

Wittiness: Three out of five. Steed is certainly back on form when he manages to get Purdey back. He sees the apple in her mouth, and comes up with a great line: "Last time I saw this, it was at the Savoy Grill."

Action: Four out of five. Not just Steed, Purdey and Gambit versus the villains this time, but Gambit versus Steed. There can only be one winner.. Also it has more scuffles than most in the gym, for example. Great!

Cars/Sets/Locations: Four out of five. Look, I know that Purdey gets captured in her flat, and there is that awful scene in the car park beneath the Ministry (you would have thought that they would have better security), but we have a cool BMW 3.0 CS, Purdey's TR7 again, and that fun fair set at the hideout. Does not get much better than this during the season.

Introduction: Three out of five. Again, I know it is clichéd and overlong, but it is rather good nonetheless, setting us up for the story that we are about to hear (and see). Other than that, I cannot say very much.

Freeze Frame: Purdey being attacked in her flat. And one of them falls over, as well!

Overall Impression: The welcome returns of Simon Oates (who played Steed in the stage play), William Franklyn with a walking stick, and Clive Walters' character mean that this is bound to be good. And it is actually very, very good. The plot might not be original, but it still has that "Dead Men Are Dangerous" feel to it that makes it so appealing. Sorry the scores do not reflect the overall rating, sometimes it does not work as it should.

Rating: Eight and a half out of ten.