The Avengers Forever: The Young Avenger

	The Young Avenger Page 87 of 110

The Last of the Cybernauts...??
By Joseph A.P. Lloyd

Direction: Four out of five. Hayers, having taken an almost ten-year-long break from the series, is certainly back on form with this one. All the old techniques that he used eleven years before in 1965 to do the original "The Cybernauts" are present here—the hitting of a man, and then him falling after the cybernaut has left the shot, although we can se that he had a difficult time with the car park scene.

Plot: Two out of five. Unlike the two Levene installments, which had wonderful plots behind them, the former rather than the latter, this one has a very simple motive: revenge. Perhaps it was not worth resurrecting the ghost of the colour series ten years later, especially without Levene to write it. Ah well, at least we get to see the cybernauts again.

Music Cheese Factor: Two out of five. Apart from some awful cues in the car park at the start (just listen as Steed emerges from crouching down), this is actually a rather good score for the episode, considering that Johnson uses entirely new cybernauts themes for each episode. This one is just as good as the others. The reason it looses points is Steed playing a zylophone in one scene. Terrible!

Wittiness: One out of five. Philip Levene is badly needed here. Clemens can only muster one good line. "Are you a woman of high moral standards?" "Yes, of course." "Then I should leave the guest bedroom until tomorrow."

Action: Five out of five. For once, we have a reasonable adversary for the cybernauts, even if he does resemble a Mack truck, Gambit. To improve on the original, we even have Gambit and Purdey kicking the cybernauts down a flight of stairs. But what is plastic skin?

Cars/Sets/Locations: Four out of five. The set at Kane's place with its burnt out car in the middle of it, is very striking, especially as we have the huge photographs of the leads around the place. In a clever piece of continuity with "Return of the Cybernauts," the cybernaut carrying vehicle is a Rover 2200, the updated version of the Rover P5 which Benson used in "Return of the Cybernauts." We also have great location cybernaut attacks, although why does Kane have such a boring Austin Cambridge?

Introduction: Two out of five. The agent crashing into Steed's place having been shot must be such an old metaphor, and there is so little indication of what there is to come in the introduction. Another New Avengers awfully emotional title with Steed's birthday. Please, cut the cheese, this is just boring, and the car chase seems to be totally inexplicable.

Freeze Frame: Kane about to crash his Austin Cambridge into a petrol tanker. Actually rather good, it makes it seem as if this was a good idea.

Overall Impression: An episode which seems to try too hard to be things which it is not. They should have had some kind of flashback footage of Goff, like they did in "Dead Men Are Dangerous," and that would have ensured success. As it is, however, despite a great performance from Oscar Quitak, this is too nasty to be the old Avengers, and too sci-fi for the New. An unhappy marriage.

Rating: Four and a half out of ten.