Here we go again, it's time for the Saturday Night Sequel down here in The Dungeon!
The internet seems a little confused about "Return Of The Cybernauts." The IMDB has it as the first episode from Season number six of "The Avengers," that aired on February 21, 1968, and Wikipedia says that it is episode number seventeen of Season five, and aired on September 30, 1967.
Here's another interesting piece of information, starting with Season five, all episodes of "The Avengers" were filmed in colour, but since they didn't begin transmitting in colour until November of 1969, they were all still broadcast in black and white when first shown!
This outing we have the venerable Peter Cushing as the evil Paul Beresford.
Paul Beresford is worse than evil, because he's pretending to be John and Emma's friend, but his real intentions are to kill them in the most horrible way possible!
Instead of sending out a mercenary robot to kill people, Paul is sending out robots to kidnap people, smart guys who will be able to conjure up the most painful way of dying.
Why is Paul so mad at Steed and Mrs. Peel? It's because he believes they caused the death of his brother Dr. Armstrong played by Michael Gough in the other episode, and he wants them to pay for it!
6'5" perennial bad guy Terry Richards has the role of The Cybernaut.
Terry was in four more episodes of "The Avengers," an actor and stunt man in many films, and was the Arab swordsman that gets shot in "Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark," in this memorable scene!
Even though his intentions are to murder Emma Peel, Paul obviously also desires her!
Ami (Rentaghost) MacDonald almost steals the show as the secretary with a crush on herself, who gets tossed across the room by The Cybernaught.
Diabolical Paul has everything, including a huge two-way mirror so he can spy on his guests.
Who's that knocking at my door?
Patrick Macnee was born into a wealthy family, but his Father, a horse trainer, pissed it all away drinking and gambling, and so Patrick was raised by his Lesbian Mother, and her lover Uncle Evelyn.
Paul's captive scientists come up with a device in the form of a watch that turns the person wearing it into a virtual zombie, aware, but powerless to do anything except take commands, or in other words, it basically turns them into human cybernauts! This one is for Mrs. Peel.
Mrs. Peel is now powerless!
What an idiot, she's completely under his control, and all he wants to do is kill her. I think I could come up with something better than that!
Steed notices there's something wrong with Mrs. Peel, but not before she judo chops him in the neck!
Frederick (The Persuaders, The Pretenders, The Protectors) Jaeger reprises the role that he had in the other episode as the Bunsen burnin' Benson.
Ouch, that hurts!
They end up turning the tables on Paul, and the cybernaut squeezes the life out of him!
The cybernaut is deactivated, and this time Steed gets to push it over with one finger!
2 comments:
Ah yes, confusion on the the Internet.. who would have thought that possible?
I believe this situation arises because of the way many British TV series would have a long broadcast break mid-series. When "Return Of The Cybernauts" originally aired in the U.K. it was five months after the previous episode of the same series so some list it as the beginning of a new season. The same problem occurred with "The Saint", another of my favourite shows of the era.
And don't get me started on broadcast order versus production order on DVD boxed sets. They screw that up whenever the show ends with a teaser for the next episode and it turns out the next episode is different because they are now in production order.
Enough of my rant. I'm happy now as the torrential rain we were having here stopped a few days back and we now have a big yellow ball in the sky again.
cheers!
Paul from Oz
Thanks Paul! Good explanation! I heard about the horrible flooding, glad it has finally subsided. Now it just needs to stop pounding the South, and give some to California!
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