When you have a monstrous villain as scary as the Cybernauts, sometimes all you need to do for their return is more of the same. That’s basically what happens here, with the brother of the original Cybernaut inventor reviving the project and creating a new robot to the same design, which goes around smashing things and attacking its victims with karate chops.

The Cybernaut is once again very frightening and hugely impressive. The height of the actor inside the costume helps. Terry Richards was 6’5”, and he towers over the other actors, and he looks even more impressive when being filmed from a low angle. In the tradition of sci-fi robots, the Cybernaut only needs to walk to catch his victims. It doesn’t help if somebody tries to escape in a car. It simply stops the car moving with one hand, and then smashes through the roof. Impressive stuff. There is a missed opportunity when the Cybernaut goes to retrieve the escaped Garnett and comes face to face with Emma. With one swift chop he renders her unconscious. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it encounter, which could have been made a lot scarier.

A bigger missed trick is the idea of “a puppet, a human Cybernaut”. It sounds terrifying, with the victims fully aware of what is happening, but unable to control their own bodies any more, and when it was being suggested I was imagining something akin to the Cyber conversion we see occasionally in Doctor Who. I was never expecting the grisly extremes of Attack of the Cybermen or Rise of the Cybermen, but something along the lines of The Tomb of the Cybermen, a near-contemporary story with Return of the Cybernauts, seemed likely. Instead, the idea is wasted by simply controlling humans with a remote control, without any kind of conversion process. Having your body controlled by somebody else is still a scary idea, but it does feel like a missed opportunity, and it also lays bare the absurdity of the impossible technology we are expected to accept, with a tiny little gadget with a few switches controlling the entire range of movements of a human being. On a similar topic, we are also expected to accept that the destruction of a remote control renders the object it is controlling immobile, although maybe that wouldn’t have seemed so absurd at the time, when remote controls were hardly commonplace household items, and the understanding of viewers would have been much more limited.

Although the returning enemy is more of the same, it is used as a springboard for examining the theme of technology going too far. Superficially, it’s there at the end with the silliness about the “automatic toaster” (when did we stop needing to explain how a toaster works with the addition of the word “automatic”?), exploding and making a hole in the ceiling. But the really interesting bit is the motivations of the scientists. They are coerced into cooperating, but we see a range of reactions to the situation. At one end of the scale we have Garnett (Anthony Dutton), who knows what they are doing is wrong, and does everything he can to fight back. At the other end of the scale we have Chadwick (Fulton Mackay), the ultimate collaborator. He cooperates gleefully, delighted with his own cleverness. How many scientists are like Chadwick, blinded by pride in their own abilities, and going too far just because they can? He takes such a delight in his own horrible deeds that he really is the most monstrous villain in the whole episode, even more so than Beresford (Peter Cushing), who has a very clear motive of avenging the death of his brother.

In an episode that has an interesting theme, the successful return of The Avengers’ scariest villains, and an incredible cast of talented actors, it is greatly disappointing to have to suffer the performance of Aimi MacDonald as Rosie. The actress is not necessarily to blame. Maybe somebody told her to do what she does here, but either way it is by far the most hideously sexist depiction of a female character we have ever seen in The Avengers. She is written and acted as a brainless bimbo who talks with the voice of a child and yet only exists to drool over any man who enters the room, especially the ones with big shoulders, apparently. In a series that normally does so much better, this is a sub-Carry On, horribly cynical portrayal of women. But I can’t end on a negative, because this is a triumphant return of an iconic monster, hopefully not for the last time. Maybe one day we will hear the swoosh of a metallic karate chop once more…   RP

The view from across the pond:

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After the last episode of The Avengers, I was actually really looking forward to the show again.  Who’s Who was a comic romp and loads of fun to watch.  Seeing the Cybermen come back… I mean, the Cybernauts… was icing on a cake that I’ve finally started to enjoy.  Like The Cybernauts, this episode is another classic.  It stars Peter Cushing as Paul Beresford, the main villain, along with Doctor Who alum Frederick Jaeger.  Cushing could go either way in a movie.  He’s just as comfortable as Van Helsing as he is Dracula, so you can’t be sure if he’ll be a baddie or not, but it takes little time for that reveal.  The moment he’s seen with Jaeger, you know.  Let’s face it, Jaeger is the quintessential villain.  (Thanks Professor Sorenson…)  To improve the believability of a series that typically misses that mark by a light year, Cushing is playing the brother of Dr. Armstrong, the main baddie from the original Cybernaut episode, played by another legend: Michael Gough.  Beresford is angry about the death of his brother and wants to kill the people responsible so he kidnaps scientists to help devise an evil plan, as only The Avengers could.  “…I’ll have a complete set!”  (♫  Jaegermeister Cards and People!  Get yours today! ♫)

It’s nice that there’s a sense of continuity too.  Emma remembers The Cybernauts.  Maybe that’s because she was watching the episode a few days back when Steed interrupted to say they were needed.  Holy cow… did I miss it, or did that opening bit finally stop?

New from Jaegermeister Cards And People comes the Emma Peel life size robot.  With a remote control, you can have Emma do whatever you want!  “Obedience from a beautiful woman!”  With a beauty like this, there’s only one thing most guys will want her to do with her… have her show off the nice watch you gave her! 

These villains are such caricatures that it would give Austin Powers a run for his money.  Beresford wants revenge and gets the drop on both our heroes, using his robot of death to deliver what could have been a killing blow.  But Beresford doesn’t really want to kill them, does he?  He and Dr. Evil went to different schools together!  They must have had a similar class though: the one that teaches how to really prolong the death of an enemy.  Rather than kill our heroes, he finds a way to allow them to beat him.  Huh… seems a little counterintuitive, doesn’t it?  Before he does all that, he has to show off his sculpting skills though, and flaunts the new Emma Peel bust.  “I far prefer the original!”  (♫  Jaegermeister Cards and People!  Get yours today! ♫)

The real question is, why where they visiting Paul anyway?  They keep going to see him but it makes no sense.  If they were his friends, surely he would have let bygones be bygones because they really are a fun pair.  If they were not friends, why even be there at all?  But Paul seems genuinely fond of Emma so it really does look like they are getting on smashingly… although under the circumstances, that might not be the word to use!  If Paul really wants a “means of destroying Steed and Mrs. Peel”, he could have done it in any of so many ways, not the least of which would be “corked wine”.

New from Jaegermeister Cards And People comes the instructional video: How to be an Avenging Villain.  Learn how to skulk about in a lab coat.  Use coat collars in totally unnatural ways to hide your identity.  Build smoke bombs out of household materials to escape your villainous lair.  Make wristwatches that control the will! 

That’s what I mean: Benson (Jaeger) knows where Steed lives and gets into his house to steal his watch.  Here’s a better idea: just wait there and shoot him when he walks in!  How about this: setup a bomb and leave!   You know why no one thinks of that?  Because Peter Cushing is the bad guy and he wants to start his own school of villainy.  There’s no logic to it.  Oh, make no mistake, this is a delightful episode that had me chuckling over and over again, but does it make sense?  Of course not!!  This is still the Avengers, after all!

Along with all my laughter, I did love some of the stunts too.

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I had some deep belly laughs when the squeaky secretary was flung against the wall or when the henchmen got tossed around like ragdolls.  I don’t know if this is the start of a good run of episodes, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one.  Steed wins by a fluke of getting the Wristwatch of Sapping Willpower on the Cybernaut’s arm (because we all know robots have willpower) and he goes berserk.  This allows the good guys to get free and Peter Cushing to be crushed in the arms of the monster.  Maybe that makes him Peter Crushing?  Sorry…  It’s all a bit Frankensteinian, but I can live with that.  Although Crushing couldn’t…  (♫  Jaegermeister Cards and People!  Get yours today! ♫)  ML

Read next in the Junkyard… The Avengers: Death’s Door