The Avengers Forever: The Young Avenger

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The White Dwarf
By Joseph A.P. Lloyd

Direction: Four out of five. When I saw this episode for the second time round, I could not remember who the director was. It was so good that I thought it might be Peter Hammond, and only one or two shots betrayed Harding. When I finally got to the end, I expected to see someone like Don Leaver or Bill Bain, both excellent directors, and then I saw Richmond Harding. I laughed out loud. How could someone who made such an abysmal mess of "Immortal Clay" now be right up there with Hammond? But, there we are, all credit to him.

Plot: Four out of five. This only loses a point because it is not actually clear if the white dwarf has been faked by Cathy. The rest of it is superb, especially the involvement of two brothers, one evil, one good.

Music: Three out of five. We have another Dankworth repeats evening here, but somehow, the music seems extremely appropriate, more so than usual. A good score.

Wittiness: Three out of five. Steed reading The Boy's Book of Astronomy is a hoot, and there is some great interplay between the leads.

Action: Three out of five. Steed and Barker actually have a rather good fight with pistols on the roof of the Observatory, and it is on film, hence my high opinion of it. A brilliant score for the season.

Introduction/Tag: Four out of five. The professor watching through his telescope at the beginning is very well done, and does not look too bad, and the two tags are marvelous, even if the second one seems a little out of place after such an impressive fight.

Cars/Sets/Locations: Three out of five. Here we see an impressive set in the observatory, a good location fight, and a vegetarian guesthouse. Brilliant!

Overall Impression: Despite George Roubicek's pitifully small parts in two James Bond films, and getting killed in the first scene of "Invasion of the Earthmen," he is actually rather a promising character with real acting ability. But the stealer of the show has to be George A. Cooper. He did make a profession out of playing psychopaths, and he is excellent as the villain here, and a genuinely scary character. I really love this episode, especially when Steed arrive at the guesthouse, and there is no room for him. Wonderful scripting and good direction make this a truly great 50 minutes.

Rating: Eight out of ten.