Double agent Felix Kane (Robert Lang) is left horribly disfigured after being pursued by Steed, Gambit and Purdey, which resulted in him crashing his car into a petrol tanker. A year on Kane plots revenge by kidnapping Frank Goff (Robert Gillespie) whom he forces to reveal the location of the late Dr Clement Armstrong's secret store house of Cybernauts. When he discovers that the late doctor's engineer cannot progress the designs further, he kills him and uses a reactivated Cybernaut to kidnap Professor Mason (Basil Hoskins), an expert in Cybernetics. Mason is forced to turn Kane into a living Cybernaut, "a superman", and he begins his nasty revenge by attacking Purdey. However, Steed and Gambit are on hand to demobilise Kane with the aid of cannisters of plastic spray on skin, which claims to be good for "101 uses" and as Kane stands paralysed, Steed shows him the can, "102" he remarks!
All in all, this is a worthy conclusion to the trilogy of episodes featuring the mad Dr Armstrong's killer robots. Armstrong was played by Michael Gough in the original b/w Emma Peel episode of 1965 and Peter Cushing played his vengeful brother in the 1967 colour episode, "The Return Of The Cybernauts". There is some good banter between Purdey and Gambit where the two agents discuss Steed and Mrs Peel's previous encounters with the Cybernauts. "Ah but you didn't mention Emma Peel" Gambit remarks sarcastically, "you never have done", which suggests that Purdey may have been jealous of Steed's relationship with his former colleague. Robert Lang offers a creepy performance as the mad Felix Kane who somewhat recalls Vincent Price's Dr Phibes as he recreates his disfigured face with lifelike masks, which are tailored to represent his moods and he delivers his manic lines with delicious gusto. In fact one could almost visualise Vincent Price in that part! One does tend to wonder why they created Frank Goff, an assistant to Dr Armstrong who was never in the previous episodes, and I am not the only fan who has said this. It would have been better if they had brought back Frederick Jaeger who play Benson, Armstrong's original sidekick. Incidentally, Jaegar made one appearance in The New Avengers, but only a very minor one as Jones an assistant on the agents training course in "Target". Perhaps he was engaged elsewhere when this episode was shot. On the bright side, Sidney Hayers, the director of the first Cybernauts installment was brought back to the directors chair for this one and he contributed to several more of the better New Avengers sagas.
All in all, this is a worthy conclusion to the trilogy of episodes featuring the mad Dr Armstrong's killer robots. Armstrong was played by Michael Gough in the original b/w Emma Peel episode of 1965 and Peter Cushing played his vengeful brother in the 1967 colour episode, "The Return Of The Cybernauts". There is some good banter between Purdey and Gambit where the two agents discuss Steed and Mrs Peel's previous encounters with the Cybernauts. "Ah but you didn't mention Emma Peel" Gambit remarks sarcastically, "you never have done", which suggests that Purdey may have been jealous of Steed's relationship with his former colleague. Robert Lang offers a creepy performance as the mad Felix Kane who somewhat recalls Vincent Price's Dr Phibes as he recreates his disfigured face with lifelike masks, which are tailored to represent his moods and he delivers his manic lines with delicious gusto. In fact one could almost visualise Vincent Price in that part! One does tend to wonder why they created Frank Goff, an assistant to Dr Armstrong who was never in the previous episodes, and I am not the only fan who has said this. It would have been better if they had brought back Frederick Jaeger who play Benson, Armstrong's original sidekick. Incidentally, Jaegar made one appearance in The New Avengers, but only a very minor one as Jones an assistant on the agents training course in "Target". Perhaps he was engaged elsewhere when this episode was shot. On the bright side, Sidney Hayers, the director of the first Cybernauts installment was brought back to the directors chair for this one and he contributed to several more of the better New Avengers sagas.
