Return of the Saint (TV Series) The Armageddon Alternative (1978) User Reviews

An excellent episode

[coltras35 · 9/10 · 13 August 2021]

Thanks to Minder, George Cole has this chirpy, lovable image, but in this dark episode where a bomber is exacting his revenge by threatening to blow up London, he shakes that image off, and effectively plays a man teetering on the edge of insanity.

This is a tense episode without nary a chance for romance or the usual 'the Saint' light moments - its race against time plot is taut and relentless in pace. Ian Oglivy was excellent as Templar, who is no-nonsense, sharp but also sympathetic. A solid episode.

London under siege!

[ShadeGrenade · 10/10 · 19 July 2009]

Simon Templar is on his way home when a mysterious figure in a monkey mask knocks him out and takes him to a secret location containing a homemade atomic bomb. A tape recorded voice boasts how it will be used to level London unless certain demands are met.

The maniac is calling for the public execution of one Lynn Jackson ( Anouska Hempel ), a sculptress. While the police puzzle it out, conventional bombs start going off all over the city...

My favourite episode of the series. Like 'The Arrangement', it has a slightly darker feel than the usual 'Saint' romps, and with IRA terror campaigns then taking place in Britain managed to be frighteningly topical. Its major flaw is the identity of the bomber is easy to tell once you've heard the voice on the tape recorder.

George Cole co-stars as 'Fred', a car park attendant, with Donald Houston as 'Commander Denning' of New Scotland Yard. Lovely Anouska Hempel was one of Blofeld's 'Angels Of Death' in 'O.H.M.S.S.' ( 1969 ). Giving a powerful performance as a suspect is the late Gordon Gostelow, normally cast as an eccentric buffoon.

Most of the explosions are stock footage but the one that demolishes Templar's mews flat is most definitely not, and pretty stunning to boot.

After a shaky start, the new 'Saint' had finally found an identity of its own.

The Armageddon Alternative

[Prismark10 · 5/10 · 14 August 2022]

The central conceit in this episode might have worked when this was shown in 1978.

Now one of the actor's is too famous, so you just know who the voice in the tape was.

Bombs are going off in London. A voice tells of his demand. A woman to be guillotined in public. She is the daughter of a Government psychiatric vetting officer.

It all begins with Simon Templar getting kidnapped and being taken on a journey.

Then there is the car park attendant in The Saint's block of flats. He seems to be as shifty as some of the people the vetting officer turned down.

This could had been a tense disturbing story. It was somewhat bad taste to use footage from real life atrocities.

I did find the whole thing sloppy and full of plot holes. That magazine on nuclear fusion carelessly lying about made me laugh.

Then there was that bit about the Saint having a degree in physics!