Steed braves a snowstorm; Emma prepares to face a dinosaur

John Dorney provides the script – and a couple of voices – for this final team-up of Steed and Mrs Peel in this box set, based on a TV Comic strip from July to August 1966, drawn by Pat Williams. As is standard with these adventures, the original story is simply a springboard for the writer’s fertile imagination, and reading brief synopses of the strips suggests that a lot of the more distinctive parts of this story are new.

It’s a fun tale, with Steed and Peel spending a lot of the time dealing with Boris and Natasha / Moose and Squirrel reincarnated – i.e. a pair of Eastern European-accented members of the opposition, who aren’t always blessed with the greatest of intelligence. However, a lot of it – and indeed the central twist – is predicated on our agents doing something equally dumb… and when you realise that, it takes some of the sheen off. To make up for that, there’s a great homage at the end to one of The Avengers’ televisual colleagues, and a scene that you can just see Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg beaming through.

Verdict: It has its faults, but as always, great to hear Julian Wadham and Olivia Poulet return as Britain’s best Avengers. 6/10

Paul Simpson

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