The Avengers are in Paris on the trail of The Unicorn (Jean Claudio) a ruthless killer and an old enemy of Steed's. They succeed in capturing the elusive killer but his organisation accidentally shoots him dead in a failed attempt to kill Steed. This makes matters very serious as the Unicorn's men lead by Marco (Raoul Delfosse) take a Prince hostage and demand their boss's return. Steed, Purdey and Gambit now have to work out how they are going to swap a dead Unicorn in exchange for the safe return of the Prince...
The Lion And The Unicorn was the first of three New Avengers episodes shot in France. They were nowhere near as awful as the show's Canadian phase at the end but they are not exactly classic Avengers either. This one suffers from a weak plot that would have been better suited to a half hour installment of The Protectors, but here it has been padded out to fill a full hour and padded seems to be the right word. Ray Austin's direction fails to generate much in the way of suspense electing instead for a series of routine car chases through Paris and some moderate slapstick humour thrown in.
Patrick Macnee is still solidly reliable as Steed and is well matched here by Jean Claudio as the Unicorn, but unfortunately, his character is killed off early on and in their couple of scenes together they get to exchange a little banter as they dwell on past defeats. Joanna Lumley and Gareth Hunt work well as Purdey and Gambit but this one allows them very little do and among the supporting cast of French actors (as well as Claudio), Raoul Delfosse is quite good as the Unicorn's right hand man Marco.
The Lion And The Unicorn was the first of three New Avengers episodes shot in France. They were nowhere near as awful as the show's Canadian phase at the end but they are not exactly classic Avengers either. This one suffers from a weak plot that would have been better suited to a half hour installment of The Protectors, but here it has been padded out to fill a full hour and padded seems to be the right word. Ray Austin's direction fails to generate much in the way of suspense electing instead for a series of routine car chases through Paris and some moderate slapstick humour thrown in.
Patrick Macnee is still solidly reliable as Steed and is well matched here by Jean Claudio as the Unicorn, but unfortunately, his character is killed off early on and in their couple of scenes together they get to exchange a little banter as they dwell on past defeats. Joanna Lumley and Gareth Hunt work well as Purdey and Gambit but this one allows them very little do and among the supporting cast of French actors (as well as Claudio), Raoul Delfosse is quite good as the Unicorn's right hand man Marco.
