7cb1d79195 Steed is invited to a party on an aeroplane with six other people who include a matador, a cowboy and a circus strong man. As the pilotless , remote-controlled craft takes off, a voice announces that they are bound for a desert island where one of them will be revealed as a super-killer. Mrs. Peel has to work out how to get to her partner as the bodies start to pile up. A man called Jessel claims to have devised a training programme that will create the ultimate, unbeatable assassin; he just has to but one of his trainees through a final test. To test the man his prospective employer arranges an unusual party. Those invited, including Steed, turn up at an airfield and board a plane; once in the air they realise that each of them has been invited by a different person and there is no pilot! By the time they arrive at their island destination they have determined that each of them is skilled in a form of combat; a swordsman, a sharpshooter, a strongman, a matador, a big game hunter, an expert in unarmed combat and Steed. When they arrive they find a dinner table 'set' with a variety of weapons and a voice announces that one of their number is a killer that he will set about killing the others! Soon their numbers start to fall and Steed becomes the top suspect!<br/><br/>This is a fine reworking of Agatha Christie's 'And Then There Were None' with enough changes to make it original. The most notable change being that the party goers are told one of them is a killer rather than having to work it out for themselves. Viewers won't be too surprised who survives but the identity of the killer isn't too obvious and there are a couple of good twists involving the killer. With Mrs Peel away for most of the episode Charlotte Rampling steps in as the female lead and put in an enjoyable performance as gunslinger Hana Wilde. Brian Blessed also appears although he isn't quite as over the top as he became later. The most notable appearance is that of Donald Sutherland; made before he became a major Hollywood star he does a great job as the sinister Jessel; it was just a pity we couldn't see more of his character. Overall a really good episode. One of the all-time greatest AVENGERS features an early appearance by Donald Sutherland as the villainous Jessop, promoting assassins who cannot be defeated, and hoping to earn the financial backing of Kanwitch (the always reliable John Hollis, previously seen in "The Cybernauts"), who requires one final test after his top man (Terry Plummer, "A Surfeit of H2O," "The Danger Makers") goes down in hand-to-hand combat. To that end, they gather together seven people on an airplane to be transported to an isolated island hideaway where, one by one, each will have to survive against Jessop's secret henchman, who happens to be among the SUPERLATIVE SEVEN. All seven happen to be outstanding in their chosen field of expertise- John Steed (who guesses that his expertise is the way he handles his umbrella), a female sharpshooter (Charlotte Rampling), an expert bullfighter (Gary Hope, "A Change of Bait," "November Five"), a swordsman (Hugh Manning, "The Thirteenth Hole," "Thingamujig"), a strongman (Leon Greene), a hunter who "tracks things down" (James Maxwell, "The Outside-In Man"), and an expert on unarmed combat (Brian Blessed, "The Morning After"). A rare solo adventure for Steed, whose very predictability only adds to the fun (if Mrs. Peel gets written out of a show, you can't go wrong with these results). Charlotte Rampling is just a tad too young to be believable, but the biggest disappointment is the limited screen time for the two superb villains. At this stage of his early career, Canadian actor Donald Sutherland was still working in Europe, having debuted in Italy's "The Castle of the Living Dead," then Britain's "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" (both 1964, and both with Christopher Lee) for Amicus, and "Fanatic" (1965) for Hammer. By 1970's "MASH," he had achieved stardom, and has remained a busy character player for six decades (reuniting with Lee in 1979's "Bear Island").
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