R.A. bursts onto our screens before the start of the opening credits and introduces himself as Jacques LeRoy, wine merchant from Bordeaux. But OSI leader Oscar Goldman immediately exposes Jacques to be Piere Francois Lambert, extraordinary forger and all around fraud. Goldman then basically blackmails Pierre into helping the OSI catch Michael Beaumont, or 'Michel' as Pierre pronounces it (the alternative being Folsom Prison).
So Pierre and OSI's top agent Jaime Sommers (or 'Babe' as Goldman candidly calls her) fly to Paris (read: the 'European section' of the Universal back-lot), where everybody speaks English with a French accent - even the speaking clock. Of course they all tend to lean a bit towards Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau, but nobody pulls it off better than the guest star with the 100% French surname: Monsieur Auberjonois.
The first half of the caper involves Pierre pulling all sorts of pranks to get rid of Jaime, like breaking into another man's house at the Place Victor Hugo and dressing her up like a 'lady of the evening' before calling the Gendarmes. Notice that he only gives her a dress but when she's all dressed up, she's also wearing a wig. Did she get that one out of her OSI special accessories handbag?
Eventually P & J are captured by the very fish they set out to catch, Michael/Michel Beaumont, who still needs Pierre to finish his DeJon forgery. And this is where writer Arthur Rowe really starts to put strange notions into the characters mouths. First, Pierre insists on Jaime posing for him even though he is copying a famous painting, because having a flesh and blood model in front of him, gives him 'a sense of what the masters saw'. In his defense, René just about manages to pull it off convincingly.
Then Jaime, knowing they will both be shot once the painting is finished, comes up with one of the lamest plans ever. She dresses a mannequin doll in her artist model clothes, throws it out of a window and then jumps after it wearing Pierre's clothes. All this to make the crooks think Jaime and Pierre have committed suicide. And of course Beaumont & co fall for it and don't bother to check the bodies ("Tell the gardener to clean it up after we leave"). I can only guess the reason for this malarkey must have been that the writers were forced to incorporate a certain number of Bionic jumps in each episode.
As we get into the third act, Jaime pulls off even more tricks to Pierre's amazement (he doesn't know about her bionic limbs). First she confuses everybody by switching the fake and real paintings at Le Musee Commemoratif De Henri Rousseau, then later she joins in with the fake accents (hers supposedly being Swedish) on the yacht of Don Alfredo Moreau (aka the Corsican Godfather). His yacht is supposed to be anchored in Cannes, but in the background you can clearly see the Marina del Rey Helmsman statue, complete with steering wheel.
Although believability is far to find, it's still a very enjoyable romp thanks to the combined efforts of Lindsay Wagner and René Auberjonois, who end the show on good terms despite of everything. Does she really expect him to stay on the right path from now on and a become an honest painter? Apparently he did because unfortunately Pierre Lambert never made a second appearance.
However, René Auberjonois week will continue tomorrow with McMillan and Wife: Once Upon a Dead Man.
7 out of 10
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