IanFryer, thanks for the relatively clear explanation
and chrisno1 you're right, it looks complicated
I was looking at wiki's page on the history of ITV: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ITV
and what I'm getting is: ITV is not a network in the sense of monolithic tv networks in North America (or the BBC), but more like a formal grouping of regional franchises which different companies can bid to be part of? (and it looks like theres weekday and weekend franchise holders for the same region?!!?)
then there are content providers , who in some cases are also franchise holders?
so an ITV station in Cornwall might be completely different than another ITV station in Yorkshire, but probably shares the same prime time programming?
it doesn't matter of course, and is all off topic, but I'd always assumed the Avengers was made by the same people who made Danger Man and The Saint, but now I'm confused
I suppose the talent behind the scenes (producers, writers, etc) are more important than what corporate entity owned the show
That regional structure of ITV is of the past. For the past 15 years or so it's been a single entity in England, with different regional companies for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
When talking to any of the actors and writers etc associated with the 60s British action shows, it was completely unimportant that some were made by different companies. The Saint was made at the same studio complex as The Avengers and Roger Moore would wander across to The Avengers set to play practical jokes.
Watched a Bond-like episode of The Persuaders last night.
Moore in it of course, and he was being dogged by his double. Not sure if this episode came before or after The Man Who Haunted Himself. Anyway, Bernard Lee is in it, in a key but small role, and there are themes similar to W Whyte in DAF. One of the better episodes, and Moore was a good actor in this. I think with Bond he just sent it up all the time, maybe cos he didn't like playing a real assassin.
Watched a Bond-like episode of The Persuaders last night.
Moore in it of course, and he was being dogged by his double. Not sure if this episode came before or after The Man Who Haunted Himself. Anyway, Bernard Lee is in it, in a key but small role, and there are themes similar to W Whyte in DAF. One of the better episodes, and Moore was a good actor in this. I think with Bond he just sent it up all the time, maybe cos he didn't like playing a real assassin.
Can recommend The Persuaders! Boxset on Blu-ray NP. Very nice presentation inlay and fantastic film transfer/restoration. This series should viewed in the glorious colours of the exotic locations, sets, wardrobe, cars! originally intended.
Thanks Red Kind, you're probably right as the reshowings on True Entertainment are not exactly good quality prints.
Some of the music does anticipate the score for LALD, sort of downbeat funky. I can't say all the episodes are as good as I remember them, though that DAF diamond expert pops up in a lot of them. It's always a pleasure to see the late Curtis and Moore banter with each other.
When Liam G and Chris Martin popped up at the Manchester Arena to do their tribute to the bomb victims, I did think it would be fun to do a Persuaders spin off, you know, like the opening credits detailing their divergent parallel lives, Gallagher from Moss Side and Martin's posh upbringing.
say, whatever happened to BondJasonBond006??
I want to see more of his Avengers reviews.
"Moneypenny! Jason."
"Bourne?"
"No, Bond, Jason Bond. 006."
"Ah Jason. I miss him."
As do I.
He got up a rank in the Army and he is very much pre occupied with training people about...stuff.
Check out comings and goings.
I watched what turned out to be the very first episode of The Persuaders last night. It was an eye opener, as I'd always thought that the lead characters went back a long way - yet the pilot makes it clear that they are both idle playboys who take an initial dislike to each other. They are thrown together by a retired judge (the diamond expert from DAF) who threatens to throw them in a South of France jail on a trumped up charge for three months unless they comply.
The entertaining opening car chase/rivalry between Danny and Brett along the approach to the South of France was clearly filched for that early scene in GoldenEye with Bond and Xenia, though it seems odd that the two seem to exhibit some kind of bromance at the wheel.
I suppose the Brett character is a bit like the one Bond portrays in AVTAK, whose 'dotty aunt' left him a fortune. Moore does look louche, long-haired and overweight in this role, it's hard to see him going onto LALD where he looks a lot younger. You see why the producers told him to lose weight and get a hair cut.
I even thought that the Onatopp chase took place at the very same drive but Jizzy proved me wrong way back when I first joined the forum. About the bromance behind the wheel, that is essentially what happened in GE. Lovers behind it, enemies socially.
I think every in spy movie from the 50s and 60 someone was carrying a German Luger...
Diana Rigg is lovely...
"I don't know if the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or imbeciles who mean it."-Mark Twain
'Just because nobody complains doesn't mean all parachutes are perfect.'- Benny Hill (1924-1992)
Jason don't worry too much about how you did all the coding and screenshots, figuring out that stuff makes my head hurt too
I just wanted to remind you that
1) there's a show called The Avengers that used to bring you a lot of joy
and
2) this thread is one of my favourites of your many contributions to the forum
Watching The new Avengers, I was thinking for a new series. They could
Have a new character as either the son or daughter of Purdey and Mike Gambit
Who could mention that Steed was his/her Godfather.
"I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
I agree with TP, there are many B/W episodes that are far superior to the latter colour episodes but I imagine the station managers think that B/W is a turn off for modern viewers which is strange as the likely audience for The Saint is going to be us oldies.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
I've been reading James Chapman's book Saints and Avengers: British Adventure Series of the 1960s, which gives lots of background information about these series, as well as academic analysis. It covers all the shows Thunderpussy mentioned in post 3, and most of the shows Chris01 mentioned in post 27.
The second chapter is all about the Avengers. I already learned a fair bit from you folks upthread, but I've learned a bunch more from this book, I thought I ought to share some of these fun factoids. Especially since it seems most of us have only ever seen the Rigg episodes.
(You experts correct me where I've got it wrong please, I don't want to be spreading any misinformation.)
The series was invented by Sydney Newman, the same Canadian born producer who also created Doctor Who. But Brian Clemens claims Newman only came up with the name, which sounded cool, and nothing else. A few pages further along Newman is credited with the idea to change Steed's persona into the dapper witty aristocratic type, which started in the second season.
The series was originally the followup to a shortlived cops & doctors show called Police Surgeon, also staring Ian Hendry. At the last minute it was decided to give Hendry's character a new name and make the new show entirely unrelated.
The first season was about Dr David Keel, whose wife is murdered and he becomes involved with a mysterious secret agent John Steed, with most episodes involving a medical angle. Steed at this point is unrecognisable, a tough streetsmart trenchcoat wearing character in the Bogart tradition.
Several of these episodes were broadcast live (like our Climax Mystery Theatre!) and do not survive, and the rest recorded on videotape. Only three and half episodes from the first season survive, I'm not sure that any are on dvd.
There was a actors strike in 1962, and Hendry chose to quit. So the show had to be reconceptualised. The first three episodes of season 2 featured a new doctor character, using up the remaining Hendry-era scripts. Then there was a small number of episodes with nightclub singer Venus Smith (played by Julie Stevens). I have actually seen the first of these online, and although Steed now dresses as we expect him to, he does not behave like the character we all know. Instead, he is very manipulative, charming Venus into saving her country, while concealing much information and risking her life. As Napoleon Plural noted on the previous page, very much like the film Notorious. Stevens does sing two complete songs, including a Duke Ellington cover.
Then the bulk of the second season episodes are with Honour Blackman. She plays a much stronger, smarter more selfreliant character, dressed in leather to give her freedom of movement for her kick-ass fight scenes. The show becomes a phenomenon, and MacNee and Blackman actually record a would be pop single called Kinky Boots to cash in on their growing popularity. The episodes still focus mostly on realistic spy thriller plots, but slowly give way to more science fiction and selfparody. These episodes are mostly written by Clemens. There is also a directive from above for a stylized visual identity to set the show apart from its competitors, with lots of weird camera angles and unique sets (no boring offices or flats).
When Blackman left there was an exceptionally long break (18 months) where the whole production was rethought. This is when they switched from videotape to film. They also brought in a lot of film industry pros to write and direct, and really only Clemens from the original team was kept, and he was promoted. So Clemens' aesthetic for science fiction and selfparody became the official look for the show in the Rigg years.
We've talked plenty about the Rigg years above, so I shall not repeat. The final season with Tara King was not so popular in America, so the show was finally cancelled. The King shows did have the innovation of introducing Steed's boss Mother, and the convention of meeting with the boss in unusual spaces (e.g. the upper level of a double decker bus).
The New Avengers is discussed as being more realistic in approach, with more explicit mention of Cold War politics than was ever in the original, and an updated, very mid70s sense of fashion. Ian Hendry returns in one episode as a villain. The new show was not successful, even in the UK, and the final four episodes were made ultra-low budget in Canada!
The late 1990s film's failure is blamed on Uma Thurman, as the filmmakers felt they needed a big American star amongst all the authentic British talent, and she couldn't do the accent or deliver the British wit. (I was sad to read this opinion, as I like Uma and I think the film had much bigger problems than just her miscasting).
In terms of analysis, Chapman compares the show to Hitchcock's 1930s spy films (as per the show's own publicity), and develops the theme of the "proximity of chaos". We repeatedly see quaint postcard scenes of typical English country inns concealing evil villains headquarters hidden in the tunnels below, and infinite variations thereof. He compares the typical rural settings to Ealing comedies (I don't know what those are?). When in the city there is similar chaos barely hidden beneath the department stores and dance classes. We don't really see modern Swinging London, just the nostalgic archetypic images, with mad scientists' lairs lurking inches behind the facade.
The villainy almost never reflects any realistic sort of Cold War politics. instead the villains are often reactionaries (who fear modern life and wish to take us back to the good old days) or technocrats (mad scientists who wish to limit humanity's choices with all powerful technologies).
Another bit of analyis: he claims the character Cathy Gale was revolutionary, unprecedented, a fictional feminist icon blazing the way for characterizations of female action heros we now take for granted. The action thriller genre is as old as film, but women's roles were traditionally as secretaries, girlfriends, or if the actress was lucky, the femme fatale. Never before could an actress be the action star who singlehandedly saved the day and also saved the hero.
I think he may be right, though there were certainly superheroines in American comic books (but moreso in the 1940s than the 50s or 60s) and the Modesty Blaise newpaper strip had started a couple years earlier. I cannot think of a comparable female character in film or teevee before Cathy Gale.
I saw the same author wrote a book on James Bond films, so I've picked up that one too.
Just picked up The Avengers series 6 from Amazon Prime, It looks fantastic in HD -{
I'm hoping to work back and collect as much of this brilliant show as I can.
"I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
Thunderpussy you gonna tell us more about Season Six?
I've only ever seen the one that introduces Tara and Mother ... because Diana Rigg has a few scenes, it's included in the 16 disc Emma Peel MegaSet. Never seen the rest.
___________________________
There's one and a quarter first season episodes up on YouTube.
As folks probably wont find these episodes otherwise, I'd best post the links.
Warning, these are very different from the slick stylish Diana Rigg era episodes, not even comparable to early Danger Man and the Saint. As the early Avengers were videotaped, rather than filmed, editing and second takes were avoided, and the pacing is very slow and clumsy. At one point MacNee turns away from the camera as he delivers important exposition and his dialog becomes inaudible!
Hot Snow
7 January 1961
The first fourteen minutes of the first ever episode, no more exists. Does not get far enough for Steed to appear, but we see the traumatic event that will bring Dr David Keel and the mysterious John Steed together.
The Frighteners
27 May 1961
The fifteenth episode, and earliest surviving episode with Steed. Despite what Chapman's book says, Steed is dressed in bowler hat with a flower in his lapel, not a trenchcoat. But he is tough, secretive, and very manipulative. There is also no clue who he works for, he just emerges from the shadows and gives Keel cryptic orders, but can summon convenient police backup with ease.
The tone is very noirish and amoral. Steed and Keel do a few very bad things to get the job done, and the distinction between "good" guys and "bad" guys gets confused by the end.
The bad guy they take prisoner and torture is Philip Locke: Vargas from Thunderball!
remember Vargas who does not drink, does not smoke, does not make love, what do you do Vargas? yeh that Vargas!
Not so much 60s British tv but I'm enjoying a couple of recent buys.
The Rockford Files, I remember this as a kid and bought it for nostalgia reasons, but it is a classic.
Jim Rockford is an anti-hero, if warned to " back off " a case, he'll try and back off One fact I
did learn about the series was that James Garner did nearly all his own driving, as like Steve McQueen
he was one of the best drivers in Hollywood.
Banacek,
Another favourite from when I was a kid, picked up both series 1 and 2. Always loved Banacek, thought he
was one cool dude. Some of the thefts are really intriguing and entertaining. I did discover from listening
to a documentary on BBC Radio 4 about the competitors of Sherlock Holmes, there was a railway detective
who solved mysteries in the late 1800s, ( can't remember his name ) but he like Banacek had a carriage
stolen from a moving train ! , and used the same solution, only he did it around 80 years before I'm
guessing one of the script writers was a fan of these old stories.
"I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
I been working my way through the early seasons of The Avengers, most episodes of which are to be found streaming online if you don't mind searching...
I wish to draw special attention to The Gilded Cage S3E07 broadcast November 9th 1963 *
There's a whole lotta good stuff about this episode, it may be the best one up til this point, but some aspects we Bondfans must take note of...
Cathy Gale plans the heist of a huge, futuristic gold vault. There is much technical discussion of the size and weight of gold bars, the number of men required to remove it, monetary policy, and how much gold is in Fort Knox(!). The heist even involves gassing all the guards.
You know how in season 4, Steed gets a postcard from Cathy who is visiting Fort Knox? In this episode she sends Steed a postcard while held prisoner by the thieves she is planning the heist for (this bit also begs comparison to Bond's efforts to get word out to Leiter).
So you Bondfans need to watch this early Avengers episode, if no other, to see Mrs Gale, or Galore, or whatever her name is, practically auditioning for the even bigger heist a year later.
Other good aspects:
Cathy playing it very cool.
Lots of those weird camera angles.
A twist about 15 minutes in straight out of The Prisoner, or at least Mission Impossible. This bit is a mindphuk.
A very good cast of bad guys, all unique and memorable.
One bad guy lists all the Saville Row clothing items Steed is wearing, the high-fashion aspect of the show is really kicking in,
...and Cathy wears her all leather costume all through this episode. I think they'd only just introduced her leather look earlier this season.
And those boots...
They'd started fetishizing those boots about two or three episodes earlier (there's one where Steed has to help her get them off, and he struggles while she lies back lazily and enjoys her moment of dominance).
In this episode the bad guys search her luggage and take conspicuous time to examine those boots, holding them towards the camera. Once they're done, the more nebbishy bad guy pulls the boots out for one more look, and his more dominant partner snatches them out of his hand and says "gerrouttofit!"
So if you're thinking these early videotaped episodes are bit of homework to watch, do skip ahead and watch The Gilded Cage!
in The Charmers (s3e23 originally broadcast February 29 1964)...
Cathy is teamed up with a Soviet agent, who tries to compliment her by saying she was on their Most Wanted list, "second from the top, right behind J.B."
That's pretty good for a talented amateur!
I have been meaning to file a complete report on the Cathy Gale years, which I watched in bits and pieces over the last year, but Season 2 in particular is rather complicated and i need to organise my notes better.
In the meantime I watched Season 6, the Tara King season, so lets discuss that one shall we?
_______________________________
As with Season 2, it helps to understand the order in which the episodes were filmed. The Forget-Me-Knot, included in the Emma Peel dvd mega-set, was the first broadcast but in fact the fourth filmed, the first three being buried deeper into the season.
Tara King is played by 20-year-old Linda Thorson, in her teevee acting debut (note that Diana Rigg left to work with unqualified actor George Lazenby in a James Bond movie, and left Macnee to work with his own underqualified newbie). She plays the part as sillier and less competent than either Cathy Gale or Emma Peel, although she also does the martial arts moves at least once an episode, and is clever enough to suggest the solutions several times and solve at least one mystery completely on her own. Tall slim with a brunette bob, delivering witty lines in a posh accent with ironic detachment to any sense of danger, if I had watched one of these episodes on an old teevee back in the eighties I would have just assumed I was watching Rigg. She even drives a Lotus! She is doing an impersonation of her predecessor (albeit both sexier and more childish), whereas Rigg never tried nor needed to impersonate Blackman. That posh accent is not her natural speaking voice, she's from Toronto and therefor would talk like me in real life (and I talk like Bob and Doug MacKenzie, eh?), so any apparent similarity to Rigg's speaking voice is a choice.
So how did Thornson get the gig? The deal is, after Season 5, Brian Clemens and Albert Fennell were let go, and replaced by John Bryce, who had produced much of the Gale era. The show was supposed to return to realism, though you'd never know it from the Bryce episodes that were completed. Two hundred actresses were auditioned, and Bryce's current live in girlfriend was the successful candidate. That said, she's quite funny and has good rapport with MacNee, and is a much better inexperienced actor than our Lazenby. You can tell which episodes Bryce began filming because Tara is wearing a blonde wig.
Note that Tara has her own musical leitmotif as heard in the revised opening credit music.
Bryce on the other hand was in turn fired after filming portions of less than three episodes, and Clemens and Fennell brought back to do the job properly. And so the season ends up being even sillier than Season 5, and self-consciously bizarre even when it wasn't actually funny. Clemens shot new footage to complete those three episodes, then brought Rigg back for The Forget-Me-Knot, giving King a proper origin story and Peel a proper outro. But those other episodes Bryce started actually show King as a less experienced agent than The Forget-Me-Knot and in that sense make more sense if watched first.
Those impressive martial arts moves we watch Tara do are actually performed by stuntwoman Cyd Child, who had doubled for Diana Rigg in the previous season. I an shocked to learn this, I had happily assumed that was all Rigg! but perhaps that is another reason they chose to cast a tall slim brunette. imdb tells me Cyd Child is one of ours, she performed stunts in For Your Eyes Only. Steed gets rather more action scenes in this season than previous seasons, and his stunt double Paul Weston, is also one of ours, imdb credits him with at least ten BondFilms .
Terry Dalek Nation is credited as script editor and writes seven episodes, and Clemens writes eight.
So which were those incomplete Bryce produced episodes? Have Guns - Will Haggle (s6e12 broadcast December 11 1968) (originally titled Invitation To A Killing), Invasion of the Earthmen (s6e16 broadcast January 15 1969), and Homicide and Old Lace (s6e24 broadcast March 26 1969) (originally titled The Great Great Britain Crime). All have new material added, Homicide and Old Lace in particular is edited down to near random fragments bridged by an interminable framing device featuring the new character of Mother.
Emma Peel's outro from The Forget-Me-Knot (s6e01 broadcast September 25 1968), the only time Steed calls her Emma. This is the one Season 6 episode included in the Emma Peel dvd megaset, you would assume begins the final season if you did not know the behind the scenes story.
Steed's boss, Mother (Patrick Newell) is also introduced in The Forget-Me-Knot, an obese foolish condescending man in a wheelchair who talks loudly and seems to get everything wrong. Mother drinks continuously, and moves his office every episode, always to a ridiculous location like the top level of a double decker bus, or a swimming pool, or a submarine. Mother gets far too much screen time and turns even the most serious episodes into a big joke. After a few appearances he is joined by his six foot something assistant Rhonda (Rhonda Parker) who never speaks, and the actress's name never appears in the credits. Mother receives his orders from an unseen Grandma. No mention is ever made of One Ten or the various other bosses from Season 2, nor of what happened in between when Steed appeared to operate unsupervised. Did he maybe change employers after a couple seasons working freelance?
other key episodes
All Done with Mirrors (s608 broadcast November 13 1968) A Tara solo episode set in a lighthouse. Also introduces Rhonda , although we've already seen her due to the differences in film order vs broadcast order.
Look - (stop me if you've heard this one) But There Were These Two Fellers... (s6e11 broadcast December 11 1968) surely the silliest Avengers episode ever, even sillier than the silliest Man from UNCLE though done with more style. With John Cleese, just slightly pre-Python, and Bernard Cribbins.
The Interrogators (S6E14 broadcast January 1 1969) Christopher Lee guests as the villain, a military man who invites secret service types for a phony training course where they will learn to endure interrogation techniques. Steed himself ruthlessly interrogates one survivor of the course, a dark moment in a silly season.
Wish You Were Here (S6E20 broadcast February 12 1969) Tara visits a country inn where the guests can never leave, in a loose parody of The Prisoner directed by Don Chaffey, a genuine Prisoner veteran.
Stay Tuned (s6e22 February 26 1969) introduces Father (Iris Russell), a blind woman, rather cleverer than Mother. This is an unusually creepy episode, were Steed is the victim of post-hypnotic suggestion and cannot see the man who is following him around. Roger Delgado plays the hypnotist. And Kate O'Mara who plays another villain would one day play The Rani!
There are three episodes in a row with minimal Tara content, was Clemens perhaps getting frustrated by his newbie actor?
Killer (S6E17 broadcast January 22 1969) pairs Steed with a new female partner Lady Diana Forbes-Blakeney (Jennifer Croxton) while Tara is away on vacation.
Tara literally sleeps right through The Morning After (S5E18 broadcast January 29 1969) a Twilight Zone type episode where Steed investigates an empty industrial town, with Brian Blessed as one of the villains.
The Curious Case of the Countless Clues (S6E19 broadcast February 5 1969) at first appears to be another Tara-light episode, as she is recovering from a broken leg and Steed has to solve the mystery himself. Except that it ends with Tara being threatened in a showdown straight out of Rear Window, making good use out of that otherwise pointless staircase in her apartment.
Lets take a look at Tara'a apartment. It is a major recurring set this season, even moreso than Steed's apartment. As well as all the funky decor, she has that staircase to the left through which all her guests enter. note the firepole next to the staircase, which Steed sometimes uses, at least once to take a villain by surprise. Funny thing is, there's another door to the right that opens directly onto the street, so why do guests go round the back way, up a flight of stairs and back down again? anyway, you can see how putting her in wheelchair for an episode creates dramatic potential with that staircase.
other guest stars
Super Secret Cypher Snatch (S6E03 broadcast October 9 1968) features Ivor Dean (Inspector Teal from The Saint) as a fellow investigator and Angela Scoular (one of ours, twice) as a sexy secretary.
Ian Ogilvy, a latter day Saint, plays an aristocratic ally in in They Keep Killing Steed (S6E13 broadcast December 18 1968)
Nigel Green (Dalby from the Ipcress File) plays president of the Gaslight Ghoul Society in Fog (S6E24 broadcast March 12 1969)
Julian Glover (one of ours) is in two episodes: Split! (S6E05 broadcast October 23 1968) and in Pandora (S6E31 broadcast April 30 1969), a strange episode in which Steed is nearly entirely absent and Tara is drugged throughout and gets little dialog.
After six seasons and 161 episodes, last episode ever Bizarre (S6E33 broadcast May 21 1969) shows Steed dead and buried and gone to Paradise, but its OK its only a ruse to find the villains. But in the "tag" Steed and Tara are trapped in a rocket shot into space, and Mother speaks to the camera and says "They’ll be back, you can depend on it". This one features Bill Tanner's dad Roy Kinnear.
Are these "tags" improvised? (the final scene thats usually unrelated to the plot). Many of them seem as if they came up with a concept and let the cameras roll while the two actors clown around for a minute until they think of a joke to end on.
Show is finally cancelled due to American ratings, ABC scheduled it at the same time as Laugh-In. Bloody Laugh-In !!was also the show that replaced The Man from UNCLE (I'm joking, Laugh-In gave the world both Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin thus is quite alright by me, despite having killed two of the greatest silly spy shows ever). In one episode, we even see Steed watching Laugh-In! (he says to his teevee "Sock it to me!").
also of significance, Steed is seen reading one more Tintin adventure this season (Le Lotus Bleu, which had not been translated at this point), a man of fine and distinguished taste, a man who knows his adventure literature! He had previously been seen reading three other Tintin adventures in the third season. see the Tintin thread for further info on this important cross-franchise connection!
I wish to file what will be a series of reports on the first three years of the Avengers. I had watched them all over the last couple years, but failed to make notes. so now I'm going back and watching them all over again, in the interests of ajb007 SpyMania scholarship.
these both have detailed episode by episode subjective reviews and background info. the first also has guest reviews and articles, and top ten lists for each of the three main leading ladies. good to check these sites after watching an episode.
a bit more specialised is John Steed's Flat which has sections just on Steed's dogs, his bosses, and the various apartments. If you've only ever seen the Mrs Peel episodes you dont know about Steed and his dogs!
___________________________________________
Lets start with what survives of Season 1, shall we?
first lets note the show was created by Sydney Newman, who of course also created Doctor Who and who is a Canadian! and Leonard White, who was producer of all Season 1, and the first half of Season 2 before being replaced by John Bryce. Brian Clemens wrote the scripts for two of the episodes (including second episode ever), but unfortunately neither of those are amongst those which have survived. and of course the original stars were our pal Steed and Ian Hendry as Dr David Keel.
upthread I filed reports on what exists of the first ever episode Hot Snow (s1e01 January 7 1961), and The Frighteners (s1e15 May 27 1961), the earliest existing episode with John Steed. There are two other episodes which exist. (and that's 3.25 more episodes than exist from Ian Hendry's previous series Police Surgeon). The Frighteners seems to be the most discussed episode from the first season, and its a weird one with Steed being particularly dark and sinister and actually torturing a bad guy. But for a long time it was the only complete surviving episode, so I think conventional wisdom has just assumed the whole season was like that. the two other complete episodes that have since been recovered are nothing so dark.
Girl on the Trapeze (s1e06 February 11 1961) was broadcast live, not videotaped, but somebody thought to kinescope it, and it surfaced in 2001. Steed’s not in this one at all. Ingrid Hafner costars as Dr David Keel’s nurse Carol Wilson, who we might consider a prototype for Gale and Peel. Keel and Wilson are eager to solve a mystery without any prompting from Steed, which contrasts Keel from the next Doctor. Action takes place in a circus. where something sinister is going on, thus has a bit of the wacky factor and striking visuals we expect from the series.
here is Dr David Keel and nurse Carol Wilson
It looks as though there are only two episodes this season where Steed is absent, so it’s pure “luck” one of them is amongst the few that survive. And while one might say what's the point if Steed's not in it, its a good chance to better appreciate Dr Keel and Nurse Wilson's characters, when so little exists. Considering also Police Surgeon does not exist at all, its also a glimpse as to what that may have been like. And considering the dynamic we shall see between Steed and his recruits in the next season, its noteworthy Dr Keel is so gung-ho about solving mysteries without any prodding,
Other surviving episode is Tunnel of Fear (s1e20 August 5 1961). This one has only very has recently been recovered in 2016. This one has both Steed and Keel, and is much more fun than The Frighteners. Action takes place amongst the attractions on the seaside pier at South End. There is a spy ring hidden behind one of the rides, and a general occult atmosphere. So like Girl on the Trapeze this episode also has wacky visual content and focusses on the lives of carnie folk. Nurse Wilson is also in this one but just at the beginning.
This is also the earliest surviving episode with One-Ten (Douglas Muir). One Ten is Steed's boss. Folks who only know the Mrs Peel episodes might not know Steed has a boss! Over the first three seasons Steed in fact has several, usually identified only by number. but One Ten appears to be the first and the most frequently occurring. imdb lists One Ten in five other first season episodes . Here's a good shot of One-Ten if you've never seen him before:
When Steed first enters he is walking a huge Great Dane off the leash, named Puppy. Puppy apparently appeared in several other episodes this season, and this was the last, as in real life the poor woofer was hit by a car (and if you see this episode you won't be surprised). Steed is the owner of at least three other dogs over the next two seasons, and the giant smile Steed sports while letting his dog run loose shows a completely different character than the sinister spy who tortured a bad guy in the Frighteners.
the best shot of Puppy shows her and One-Ten together: Steed makes his boss dog sit while he goes undercover on a mission
Speaking of which, Steed's cover is carnival barker for a troupe of belly dancers. In these early days Steed is s shameless letch, always oggling the ladies and trying to pinch a bumcheek,
When I next get a chance I'll move on to Season 2, which is quite complicated, so I'll probably do it in three or four parts. I promise not to go on into so much depth per individual episode. its just this first season is a special case, and we have to sift through the few remains as close as we can to get any accurate sense of it. Let us hope that in the future, further episodes show up at the rate Doctor Who episodes surface, or at least better than one every fifteen years.
This is great, thank you @caractacus potts I hope they turn up on BritBox at some point, I was watching the final season with Tara King and it suddenly got withdrawn before I had the chance to see them all 🙁
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
I have no problem with individual episode reviews !
oh I know you like individual episode reviews but my notes arent that detailed! I now realise I missed the first episode when Cathy dresses in all leathers, and thats the sort of thing I consider priority info (it was fairly early however, not her very first episode, but maybe fourth or fifth). I also wished I had paused more to get good screencaps, particularly of the apartment sets. its tuff to enjoy a show when you gotta keep pausing to get screencaps and make notes!
but as I say season 2 is in particular complicated, so I will have individual notes on each episode more or less at least until Cathys settles into her permanent role as Talented Amateur
coolhand sez:
I was watching the final season with Tara King and it suddenly got withdrawn before I had the chance to see them all
they are all up on archive.org, though that site's a bit difficult to search. also on the old-time TV streaming aggregator site Uncle Earl's
how to deal with Season 2? there's three different Talented Amateurs, and the episodes were recorded in a completely different order than they were broadcast. When watching in broadcast order its a bit odd that Cathy Gale disappears, and instead theres these other less interesting characters working with Steed, and also Cathy's character concept seems to change with certain episodes towards the end of the season.
but note Warlock (S2E18, broadcast January 26, 1963) was mostly recorded July 7 1962, with certain scenes rerecorded January 24, 1963. So it should really be the second Cathy episode on that list.
But one thing thats obvious at a glance is the three Martin King episodes were recorded first
so lets get those Martin King episodes out of the way first.
Ian Hendry left after the first season, and these three episodes are said to be unused Dr Keel episodes recycled for a new actor playing a marginally different character.
Dr. Martin King is played by Jon Rollason. The main difference is Dr King doesn’t seem to like Steed at all, and is angry whenever Steed shows up asking for his help, motivated only by his responsibilities as a doctor. He spends most of his time scowling and talking back to Steed, and is not very likable. Whereas Steed is all smiles and chuckles, which does not impress Dr King one bit. (Did nobody notice there was already a real life Dr Martin King prominent in American news at the time? Sixty years later the name seems an unfortunate coincidence)
King is accompanied by his own nurse character, Judy, played by Gillian Muir (real life daughter of Douglas Muir: One Ten).
First recorded and broadcast Dr King episode is Mission to Montreal (s2e05 broadcast October 27 1962), set on board an ocean liner, a rare adventure outside the country, about a boozy film star being blackmailed by spies. King appears amongst her retinue as her personal physician, at least for the length of the voyage, and Steed is undercover as ship's wine steward. The boozy actress is played by Patricia English and is most entertaining part of the episode.
Dead on Course (s2e14 broadcast December 29 1962) is maybe the most interesting of the three, closest to that weird factor we expect from the show: about an Irish convent that is luring airplanes to crash on the rocks the way pirates used to lure ships in Cornwall. The plane is from Montreal. Second Dr King episode involving Canada! I wonder if the show’s creator Sydney Newman was responsible for the Canadian content?
The Sell-Out (s2E09 broadcast. November 24 1962) is the final Dr King episode, though broadcast second. A fairly conventional Steed-guards-a-diplomat-from-assassins plot. At episodes end, Dr King declares he is done being a secret agent and stomps off never to be seen again. We also meet One Twelve (Arthur Hewlett), another of Steed’s bosses (I don't remember any explanation where One Ten went, but he'll be back).
Despite being recorded first, these three episodes were buried deep into the season. Audiences would already have seen three exciting Cathy Gale episodes, and the debut episode of Venus Smith, before suddenly being let down by the duller plots and less likable character of the Dr King episodes. And the remaining King episodes were each spaced out by at least five more exciting Cathy episodes, to reduce the chance of viewers giving up. Obviously the creators did not have much confidence in these episodes, and if it were today I'm sure these would be scheduled to coincide with evenings when viewership was already expected to be low.
Lets end the Dr King episodes with another shot of Steed undercover. Steed may be implicitly born to aristocracy ("scion of a noble family" I think he once explains) but his manners are so smooth he seems perfectly suited to a servant's role, and in at least two of the Cathy episodes (Death of a Great Dane and The Gilded Cage) we see he gets on with butlers much better than he does their masters. But of course this is all part of his shtick, that effortless self-deprecating charm is why he is such a good spy.
(and of course 20-odd years later he would go undercover as James Bond's valet!)
anyway, King doesn't like Steed much so I'm sure he enjoys seeing Steed refilling his wine glass while he hobnobs with the boozy film star.
Comments
That regional structure of ITV is of the past. For the past 15 years or so it's been a single entity in England, with different regional companies for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
When talking to any of the actors and writers etc associated with the 60s British action shows, it was completely unimportant that some were made by different companies. The Saint was made at the same studio complex as The Avengers and Roger Moore would wander across to The Avengers set to play practical jokes.
Moore in it of course, and he was being dogged by his double. Not sure if this episode came before or after The Man Who Haunted Himself. Anyway, Bernard Lee is in it, in a key but small role, and there are themes similar to W Whyte in DAF. One of the better episodes, and Moore was a good actor in this. I think with Bond he just sent it up all the time, maybe cos he didn't like playing a real assassin.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Can recommend The Persuaders! Boxset on Blu-ray NP. Very nice presentation inlay and fantastic film transfer/restoration. This series should viewed in the glorious colours of the exotic locations, sets, wardrobe, cars! originally intended.
Some of the music does anticipate the score for LALD, sort of downbeat funky. I can't say all the episodes are as good as I remember them, though that DAF diamond expert pops up in a lot of them. It's always a pleasure to see the late Curtis and Moore
When Liam G and Chris Martin popped up at the Manchester Arena to do their tribute to the bomb victims, I did think it would be fun to do a Persuaders spin off, you know, like the opening credits detailing their divergent parallel lives, Gallagher from Moss Side and Martin's posh upbringing.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I want to see more of his Avengers reviews.
"Bourne?"
"No, Bond, Jason Bond. 006."
"Ah Jason. I miss him."
As do I.
He got up a rank in the Army and he is very much pre occupied with training people about...stuff.
Check out comings and goings.
The entertaining opening car chase/rivalry between Danny and Brett along the approach to the South of France was clearly filched for that early scene in GoldenEye with Bond and Xenia, though it seems odd that the two seem to exhibit some kind of bromance at the wheel.
I suppose the Brett character is a bit like the one Bond portrays in AVTAK, whose 'dotty aunt' left him a fortune. Moore does look louche, long-haired and overweight in this role, it's hard to see him going onto LALD where he looks a lot younger. You see why the producers told him to lose weight and get a hair cut.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Diana Rigg is lovely...
'Just because nobody complains doesn't mean all parachutes are perfect.'- Benny Hill (1924-1992)
I love this show so much and I got everything from Diana Rigg to Linda Thorson on Blu-ray.
So this is a nice project for me. I can watch an episode and then write a review. Give me a little time but it's definitely going to happen.
I just wanted to remind you that
1) there's a show called The Avengers that used to bring you a lot of joy
and
2) this thread is one of my favourites of your many contributions to the forum
Have a new character as either the son or daughter of Purdey and Mike Gambit
Who could mention that Steed was his/her Godfather.
Yet some of the best episodes are from the earlier B/W
series collections.
The second chapter is all about the Avengers. I already learned a fair bit from you folks upthread, but I've learned a bunch more from this book, I thought I ought to share some of these fun factoids. Especially since it seems most of us have only ever seen the Rigg episodes.
(You experts correct me where I've got it wrong please, I don't want to be spreading any misinformation.)
The series was invented by Sydney Newman, the same Canadian born producer who also created Doctor Who. But Brian Clemens claims Newman only came up with the name, which sounded cool, and nothing else. A few pages further along Newman is credited with the idea to change Steed's persona into the dapper witty aristocratic type, which started in the second season.
The series was originally the followup to a shortlived cops & doctors show called Police Surgeon, also staring Ian Hendry. At the last minute it was decided to give Hendry's character a new name and make the new show entirely unrelated.
The first season was about Dr David Keel, whose wife is murdered and he becomes involved with a mysterious secret agent John Steed, with most episodes involving a medical angle. Steed at this point is unrecognisable, a tough streetsmart trenchcoat wearing character in the Bogart tradition.
Several of these episodes were broadcast live (like our Climax Mystery Theatre!) and do not survive, and the rest recorded on videotape. Only three and half episodes from the first season survive, I'm not sure that any are on dvd.
There was a actors strike in 1962, and Hendry chose to quit. So the show had to be reconceptualised. The first three episodes of season 2 featured a new doctor character, using up the remaining Hendry-era scripts. Then there was a small number of episodes with nightclub singer Venus Smith (played by Julie Stevens). I have actually seen the first of these online, and although Steed now dresses as we expect him to, he does not behave like the character we all know. Instead, he is very manipulative, charming Venus into saving her country, while concealing much information and risking her life. As Napoleon Plural noted on the previous page, very much like the film Notorious. Stevens does sing two complete songs, including a Duke Ellington cover.
Then the bulk of the second season episodes are with Honour Blackman. She plays a much stronger, smarter more selfreliant character, dressed in leather to give her freedom of movement for her kick-ass fight scenes. The show becomes a phenomenon, and MacNee and Blackman actually record a would be pop single called Kinky Boots to cash in on their growing popularity. The episodes still focus mostly on realistic spy thriller plots, but slowly give way to more science fiction and selfparody. These episodes are mostly written by Clemens. There is also a directive from above for a stylized visual identity to set the show apart from its competitors, with lots of weird camera angles and unique sets (no boring offices or flats).
When Blackman left there was an exceptionally long break (18 months) where the whole production was rethought. This is when they switched from videotape to film. They also brought in a lot of film industry pros to write and direct, and really only Clemens from the original team was kept, and he was promoted. So Clemens' aesthetic for science fiction and selfparody became the official look for the show in the Rigg years.
We've talked plenty about the Rigg years above, so I shall not repeat. The final season with Tara King was not so popular in America, so the show was finally cancelled. The King shows did have the innovation of introducing Steed's boss Mother, and the convention of meeting with the boss in unusual spaces (e.g. the upper level of a double decker bus).
The New Avengers is discussed as being more realistic in approach, with more explicit mention of Cold War politics than was ever in the original, and an updated, very mid70s sense of fashion. Ian Hendry returns in one episode as a villain. The new show was not successful, even in the UK, and the final four episodes were made ultra-low budget in Canada!
The late 1990s film's failure is blamed on Uma Thurman, as the filmmakers felt they needed a big American star amongst all the authentic British talent, and she couldn't do the accent or deliver the British wit. (I was sad to read this opinion, as I like Uma and I think the film had much bigger problems than just her miscasting).
In terms of analysis, Chapman compares the show to Hitchcock's 1930s spy films (as per the show's own publicity), and develops the theme of the "proximity of chaos". We repeatedly see quaint postcard scenes of typical English country inns concealing evil villains headquarters hidden in the tunnels below, and infinite variations thereof. He compares the typical rural settings to Ealing comedies (I don't know what those are?). When in the city there is similar chaos barely hidden beneath the department stores and dance classes. We don't really see modern Swinging London, just the nostalgic archetypic images, with mad scientists' lairs lurking inches behind the facade.
The villainy almost never reflects any realistic sort of Cold War politics. instead the villains are often reactionaries (who fear modern life and wish to take us back to the good old days) or technocrats (mad scientists who wish to limit humanity's choices with all powerful technologies).
Another bit of analyis: he claims the character Cathy Gale was revolutionary, unprecedented, a fictional feminist icon blazing the way for characterizations of female action heros we now take for granted. The action thriller genre is as old as film, but women's roles were traditionally as secretaries, girlfriends, or if the actress was lucky, the femme fatale. Never before could an actress be the action star who singlehandedly saved the day and also saved the hero.
I think he may be right, though there were certainly superheroines in American comic books (but moreso in the 1940s than the 50s or 60s) and the Modesty Blaise newpaper strip had started a couple years earlier. I cannot think of a comparable female character in film or teevee before Cathy Gale.
I saw the same author wrote a book on James Bond films, so I've picked up that one too.
I'm hoping to work back and collect as much of this brilliant show as I can.
The super secret cypher snatch, and
Angela Scoular ( Ruby from OHMSS) is in it. -{
I've only ever seen the one that introduces Tara and Mother ... because Diana Rigg has a few scenes, it's included in the 16 disc Emma Peel MegaSet. Never seen the rest.
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There's one and a quarter first season episodes up on YouTube.
As folks probably wont find these episodes otherwise, I'd best post the links.
Warning, these are very different from the slick stylish Diana Rigg era episodes, not even comparable to early Danger Man and the Saint. As the early Avengers were videotaped, rather than filmed, editing and second takes were avoided, and the pacing is very slow and clumsy. At one point MacNee turns away from the camera as he delivers important exposition and his dialog becomes inaudible!
Hot Snow
7 January 1961
The first fourteen minutes of the first ever episode, no more exists. Does not get far enough for Steed to appear, but we see the traumatic event that will bring Dr David Keel and the mysterious John Steed together.
The Frighteners
27 May 1961
The fifteenth episode, and earliest surviving episode with Steed. Despite what Chapman's book says, Steed is dressed in bowler hat with a flower in his lapel, not a trenchcoat. But he is tough, secretive, and very manipulative. There is also no clue who he works for, he just emerges from the shadows and gives Keel cryptic orders, but can summon convenient police backup with ease.
The tone is very noirish and amoral. Steed and Keel do a few very bad things to get the job done, and the distinction between "good" guys and "bad" guys gets confused by the end.
The bad guy they take prisoner and torture is Philip Locke: Vargas from Thunderball!
remember Vargas who does not drink, does not smoke, does not make love, what do you do Vargas? yeh that Vargas!
The Rockford Files, I remember this as a kid and bought it for nostalgia reasons, but it is a classic.
Jim Rockford is an anti-hero, if warned to " back off " a case, he'll try and back off
did learn about the series was that James Garner did nearly all his own driving, as like Steve McQueen
he was one of the best drivers in Hollywood.
Banacek,
Another favourite from when I was a kid, picked up both series 1 and 2. Always loved Banacek, thought he
was one cool dude. Some of the thefts are really intriguing and entertaining. I did discover from listening
to a documentary on BBC Radio 4 about the competitors of Sherlock Holmes, there was a railway detective
who solved mysteries in the late 1800s, ( can't remember his name ) but he like Banacek had a carriage
stolen from a moving train ! , and used the same solution, only he did it around 80 years before
guessing one of the script writers was a fan of these old stories.
I wish to draw special attention to The Gilded Cage S3E07 broadcast November 9th 1963 *
There's a whole lotta good stuff about this episode, it may be the best one up til this point, but some aspects we Bondfans must take note of...
Cathy Gale plans the heist of a huge, futuristic gold vault. There is much technical discussion of the size and weight of gold bars, the number of men required to remove it, monetary policy, and how much gold is in Fort Knox(!). The heist even involves gassing all the guards.
You know how in season 4, Steed gets a postcard from Cathy who is visiting Fort Knox? In this episode she sends Steed a postcard while held prisoner by the thieves she is planning the heist for (this bit also begs comparison to Bond's efforts to get word out to Leiter).
So you Bondfans need to watch this early Avengers episode, if no other, to see Mrs Gale, or Galore, or whatever her name is, practically auditioning for the even bigger heist a year later.
Other good aspects:
Cathy playing it very cool.
Lots of those weird camera angles.
A twist about 15 minutes in straight out of The Prisoner, or at least Mission Impossible. This bit is a mindphuk.
A very good cast of bad guys, all unique and memorable.
One bad guy lists all the Saville Row clothing items Steed is wearing, the high-fashion aspect of the show is really kicking in,
...and Cathy wears her all leather costume all through this episode. I think they'd only just introduced her leather look earlier this season.
And those boots...
They'd started fetishizing those boots about two or three episodes earlier (there's one where Steed has to help her get them off, and he struggles while she lies back lazily and enjoys her moment of dominance).
In this episode the bad guys search her luggage and take conspicuous time to examine those boots, holding them towards the camera. Once they're done, the more nebbishy bad guy pulls the boots out for one more look, and his more dominant partner snatches them out of his hand and says "gerrouttofit!"
So if you're thinking these early videotaped episodes are bit of homework to watch, do skip ahead and watch The Gilded Cage!
Cathy is teamed up with a Soviet agent, who tries to compliment her by saying she was on their Most Wanted list, "second from the top, right behind J.B."
That's pretty good for a talented amateur!
Jack Bauer?
I have been meaning to file a complete report on the Cathy Gale years, which I watched in bits and pieces over the last year, but Season 2 in particular is rather complicated and i need to organise my notes better.
In the meantime I watched Season 6, the Tara King season, so lets discuss that one shall we?
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As with Season 2, it helps to understand the order in which the episodes were filmed. The Forget-Me-Knot, included in the Emma Peel dvd mega-set, was the first broadcast but in fact the fourth filmed, the first three being buried deeper into the season.
Tara King is played by 20-year-old Linda Thorson, in her teevee acting debut (note that Diana Rigg left to work with unqualified actor George Lazenby in a James Bond movie, and left Macnee to work with his own underqualified newbie). She plays the part as sillier and less competent than either Cathy Gale or Emma Peel, although she also does the martial arts moves at least once an episode, and is clever enough to suggest the solutions several times and solve at least one mystery completely on her own. Tall slim with a brunette bob, delivering witty lines in a posh accent with ironic detachment to any sense of danger, if I had watched one of these episodes on an old teevee back in the eighties I would have just assumed I was watching Rigg. She even drives a Lotus! She is doing an impersonation of her predecessor (albeit both sexier and more childish), whereas Rigg never tried nor needed to impersonate Blackman. That posh accent is not her natural speaking voice, she's from Toronto and therefor would talk like me in real life (and I talk like Bob and Doug MacKenzie, eh?), so any apparent similarity to Rigg's speaking voice is a choice.
So how did Thornson get the gig? The deal is, after Season 5, Brian Clemens and Albert Fennell were let go, and replaced by John Bryce, who had produced much of the Gale era. The show was supposed to return to realism, though you'd never know it from the Bryce episodes that were completed. Two hundred actresses were auditioned, and Bryce's current live in girlfriend was the successful candidate. That said, she's quite funny and has good rapport with MacNee, and is a much better inexperienced actor than our Lazenby. You can tell which episodes Bryce began filming because Tara is wearing a blonde wig.
Note that Tara has her own musical leitmotif as heard in the revised opening credit music.
Bryce on the other hand was in turn fired after filming portions of less than three episodes, and Clemens and Fennell brought back to do the job properly. And so the season ends up being even sillier than Season 5, and self-consciously bizarre even when it wasn't actually funny. Clemens shot new footage to complete those three episodes, then brought Rigg back for The Forget-Me-Knot, giving King a proper origin story and Peel a proper outro. But those other episodes Bryce started actually show King as a less experienced agent than The Forget-Me-Knot and in that sense make more sense if watched first.
Those impressive martial arts moves we watch Tara do are actually performed by stuntwoman Cyd Child, who had doubled for Diana Rigg in the previous season. I an shocked to learn this, I had happily assumed that was all Rigg! but perhaps that is another reason they chose to cast a tall slim brunette. imdb tells me Cyd Child is one of ours, she performed stunts in For Your Eyes Only. Steed gets rather more action scenes in this season than previous seasons, and his stunt double Paul Weston, is also one of ours, imdb credits him with at least ten BondFilms .
Terry Dalek Nation is credited as script editor and writes seven episodes, and Clemens writes eight.
So which were those incomplete Bryce produced episodes? Have Guns - Will Haggle (s6e12 broadcast December 11 1968) (originally titled Invitation To A Killing), Invasion of the Earthmen (s6e16 broadcast January 15 1969), and Homicide and Old Lace (s6e24 broadcast March 26 1969) (originally titled The Great Great Britain Crime). All have new material added, Homicide and Old Lace in particular is edited down to near random fragments bridged by an interminable framing device featuring the new character of Mother.
Emma Peel's outro from The Forget-Me-Knot (s6e01 broadcast September 25 1968), the only time Steed calls her Emma. This is the one Season 6 episode included in the Emma Peel dvd megaset, you would assume begins the final season if you did not know the behind the scenes story.
Steed's boss, Mother (Patrick Newell) is also introduced in The Forget-Me-Knot, an obese foolish condescending man in a wheelchair who talks loudly and seems to get everything wrong. Mother drinks continuously, and moves his office every episode, always to a ridiculous location like the top level of a double decker bus, or a swimming pool, or a submarine. Mother gets far too much screen time and turns even the most serious episodes into a big joke. After a few appearances he is joined by his six foot something assistant Rhonda (Rhonda Parker) who never speaks, and the actress's name never appears in the credits. Mother receives his orders from an unseen Grandma. No mention is ever made of One Ten or the various other bosses from Season 2, nor of what happened in between when Steed appeared to operate unsupervised. Did he maybe change employers after a couple seasons working freelance?
other key episodes
All Done with Mirrors (s608 broadcast November 13 1968) A Tara solo episode set in a lighthouse. Also introduces Rhonda , although we've already seen her due to the differences in film order vs broadcast order.
Look - (stop me if you've heard this one) But There Were These Two Fellers... (s6e11 broadcast December 11 1968) surely the silliest Avengers episode ever, even sillier than the silliest Man from UNCLE though done with more style. With John Cleese, just slightly pre-Python, and Bernard Cribbins.
The Interrogators (S6E14 broadcast January 1 1969) Christopher Lee guests as the villain, a military man who invites secret service types for a phony training course where they will learn to endure interrogation techniques. Steed himself ruthlessly interrogates one survivor of the course, a dark moment in a silly season.
Wish You Were Here (S6E20 broadcast February 12 1969) Tara visits a country inn where the guests can never leave, in a loose parody of The Prisoner directed by Don Chaffey, a genuine Prisoner veteran.
Stay Tuned (s6e22 February 26 1969) introduces Father (Iris Russell), a blind woman, rather cleverer than Mother. This is an unusually creepy episode, were Steed is the victim of post-hypnotic suggestion and cannot see the man who is following him around. Roger Delgado plays the hypnotist. And Kate O'Mara who plays another villain would one day play The Rani!
There are three episodes in a row with minimal Tara content, was Clemens perhaps getting frustrated by his newbie actor?
Killer (S6E17 broadcast January 22 1969) pairs Steed with a new female partner Lady Diana Forbes-Blakeney (Jennifer Croxton) while Tara is away on vacation.
Tara literally sleeps right through The Morning After (S5E18 broadcast January 29 1969) a Twilight Zone type episode where Steed investigates an empty industrial town, with Brian Blessed as one of the villains.
The Curious Case of the Countless Clues (S6E19 broadcast February 5 1969) at first appears to be another Tara-light episode, as she is recovering from a broken leg and Steed has to solve the mystery himself. Except that it ends with Tara being threatened in a showdown straight out of Rear Window, making good use out of that otherwise pointless staircase in her apartment.
Lets take a look at Tara'a apartment. It is a major recurring set this season, even moreso than Steed's apartment. As well as all the funky decor, she has that staircase to the left through which all her guests enter. note the firepole next to the staircase, which Steed sometimes uses, at least once to take a villain by surprise. Funny thing is, there's another door to the right that opens directly onto the street, so why do guests go round the back way, up a flight of stairs and back down again? anyway, you can see how putting her in wheelchair for an episode creates dramatic potential with that staircase.
other guest stars
Super Secret Cypher Snatch (S6E03 broadcast October 9 1968) features Ivor Dean (Inspector Teal from The Saint) as a fellow investigator and Angela Scoular (one of ours, twice) as a sexy secretary.
Ian Ogilvy, a latter day Saint, plays an aristocratic ally in in They Keep Killing Steed (S6E13 broadcast December 18 1968)
Nigel Green (Dalby from the Ipcress File) plays president of the Gaslight Ghoul Society in Fog (S6E24 broadcast March 12 1969)
Julian Glover (one of ours) is in two episodes: Split! (S6E05 broadcast October 23 1968) and in Pandora (S6E31 broadcast April 30 1969), a strange episode in which Steed is nearly entirely absent and Tara is drugged throughout and gets little dialog.
After six seasons and 161 episodes, last episode ever Bizarre (S6E33 broadcast May 21 1969) shows Steed dead and buried and gone to Paradise, but its OK its only a ruse to find the villains. But in the "tag" Steed and Tara are trapped in a rocket shot into space, and Mother speaks to the camera and says "They’ll be back, you can depend on it". This one features Bill Tanner's dad Roy Kinnear.
Are these "tags" improvised? (the final scene thats usually unrelated to the plot). Many of them seem as if they came up with a concept and let the cameras roll while the two actors clown around for a minute until they think of a joke to end on.
Show is finally cancelled due to American ratings, ABC scheduled it at the same time as Laugh-In. Bloody Laugh-In !! was also the show that replaced The Man from UNCLE (I'm joking, Laugh-In gave the world both Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin thus is quite alright by me, despite having killed two of the greatest silly spy shows ever). In one episode, we even see Steed watching Laugh-In! (he says to his teevee "Sock it to me!").
also of significance, Steed is seen reading one more Tintin adventure this season (Le Lotus Bleu, which had not been translated at this point), a man of fine and distinguished taste, a man who knows his adventure literature! He had previously been seen reading three other Tintin adventures in the third season. see the Tintin thread for further info on this important cross-franchise connection!
I wish to file what will be a series of reports on the first three years of the Avengers. I had watched them all over the last couple years, but failed to make notes. so now I'm going back and watching them all over again, in the interests of ajb007 SpyMania scholarship.
first of all, a couple recommended fansites:
The Avengers Forever
Mrs Peel... We're Needed!
these both have detailed episode by episode subjective reviews and background info. the first also has guest reviews and articles, and top ten lists for each of the three main leading ladies. good to check these sites after watching an episode.
a bit more specialised is John Steed's Flat which has sections just on Steed's dogs, his bosses, and the various apartments. If you've only ever seen the Mrs Peel episodes you dont know about Steed and his dogs!
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Lets start with what survives of Season 1, shall we?
first lets note the show was created by Sydney Newman, who of course also created Doctor Who and who is a Canadian! and Leonard White, who was producer of all Season 1, and the first half of Season 2 before being replaced by John Bryce. Brian Clemens wrote the scripts for two of the episodes (including second episode ever), but unfortunately neither of those are amongst those which have survived. and of course the original stars were our pal Steed and Ian Hendry as Dr David Keel.
upthread I filed reports on what exists of the first ever episode Hot Snow (s1e01 January 7 1961), and The Frighteners (s1e15 May 27 1961), the earliest existing episode with John Steed. There are two other episodes which exist. (and that's 3.25 more episodes than exist from Ian Hendry's previous series Police Surgeon). The Frighteners seems to be the most discussed episode from the first season, and its a weird one with Steed being particularly dark and sinister and actually torturing a bad guy. But for a long time it was the only complete surviving episode, so I think conventional wisdom has just assumed the whole season was like that. the two other complete episodes that have since been recovered are nothing so dark.
Girl on the Trapeze (s1e06 February 11 1961) was broadcast live, not videotaped, but somebody thought to kinescope it, and it surfaced in 2001. Steed’s not in this one at all. Ingrid Hafner costars as Dr David Keel’s nurse Carol Wilson, who we might consider a prototype for Gale and Peel. Keel and Wilson are eager to solve a mystery without any prompting from Steed, which contrasts Keel from the next Doctor. Action takes place in a circus. where something sinister is going on, thus has a bit of the wacky factor and striking visuals we expect from the series.
here is Dr David Keel and nurse Carol Wilson
It looks as though there are only two episodes this season where Steed is absent, so it’s pure “luck” one of them is amongst the few that survive. And while one might say what's the point if Steed's not in it, its a good chance to better appreciate Dr Keel and Nurse Wilson's characters, when so little exists. Considering also Police Surgeon does not exist at all, its also a glimpse as to what that may have been like. And considering the dynamic we shall see between Steed and his recruits in the next season, its noteworthy Dr Keel is so gung-ho about solving mysteries without any prodding,
Other surviving episode is Tunnel of Fear (s1e20 August 5 1961). This one has only very has recently been recovered in 2016. This one has both Steed and Keel, and is much more fun than The Frighteners. Action takes place amongst the attractions on the seaside pier at South End. There is a spy ring hidden behind one of the rides, and a general occult atmosphere. So like Girl on the Trapeze this episode also has wacky visual content and focusses on the lives of carnie folk. Nurse Wilson is also in this one but just at the beginning.
This is also the earliest surviving episode with One-Ten (Douglas Muir). One Ten is Steed's boss. Folks who only know the Mrs Peel episodes might not know Steed has a boss! Over the first three seasons Steed in fact has several, usually identified only by number. but One Ten appears to be the first and the most frequently occurring. imdb lists One Ten in five other first season episodes . Here's a good shot of One-Ten if you've never seen him before:
When Steed first enters he is walking a huge Great Dane off the leash, named Puppy. Puppy apparently appeared in several other episodes this season, and this was the last, as in real life the poor woofer was hit by a car (and if you see this episode you won't be surprised). Steed is the owner of at least three other dogs over the next two seasons, and the giant smile Steed sports while letting his dog run loose shows a completely different character than the sinister spy who tortured a bad guy in the Frighteners.
the best shot of Puppy shows her and One-Ten together: Steed makes his boss dog sit while he goes undercover on a mission
Speaking of which, Steed's cover is carnival barker for a troupe of belly dancers. In these early days Steed is s shameless letch, always oggling the ladies and trying to pinch a bumcheek,
When I next get a chance I'll move on to Season 2, which is quite complicated, so I'll probably do it in three or four parts. I promise not to go on into so much depth per individual episode. its just this first season is a special case, and we have to sift through the few remains as close as we can to get any accurate sense of it. Let us hope that in the future, further episodes show up at the rate Doctor Who episodes surface, or at least better than one every fifteen years.
This is great, thank you @caractacus potts I hope they turn up on BritBox at some point, I was watching the final season with Tara King and it suddenly got withdrawn before I had the chance to see them all 🙁
Great Post. I have no problem with individual episode reviews !
I have not read all the posts here so, in case it has not been mentioned already 'The Avengers' is being shown on ITV4 every week day.
It's a series that I watch some times when I am able and enjoy it.
chrisno1 sez:
I have no problem with individual episode reviews !
oh I know you like individual episode reviews but my notes arent that detailed! I now realise I missed the first episode when Cathy dresses in all leathers, and thats the sort of thing I consider priority info (it was fairly early however, not her very first episode, but maybe fourth or fifth). I also wished I had paused more to get good screencaps, particularly of the apartment sets. its tuff to enjoy a show when you gotta keep pausing to get screencaps and make notes!
but as I say season 2 is in particular complicated, so I will have individual notes on each episode more or less at least until Cathys settles into her permanent role as Talented Amateur
coolhand sez:
I was watching the final season with Tara King and it suddenly got withdrawn before I had the chance to see them all
they are all up on archive.org, though that site's a bit difficult to search. also on the old-time TV streaming aggregator site Uncle Earl's
how to deal with Season 2? there's three different Talented Amateurs, and the episodes were recorded in a completely different order than they were broadcast. When watching in broadcast order its a bit odd that Cathy Gale disappears, and instead theres these other less interesting characters working with Steed, and also Cathy's character concept seems to change with certain episodes towards the end of the season.
Here is a table may "clarify" the order in which episodes were recorded (derived from this table found on the Mrs Peel We're Needed fansite)
but note Warlock (S2E18, broadcast January 26, 1963) was mostly recorded July 7 1962, with certain scenes rerecorded January 24, 1963. So it should really be the second Cathy episode on that list.
But one thing thats obvious at a glance is the three Martin King episodes were recorded first
so lets get those Martin King episodes out of the way first.
Ian Hendry left after the first season, and these three episodes are said to be unused Dr Keel episodes recycled for a new actor playing a marginally different character.
Dr. Martin King is played by Jon Rollason. The main difference is Dr King doesn’t seem to like Steed at all, and is angry whenever Steed shows up asking for his help, motivated only by his responsibilities as a doctor. He spends most of his time scowling and talking back to Steed, and is not very likable. Whereas Steed is all smiles and chuckles, which does not impress Dr King one bit. (Did nobody notice there was already a real life Dr Martin King prominent in American news at the time? Sixty years later the name seems an unfortunate coincidence)
King is accompanied by his own nurse character, Judy, played by Gillian Muir (real life daughter of Douglas Muir: One Ten).
First recorded and broadcast Dr King episode is Mission to Montreal (s2e05 broadcast October 27 1962), set on board an ocean liner, a rare adventure outside the country, about a boozy film star being blackmailed by spies. King appears amongst her retinue as her personal physician, at least for the length of the voyage, and Steed is undercover as ship's wine steward. The boozy actress is played by Patricia English and is most entertaining part of the episode.
Dead on Course (s2e14 broadcast December 29 1962) is maybe the most interesting of the three, closest to that weird factor we expect from the show: about an Irish convent that is luring airplanes to crash on the rocks the way pirates used to lure ships in Cornwall. The plane is from Montreal. Second Dr King episode involving Canada! I wonder if the show’s creator Sydney Newman was responsible for the Canadian content?
The Sell-Out (s2E09 broadcast . November 24 1962) is the final Dr King episode, though broadcast second. A fairly conventional Steed-guards-a-diplomat-from-assassins plot. At episodes end, Dr King declares he is done being a secret agent and stomps off never to be seen again. We also meet One Twelve (Arthur Hewlett), another of Steed’s bosses (I don't remember any explanation where One Ten went, but he'll be back).
Despite being recorded first, these three episodes were buried deep into the season. Audiences would already have seen three exciting Cathy Gale episodes, and the debut episode of Venus Smith, before suddenly being let down by the duller plots and less likable character of the Dr King episodes. And the remaining King episodes were each spaced out by at least five more exciting Cathy episodes, to reduce the chance of viewers giving up. Obviously the creators did not have much confidence in these episodes, and if it were today I'm sure these would be scheduled to coincide with evenings when viewership was already expected to be low.
Lets end the Dr King episodes with another shot of Steed undercover. Steed may be implicitly born to aristocracy ("scion of a noble family" I think he once explains) but his manners are so smooth he seems perfectly suited to a servant's role, and in at least two of the Cathy episodes (Death of a Great Dane and The Gilded Cage) we see he gets on with butlers much better than he does their masters. But of course this is all part of his shtick, that effortless self-deprecating charm is why he is such a good spy.
(and of course 20-odd years later he would go undercover as James Bond's valet!)
anyway, King doesn't like Steed much so I'm sure he enjoys seeing Steed refilling his wine glass while he hobnobs with the boozy film star.