The Avengers Dossier

by Paul Cornell, Martin Day, Keith Topping

Genres: Science Fiction

Synopsis

More than any other series, THE AVENGERS typified the Swinging Sixties - beginning in 1961 with Patrick Macnee starring with Ian Hendry in a grainy, realistic spy thriller, and ending in 1969 with Macnee and the glamorous Linda Thorson blasting off into space in a surreal episode appropriately entitled 'Bizarre'. Meanwhile we had seen the memorable Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg in roles unusually progressive for British television. THE NEW AVENGERS in the mid-seventies reflected changing times but retained the essence of the show - as Macnee returned to play alongside another strong, independent heroine in the form of Joanna Lumley's Purdey. And then there was the film... THE AVENGERS DOSSIER is a uniquely comprehensive yet humorous survey of all the show's incarnations. As well as a remarkably detailed episode guide to both series - even covering the kinkiness factor and champagne count in both - this volume gives behind the scenes insights and revelations about every aspect of the programme. The film and its production are examined, and critical essays look at the history behind the cult.

Release date: October 31, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 192

Sample

The Avengers: the name summons up so many images. As this book will show, the series was one of television’s great chameleons, able to change style, content and even format to fit in with changing times, attitudes and viewing habits.

Thanks to the recent video releases by Lumiere Pictures Ltd, a whole new generation is being introduced to the delights of The Avengers. The aim of this book is to provide a useful reference guide to this varied and continually surprising series. Lumiere have stated that they intend to release all of the existing episodes, which means everything bar the first season, of which only one episode (‘The Frighteners’) is known still to exist.

This book is written in a less analytical way than various other television episode guides, for three reasons. Firstly, readers may be about to see the episodes for the first time, and we wouldn’t dream of giving away every single twist ending and plot detail. Secondly, such a dry approach would be indescribably boring for both you and us. Thirdly, there was never a programme less suited to the ‘plot-cast list-producer’s assistant’ approach than The Avengers.

In September 1960, ABC Television, who provided programmes for several ITV regions at weekends, began transmitting Police Surgeon, a thriller series starring Ian Hendry as Dr Geoffrey Brent. The series seemed to lack something, though Hendry was obviously destined for great things. Thankfully, one of television’s great innovators intervened.

Sydney Newman was a Canadian television executive who’d been headhunted by ABC (they offered him £8,500 a year, a Jaguar and a free mortgage) in an attempt to make their television more ‘modern’. He gave them Armchair Theatre and The Avengers, not so much a format as a great title, since he had no idea who should be avenging what. (The BBC took him on a couple of years later and got Doctor Who, another back-of-the-envelope idea that ran forever.) Newman fleshed out the idea with writers Ray Rigby and Brian Clemens, the latter of whom would come to dominate the way the programme was made, with results both positive and negative. This time around, Hendry would be Dr David Keel, avenging the death of his girlfriend with help from secret service spook John Steed, played by Patrick Macnee.

Macnee wasn’t the star of the series, but he was well placed to emerge as its defining presence. The stylish actor was more mature than most leading men of his day, having a young child to look after, and having spent time as a television producer. This gave him the authority to quietly shape the show as it progressed, especially in the matter of the support he gave his various leading ladies against those who wanted to make them more ‘feminine’. If we might indulge in a little amateur psychology, it is tempting to think that Macnee’s bizarre upbringing (he was raised as a girl, a trait he shares with that other combative icon of the 60s, Bruce Lee) might have contributed to the rather before-its-time respect that John Steed as a character shows to women. Macnee himself comes over as a kind, witty and humble man (‘I work on the lower slopes,’ he once said while praising Diana Rigg’s acting talents). He does himself down. As a television actor, an early example of a new breed, he is constantly watchable, communicating directly to the audience and capable of a great degree of subtlety. When The Avengers is at its worst, Patrick Macnee is still there making it interesting. He is greatly responsible for its longevity.

After The New Avengers finished production, Brian Clemens tried to resurrect the format three times. A pilot script for The Avengers USA was eventually made as the TV movie Escapade by Quinn Martin Productions. In 1980, Clemens and Dennis Spooner collaborated on a potential TV movie with CBS in mind (John Cleese was strongly tipped to play the villain), but nothing came of it. Finally, in 1985, a pilot for The Avengers International was commissioned by Taft Entertainment, but didn’t make it to production. Rumours frequently surface in the popular press about a major Hollywood movie based on Steed and Mrs Peel, usually involving Mel Gibson. Perhaps we should make our position clear. The Avengers stars Patrick Macnee as John Steed. Without him, it’s clearly something else.

How to use the guide

The Avengers Dossier discusses the 161 episodes of the series made between 1961 and 1969, and also the 26 episodes of The New Avengers made in 1976 and 1977. The two series were made in nine blocks of episodes, or ‘seasons’. For example, the first season of The Avengers was the block of 26 episodes made between January and December 1961. Some other books have chosen to lump together seasons five and six (the 24 colour Diana Rigg episodes) as one season, but these episodes were made in two distinct batches (sixteen and eight episodes respectively) and broadcast as such, with a five month gap between ‘Who’s Who???’ and ‘The Return of the Cybernauts’. For this reason, you may see the Tara King episodes incorrectly described as season six elsewhere. We insist that they form the seventh season.

Sorry about all that. Good form, you know.

We give each season a general introduction, recording transmission information, production and casting notes, and an overview of how the show was developing. We’ve also included a ‘top five episodes’ list to provoke a few arguments. We finish with two critical essays on the series.

The format for our guide to an individual episode is as follows:

Episode number Title

Date (and time) of transmission Working Title and/or approx. production dates

By-line

The by-lines – a short, witty episode description – appeared on screen after the episode title in the fifth season. These were used for publicity purposes during the Cathy Gale era, and continued into the seventh season in TV Times, although not on screen. If we’re aware of the by-line, we show it. The time of transmission for a particular group of episodes, if known, is shown once (for example, at the start of a season), and is only indicated again when the time of transmission changes.

Writer

Among celebrated TV writers who wrote for The Avengers were Dennis Spooner (creator of The Champions, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and Department S), Robert Banks Stewart (creator of Shoestring and Bergerac), and Terry Nation (Blake’s 7, Survivors). As Brian Clemens notes, ‘Between the mid-60s and the early 70s all the episodic film series in this country were being written by about eight writers… We’d say to one of them “Can you do us a quick script?” We tended to lean on each other.’

Director

The old videotaped episodes were directed by TV stalwarts like Bill Bain and Don Leaver, but when we get to film, and thus exterior shoots, bigger budgets and greater opportunities for artistic tomfoolery, various important names get in on the act. Ealing comedy veteran Charles Crichton (A Fish Called Wanda), Leslie Norman (Barry’s Dad) and Robert Fuest (60s pop-art designer and director of The Final Programme) become some of the names in the tight little group of directors the show employed.

Guest Cast

Including some surprisingly big names. If somebody appeared in a minor role before going on to wider fame we’ve often drawn attention to this via a separate category, ‘With A Young…’. Our information is derived, where ever possible, from on-screen credits.

Brief Plot Description

Then we look at various aspects of the episode in greater detail. The various subheadings we use change somewhat from season to season, often reflecting the changing nature of the programme. We’ve taken care to provide an indication of the relative importance of the four Important Avengers Things in each episode, namely Wit, Kinkiness, Champagne and Fights.

Wit: The series can be seen as a reaction to the late 50s advance of ‘kitchen sink drama’, even amongst its own writers. The fact that a writer like James Mitchell, who created When the Boat Comes In and Callan, could also work extensively on an escapist spy series (albeit in the early years) indicates that perhaps there was some element of release from the abiding social concerns of the time, of ‘having fun’, as it were. First season episodes tended to be more gritty than witty, with their own wry and cynical humour. However, as early as the second season, writers like Roger Marshall and Martin Woodhouse were introducing verbal repartee and satire. (The show was often competing with That Was the Week That Was on Saturday nights, and trying to lure the same young, urbane audience.)

In 1964, the series moved from videotape to film, and Emma Peel arrived. Brian Clemens and Philip Levene took The Avengers right to the edge, and hopped precisely and successfully along that fine line between ‘witty’ and ‘stupid’. Unfortunately, when Tara arrived, Clemens fell right over the other side. Many fans regard the seventh season as a failure because it was ‘silly’, but in fact the problem is exactly the opposite. The scripts suddenly become bereft of wit and verbal humour, and in their place we get ever more bizarre concepts, humorous visual conceits and laboured character play. The character of Mother, widely criticised for being a ‘comedy sidekick’, is in actual fact a very serious man in a wheelchair. He just happens to be surrounded by surreal visuals and bizarre incidents, pumped up to try and inject some interest into a series of flat and stone-faced scripts.

Kinkiness Factor: So much for political correctness. The Avengers was kinky. Sometimes very kinky. Sometimes very feminist as a result, bizarrely. Strong female characters in leather dish out stylised violence to men. And, erm, get tied up a lot. We’ve listed all this with a sort of resigned glee. Please don’t hurt us. Well, not too much anyway.

Champagne: One of the icons on which the series was based, but surprisingly this (very expensive) commodity doesn’t really arrive until it becomes part of the title sequence in season five. Of course, it’s all over the place in the Tara season as the people in charge make a desperate effort to make it Avengers-ish. When there’s no champers, we’ve mentioned other important alcohol-related things. With all of this boozing going on, it’s a wonder the characters weren’t too legless to catch the Diabolical Masterminds.

Fights: The Avengers made an important contribution to society in that it popularised the idea of self-defence for women, making it stylish instead of unfeminine. It also introduced a whole new vocabulary to that most visual of artforms, the onscreen punch-up. In Cathy Gale, television had its first fighting woman. In Emma Peel, it had its second. In Tara King it had somebody who could do some damage with a brick in her handbag, but only if her dress didn’t get in the way. By the time ‘Fights’ became ‘Violence’ in The New Avengers, different rules applied. The series was then starting to follow, rather than create, the trends.

60s Concerns: Aspects of particular episodes that either reflected or, in some cases, predicted, what was going on in the real world. The series was made in an era when global mass communication was starting to make society’s problems into world affairs. In other words, you don’t need to live in England to understand the people in The Avengers, because in the 60s the English agenda was suddenly everybody’s agenda. The series as a whole tackled sexism, the cold war and class politics, usually by ignoring such issues completely in circumstances where any sane series would have raised them. That’s what we call a tackle. The New Avengers had less obvious material to work with, and most of their ’70s concerns’ are hangovers from the 60s. Like the hippy children they were, they’re an unhappy breed.

Strangeness: Another standard element of the filmed episodes. We have tried to highlight both intentional strangeness (aspects of surrealism and general strangeness) and unintentionally odd aspects of visual style, script, set designs, etc.

Eccentrics: The mid-period Avengers likes to include several per episode, but they thin out before and after. Eccentrics often have names that reflect their obsessions, and occupy uncommercial little shops or stately homes in green-belt Hertfordshire. They either want to rule the world (as Steed says, ‘What’s so good about that job anyway?’) or are killed by those that do.

Medical Subplots: In the David Keel/Martin King episodes, someone often had to get injured in an unusual way to justify Steed involving his GP mates. After a season of this, Cathy or Venus just ‘being there’ was a welcome change.

Scenes In a Nightclub: Mainly applicable to the Venus episodes (where she’d do a full number with the Dave Lee Trio as a sort of bizarre musical interlude), as it’s surprising how few times Emma and Tara went out grooving. Too busy chasing Diabolical Masterminds, no doubt.

Other Categories: Most of our other whims are largely self-explanatory. ‘They Leave’ refers to the final scene of each fourth-season episode, where Steed and Emma would trundle off in a variety of different modes of transport. The New Avengers utilises such headings as ‘Gambit’s Conquests’, ‘Fashion Victims’ and ‘Porno Funk Music Factor’ because… Well, just because.

Notes: These are used to highlight an episode’s strengths or weaknesses, and to provide information on continuity (there is a little) and character development. We also seek to highlight unique elements and running themes, and note the real-life locations of certain episodes or scenes. Most of the location filming was done in the area surrounding Borehamwood. Possibly the most famous Avengers location is the bridge that Tara runs across in the season seven title sequence (Emma walks along its wall in ‘The Hour That Never Was’, and it’s also in ‘Two’s a Crowd’, ‘You Have Just Been Murdered’, ‘They Keep Killing Steed’ and the sweet opening sequence of ‘Honey for the Prince’). It crosses the river Colne just outside Borehamwood. The tiny village of Aldbury, for example, also makes several appearances, becoming Swingingdale in ‘Dead Man’s Treasure’, while nearby Bushby provided the locations for, amongst others, ‘Death’s Door’. These charming English rural settings no doubt help to explain the continuing fascination with the series, particularly in America.

Occasionally we also feature a ‘Trivia’ heading for real Avengers buffs.

German/French Titles: Dubbed, the series was massively popular in both countries. In Germany it was Mit Schirm, Charme und Melone (‘With Umbrella, Charm and Bowler’) and in France Chapeau Melon et Bottes de Cuir (‘Bowler Hat and Leather Boots’). Clearly, both preferred titles that reflected aesthetic elements rather than Sydney Newman’s more subtle vision. (It could have been worse. Man in a Suitcase in France became Un Homme dans une Valeise!) We’ve included some of the odder German and French episode titles.

Introduction

It is common knowledge that The Avengers began life as a spy-thriller with few of the elements that went on to make it famous across the globe, and yet one remains surprised by just how different this first season is from that which followed. It would be wrong to apply retrospective criteria to it and to criticise it for not being ‘proper’ Avengers from the start, but when episodes deal with the effects of a hurricane or a shipment of rotten fruit, you do begin to wonder what on earth a British agent and his medical ‘helper’ are doing investigating such rubbish.

Even such gentle questioning is partly misplaced. It is true that such areas would be of trifling importance in the fantasy-land of later Avengers seasons, but, of course, in the real world such concerns are of the utmost importance to the individuals involved. And the series wasn’t about a shadowy agent and the doctor who helped him, but about a doctor who, after the death of his fiancée, developed an increasing knack for discovering subterfuge and danger in the course of his medical duties. At such times Dr Keel would go to Steed for help. Patrick Macnee’s Steed became the vital element, and as the series progressed episodes would tend to alternate their emphasis between the two main characters, sometimes being given ‘assignments’ by Steed’s superiors. However, right until the end of this season, Ian Hendry as Dr Keel was the starring performance and, indeed, at the heart of the programme’s existence.

The genesis of The Avengers lay in the decision of Howard Thomas, the Managing Director of ABC, to approach Sydney Newman, Head of Drama, with a request for something a little lighter than Newman’s Armchair Theatre to further fill out the schedules. It was 1960, and the style considered was somewhere between Hitchcock’s films and the James Bond books (Dr No, the first Bond film, was not released until two years later). Ian Fleming’s books – like the earliest Bond movies – were gritty, powerful thrillers, tempered by a likeable leading character, glamorous locations and a hint of the unusual. (As with The Avengers, the gadget-driven comic-book tomfoolery came later.) The Avengers should, Newman felt, bring such a style to television and, whilst there simply wouldn’t be the money there to go jetting around the world, Newman always believed that nothing was too difficult if one poured enough enthusiasm and energy into a project.

It seems that the source of that energy was Ian Hendry, already popular through Police Surgeon. Patrick Macnee, in a letter to TV Zone magazine, described Hendry as ‘the fountainhead – the inspiration, the genius’.

Police Surgeon ran for thirteen 30-minute episodes between September and December 1960, with Hendry playing the compassionate Dr Geoffrey Brent. Despite Hendry, though, it seemed to be going nowhere fast, and the style was too mundane, too cops-and-robbers. However, Newman perceived some added frisson in Hendry continuing to play a doctor. He and the producer of the later episodes of Police Surgeon, Leonard White, created the character who was to be Dr Keel’s link with the Secret Service, John Steed. Other links between the two series include Ingrid Hafner, who appeared in both shows, writer Richard Harris and many technical personnel (directors Don Leaver and Guy Verney, designer Alpho O’Reilly).

Comparing the stories that ensued to Newman and White’s ‘vision’ – at least if White’s internal memos are anything to go by – it almost seems that the writers were reticent to fully take on board the ethos that the show was intended to have. A lot of the early plots were fairly conventional and rather too dark; the locations and characters were mundane. Far from featuring ‘beautiful, attractive, unusual women’, many stories were masculine power-struggles and almost dull to boot. Of ‘wit, humour and grace’ there was little. In addition, those episodes concentrating on Keel proved much more difficult to write. Although the characters of Keel and Steed were interesting, with their long macs and their tendency to puff on fags they were hardly discernable from other fictional spies of the time.

And yet… There was something there. Despite the dull plots involving arson and small-time crooks, the clichéd gangsters and thugs, the occasional groaning lack of wit, White’s insistence as to what The Avengers should be began to pay off. Dennis Spooner’s two scripts stand out as at least fulfilling White’s desire to have unusual locations and ‘something to intrigue the intelligence, however lightly’. Despite that, and the slightly odd attempts of Peter Ling and Sheilagh Ward to bring glamour into this very male world, the tone was effectively set by the first two stories, which interlocked well with their grim tale of competing drug-peddling gangs. Max Marquis’s ‘Diamond Cut Diamond’ almost seemed to try to out-grit those stories around it, with Steed accused of murder whilst on a ‘stake out’ in a bungalow once owned by a suicide in One-Ten’s department. Of champagne and kinkiness we find, to no one’s real surprise, barely a trace. Macnee’s insight into the first season is interesting, and again plays up Hendry’s unique role: ‘It started live, and was entirely based on the skills of Sydney Newman, Peter Hammond, Don Leaver but most of all Ian Hendry because he wasn’t just an actor, he was a writer, an innovator – a great and talented man… I once saw him take a script and rewrite it from scratch. The writers we had on The Avengers were great writers but Ian treated them like hacks, which only made them work harder. We also had some of the best designers in the world: Jim Goddard, Tim O’Brian, Bob Fuest, just an incredible design department. Together, they helped to create shows that captured the British public’s fancy.’

Logic indicates that The Avengers should have sunk without trace: after the first season, the star left, and the show had proved only partly successful at bringing its ‘unique selling point’ to life. It didn’t vanish from our screens, and, at its best, the first season gives a tiny hint why.

Transmission Details

The transmission details are as ABC. ABC were almost the only region to broadcast all 26 episodes. Other ITV regions joined during February and March 1961, transmitting recordings of ‘Hot Ice’ and ‘Brought to Book’ before joining the ABC networked episodes. From March to September 1961 the series alternated with Deadline Midnight. An Equity strike caused the delay between ‘Kill the King’ and ‘Dead of Winter’.

26 b&w episodes (60 mins)ABC Television

Producer. Leonard White

Script Editors: Patrick Brawn, John Bryce and Anthony Read (?) (all uncredited)

The Avengers theme composed and played by Johnny Dankworth

Regular Cast: Ian Hendry (Dr David Keel, episodes 1–25), Patrick Macnee (John Steed, episodes 1–5, 7–20, 22–26), Ingrid Hafner (Carol Wilson, episodes 2 – 4, 6 – 3, 15, 16, 18, 20, 22–25)

Douglas Muir (One-Ten, episodes 7, 14, 17, 20, 24).

1

‘Hot Snow’

7 January 1961, 10.00pm

Recorded: 30 December 1960

Writer: Ray Rigby

(based on a story by Patrick Brown)

Director: Don Leaver

Guest Cast: Philip Stone (Dr Richard Tredding), Catherine Woodville (Peggy), Gordon Quigley (Spicer), Murray Melvin (Charlie), Charles Wade (Johnson), Alister Williamson (DS Wilson), Moira Redmond (Stella), Astor Sklair (Sgt Rogers), June Monkhouse (Mrs Simpson). Uncredited: Robert James (Ronnie Vance).

Following the death of his fiancée, Peggy, at the hands of a gang of heroin smugglers, Dr David Keel vows to track down the killers and avenge his lost love. He is aided in his quest by a mysteriou. . .