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By FRANK BEHRENS
From January 7, 1961 to May
21, 1969, the British television viewing public
was treated to 161 episodes to a series called
"The Avengers." Originally starring two men -- Ian
Hendry as Dr. David Keel and Patrick Macnee as his
mysterious assistant -- fighting crime, the series
took off when Hendry was replaced by a man-tossing
and brainy female named Cathy Gale, played by
Honor Blackman. Women finally had a positive role
model.
When Blackman left, Diana Rigg took her place in
the character of Mrs. Emma Peel (a pun on M-appeal
or appealing to men), who lasted through episodes
#79-104 in black and white and episodes #105-129
in color. By now the Americans were hooked on the
series, especially with the rare combination of
Rigg's sexual attractions, her martial arts
abilities, and her classically-trained acting
talents. When she left to make a few poor films
and then to carve out a great career on the stage,
she was replaced by Linda Thorson, fresh out of
acting school, as Tara King. (They meet briefly at
the end of #129.)
For many years, A&E treated its viewers to reruns
of the Rigg and Thorson
episodes, but never the Blackman ones. Then, to
our great joy, the very old Blackman shows were
shown too, albeit with very fuzzy soundtracks.
Today the entire available series has seemed to
settle in on the Mystery Channel.
Now for those who either cannot get that channel
or simply wish to see any episode at any time, let
me assure you that A&E has completed their release
of every episode from #41 to 161 on video tapes
and on DVDs. (The Mystery Channel has shown some
of the even earlier episodes, and I wonder if A&E
is planning to add these to the existing sets.) I
have the DVDs and, besides the fact that they take
up about one-third of the space needed by the
tapes, they have the added advantages of allowing
one to skip easily to favorite scenes within each
episode and being impossible to get snarled in
your VCR playback heads.
Those who own none of them would do best to start
with the black and white Rigg sets, followed by
the color Rigg sets, which tended more toward
science-fiction plots. The Thorson ones are quite
good but tend to seem a little silly next to the
earlier shows, especially with the comicbook
character of Mother (Patrick Newell).
I realize that those of you who have never seen
this series might be puzzled as to all of these
references, but those familiar with the series
will certainly have fond memories of these stars
and the characters they played. And those of you
who saw the horrible film version of recent
memory, forget it. It lacked every element that
made this series so popular on both sides of the
Atlantic.
A hearty "Ta" (as the Brits say) to A&E for this
nearly complete sets of Avengers DVDs and tapes. |
