The Avengers

[Theta Sigma]

The Avengers ran between 1961 and 1969 and was created by Sydney Newman who also created Doctor Who.

The most common image people would have of The Avengers is that John Steed (Patrick Macnee) and Emma Peel (Diana Rigg). After all it is these two characters as played by Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman that was in the 1998 movie version.

However Emma Peel did not come on The Avengers until season 4 and while John Steed had been on the series from the beginning, Patrick Macnee was not the original lead of the show.

The original lead of the show was instead Ian Hendry who played Dr David Keel. Hendry was only on The Avengers for the first season. When production of the first season was cut short by an Equity strike, Ian Hendry had decided to quit to pursue a film career and Patrick Macnee took over the lead of the show from the second season.

Like fellow Sydney Newman creation Doctor Who and other shows of its time, The Avengers had episodes that has been wiped out. Badly affected by this purge is almost all of the Hendry season, with only two complete episodes in existence. Also in existence from the first season is what is left of the first episode Hot Snow. What is left of Hot Snow is Act One (the first 15 minutes of the episode):
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... type=&aq=f

Act One of Hot Snow sets up an intriguing beginning to The Avengers. Unfortunately, apart from his image in the title sequence, Act One does not include Patrick Macnee as Steed.

Ian Hendry would eventually return to the world of The Avengers in The New Avengers episode To Catch A Rat in 1976 but as a different character.

[Greg]

Hello? Sydney Newman was one of the people involved in creating a number of shows, including both Doctor Who and The Avengers, but, as I have said here previously, it is grossly inaccurate to described as the creator. Lots of research has been done by Tv historians and fans of the shows, which reveals as much as can be reasonably recalled about the gestation of the shows.

Here's what the British Film Institute has to say about the creation of the show in its (short) article about The Avengers:

The Avengers (ITV, 1960-1969) is one of British TV's greatest successes, although the series, best remembered for its mix of outlandish plotting and tongue-in-cheek humour, started life as an altogether more mundane affair.

Howard Thomas, managing director of ITV broadcaster ABC, suggested to his director of drama, Sydney Newman, that the company's output could benefit from a crime thriller. While these discussions were taking place it became clear that producer Leonard White was having problems with one of the company's shows, Police Surgeon (ITV, 1960). The series' star, Ian Hendry, was popular with audiences but the programme was not performing as well as hoped.

Rather than discard the series, Newman and White decided to refashion it into something closer to Newman's idea for a lightweight thriller. In the revised format Hendry would play Dr David Keel, a reprise in all but name of his Police Surgeon character Dr Geoffrey Brent, but this time he would be partnered by a slightly shady secret agent, John Steed (Patrick Macnee).

Source

Here's what a fan-site, Avengers Forever says:

Giving birth to The Avengers

The Avengers was less a brand new series and more a reworking of Police Surgeon. While Sydney Newman is rightfully credited as the show's creator, what exactly had he created? Oddly enough, not all that much. He came up with the name ("I don't know what the f**k it means," he's been quoted as remarking, "but it's a great title!") and the two main characters—a doctor (inherited from Police Surgeon) and a spy. Newman then gathered together some writers, gave them the basic ingredients, and told them to "do something with it."

One of the writers was none other than Brian Clemens. To hear his version of the show's history, one might conclude he had single-handedly created the show himself from scratch. In truth, it would be safe to say that Clemens was a significant contributor, as Newman only provided the most minimal of ingredients. Together with another writer, Ray Rigby, Clemens adapted a story by a third writer, Patrick Brown, into the show's two-part pilot, aired as the episodes "Hot Snow" and "Brought to Book."

Others must also be credited for helping to shape the nascent show, including the directors, designers and actors—in particular, Ian Hendry. After going through the motions for the first few episodes, Hendry realized the potential for career development and began fleshing out his character in earnest. It is said he would sometimes throw out whole scripts and force writers into eleventh-hour rewrites. During this "revolutionary" period Patrick Macnee provided moral support, but only after Hendry convinced Macnee it was worth the effort.

Source

As you mave noticed, I really hate to have the vital contributions of creative people ignored by glib statements that credit a producer, who took some elements he was given, added something of his own, and then got a bunch of other people to flesh out into the show that people remember and love.

Newman's original idea for The Avengers had two male leads; the show only truly became successful when one of the leads was a woman. The idea that Newman put forward for Doctor Who had the Doctor as a significant character, though not the lead, and had no bug-eyed monsters. The show's success started with the arrival of the Daleks, to whom Newman objected, and didn't fully achieve its well-remembered for until the Doctor was the ead, which happened gradually over the first year.

TV shows and movies require the collaborative efforts of many people to realise. Naming one person and one person only as the creator is just plain wrong.

Hey, I've got a spare soapbox if anyone wants to climb on it.

[Theta Sigma]

The Big Thinker:
Season 2, Episode 12.
A John Steed-Cathy Gale episode.
Cathy appears in most of this episode without Steed as Steed only appears for a total of less than ten minutes.
Not a bad plot involving Cathy investigating sabotage on a super computer known as Plato.

[Sutekh]

Love The Avengers -I have the 1963/64 Cathy Gale seasons on DVD from the Contender releases of 2002ish, but have never watcheds them all. Will need to do so soon!

[Theta Sigma]

The Big Thinker:
Season 2, Episode 12.
A John Steed-Cathy Gale episode.
Cathy appears in most of this episode without Steed as Steed only appears for a total of less than ten minutes.
Not a bad plot involving Cathy investigating sabotage on a super computer known as Plato.

The Big Thinker is among a bunch of episodes sent to me by a fellow Doctor Who fan.

The White Dwarf:
Season 2, Episode 21.
Pretty good episode from Malcolm Hulke involving a prediction made by an astronomer predicting that the entry to the solar system of a small star could result in Earth's destruction.
As commented on theavengers.tv, The White Dwarf is certainly more enjoyable than Hollywood movies that looked into this subject like Armageddon & Deep Impact.
As a bit of a jest, given the episode's name I wonder how Malcolm Hulke would have handled a Red Dwarf script.

[Theta Sigma]

Don't Look Behind You:
Season 3, Episode 12.
This Cathy Gale episode was later remade into the Emma Peel episode The Joker (which I saw more than a decade ago).
Cathy gets invited to a house in which someone mysterious is watching her.
A very chilling episode with Honor Blackman as Cathy being very good in what she has been given here.

[Theta Sigma]

Warlock:
Season 2, Episode 18.
Only just an ok episode with Peter Arne quite good as the warlock of the title.
John Hollis also does well as another baddie.

[Theta Sigma]

In DWM's 200 Golden Moments issue Mark Wright wrote about The Seeds of Doom saying that Harrison Chase could easily have crossed swords with John Steed and Emma Peel in The Avengers.

They might as well have since The Seeds of Dooms parallels one of the Avengers episode Man-Eater of Surrey Green.

[Theta Sigma]

There is a reference to The Avengers in the Doctor Who novel To The Slaughter. In a description of a female character, author Stephen Cole wrote:
"Like a size 20 Cathy Gale she high-kicked and jabbed her way through the rabid crowd".

[Theta Sigma]

Death of a Batman:
Season 3, Episode 5.
Rather a confusing episode.
Cathy being undercover as a secretary was the only thing I enjoyed about it.

[Theta Sigma]

Esprit de Corps:
Season 3, Episode 25.
Apart from Roy Kinnear (the first of four appearances on the series) and the prospect of Cathy becoming Queen found very little to enjoy of this episode.

[Theta Sigma]

Mandrake:
Season 3, Episode 18.
Pretty good episode in which the recent death of a former colleague of Steed may have been the result of foul play.
Highlight of the episode is when Cathy had a fight with Sexton in the cemetery!

[Theta Sigma]

Castle De'ath:
Season 4, Episode 5.
An Emma Peel episode.
De'ath is the name of a Scottish clan and it sees Steed and Emma investigate the clan's castle.
Playing the laird is Gordon Jackson which is basically like the opposite to his role as Hudson the butler in Upstairs, Downstairs.
Pretty good mystery involving ghosts, torture chambers and submarine bays.

[Theta Sigma]

Whoever Shot Poor George Oblique Stroke XR40?:
Season 7, Episode 6.
A Tara King episode.
That is quite a title for an episode.
George of the title refers to a robot who gets shot and injured for vital information that he possesses. Quite silly the concern shown to George's welfare as he was a real human being.
A pretty good episode for Tara especially when she pretends to be an American and I did not see it coming on who the chief villain was here.

[Theta Sigma]

Legacy of Death:
Season 7, Episode 9.
Written by Terry Nation and also noticed that he was the script editor.
Quite notable that the episode's name when presented on-screen is accompanied by the Chinese subtitle.
When Steed inherits a dagger every interested party is after him as the dagger is the key to a buried treasure.
The plot seems akin to the movie It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World as it is a jolly good fun episode. However the water torture scene on Tara was a bit disturbing to look at.
The episode guest starred Richard Hurndall and although Hurndall never appeared in a Doctor Who story by Legacy of Death writer Terry Nation he did however encounter a Dalek, created by Terry Nation, in his one-off as the First Doctor in The Five Doctors.

[Theta Sigma]

Look - (Stop Me If You've Heard This One) But There Were These Two Fellers...
Season 7, Episode 11.
Written by Dennis Spooner.
Guest starred John Cleese and Bernard Cribbins.
Very very fun episode involving killer clowns.

[Theta Sigma]

Get-A-Way!:
Penultimate episode of the series.
Enemy agents have escaped from a high security prison and carrying out their assignments in assassinating their targets which include Steed.
The methods of their escape I have to say is very implausible.
Playing Steed's would-be assassin is Peter Bowles and he and Patrick Macnee play off well against each other.
The high security prison is disguised as a monastery and one of the fake monks was played by Michael Culver. Three decades later he played a real monk in the TV series Cadfael.

[Theta Sigma]

Have Guns - Will Haggle:
Season 7, Episode 12.
Rifles are being stolen and placed on auction by the female villain Adriana played by Nicola Pagett. Nicola Pagett makes for a good villain but can't help to think of her as being like the villainous version of her Upstairs Downstairs character some years before that show.

[Theta Sigma]

Wish You Were Here:
Season 7, Episode 20.
Tara tracks down her missing uncle at a holiday resort where no one is allowed to leave.
Yes you guess it this is a parody of Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner.
Wish You Were Here was originally aired on November 18 1968, nine months after The Prisoner had concluded on February 4 1968.
I sort of guess who the mastermind was here.
Linda Thorson as Tara shines brightly here which was helped with Patrick Macnee's limited appearance in this episode as Tara gets all the action here.

[Theta Sigma]

My Wildest Dream:
Season 7, Episode 28.
Sleepwalkers are being hypnotised in committing murder.
Not a bad premise to this episode and one has to take pity on Edward Fox's character on what he had to go through here.