Review by Mike Martin
Stars Diana Rigg, Patrick Macnee, Ronald Fraser, Steven Berkoff, Gordon Jackson,
Geoffrey Palmer, Roy Kinnear, Peter Bowles, Patrick Cargill | Written by Brian Clemens & others
UK certification 12 | UK RRP £59.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 1,300 minutes | Directed by Various
Sexual chemistry – it’s such a hit and miss science, but when it happens, wow! This series was the first to feature Diana Rigg as Mrs Peel, who replaced Honor Blackman, and her banter with Patrick Macnee’s Steed is full of spark, very funny, playful and super sexy. When it works it works, when it doesn’t – well, a quick look at the Ralph Fiennes/Uma Thurman version is a reminder of how things can go wrong when there’s no chemistry.
It was also the first series to use actual film rather than videotape, and the last to be made in black and white, and it has scrubbed up quite beautifully – the crisp photography looks cracking, even when the directors use big close-ups for no reason. Well, it was the 60s.
The plots of the 26 episodes are pretty daft, sub James Bond cold war stuff, with Steed and Emma infiltrating various dubious organisations and flushing out the baddies – who always seem to have bad skin. One is a marriage service at which the members are being bumped off – run by Patrick Cargill no less – one is an old boys’ club who all seem to be throwing themselves under trucks. Talking of James Bond, in What The Butler Saw Steed is bantering with an RAF duffer and is asked if he was “downgraded to 007”. But it’s not the plots that are the attraction here, it’s the lead performances.
Rigg takes a huge amount of credit for the appeal of this series. Following Blackman must have seemed daunting, but she slides into the catsuit effortlessly. She has the perfect combination of qualities – strong yet vulnerable, physically intimidating, pretty yet approachable, glamorous and sexy, and very bright. Macnee is just starting to look a little old for the part, he struggles through various swordfights and wheezes through some chase sequences, but his chemistry with her is tangible. In the first episode he even risks a cheeky slap on her bottom with a sword.
Amazingly Rigg wasn’t the first choice - Eleanor Bron turned it down and Elizabeth Shepherd made one and a half episodes, but she was released. Another 20 actresses were auditioned before the casting director suggested that producers Brian Clemens and Albert Fennell look at an episode of Armchair Theatre featuring the relatively unknown Rigg (included on the discs here – all 52 minutes of it, which looks suspiciously like it was broadcast live). Her screen test with Macnee showed that the two worked well together.
In her fourth episode, Death at Bargain Prices, Mrs Peel takes an undercover job at a department store. Her uniform for promoting toys is a leather catsuit plus silver boots, sash, and welder’s gloves. The suit, minus the silver, became her signature look. In fact, some five episodes were not shown in the US because they were deemed too racy for prime-time audiences, and it’s easy to see why. A Touch of Brimstone featured Rigg's now infamous Queen of Sin outfit (corset, spiked dog collar and thigh high boots), as she tries to join the Hellfire Club. Rigg designed the outfit herself, which is strange because she looks decidedly uncomfortable in it. In addition original UK ITV transmissions heavily edited the final whipping scene between Mrs Peel and Cartney to one lash of the whip. Fetishists will be pleased to know it’s all restored here – and there’s also a colourised version of her unveiling, and the final whip scene. In fact, all the missing bits from the episodes which were cut simply to fit in more ads have been restored. Apparently there were quite a few cuts made for those pesky ads.
The female lead in the Avengers is a bit like Doctor Who or James Bond – everyone has their favourite, and will argue for hours as to who is the best. For me it’s a clear winner – Blackman was great, Linda Thorson was sweet, Joanna Lumley endearing, but Rigg simply tears up the screen as Mrs Peel. Series 4 sees her at her absolute peak, and what great fun it is. The box set has been lovingly put together and features a wealth of extras for completists, including some ‘reconstructions’ for a couple of episodes from series 1, now lost, with stills and voice-overs. There’s also a charming interview with Rigg, no more than three minutes long, in which she reveals an extraordinarily posh voice.
EXTRAS ★★★★★ Audio commentaries from director Roy Ward Baker (Town of No Return) and writer Brian Clemens (Town), Robert Banks Stewart (Master Minds), Roger Marshall (Dial A Deadly Number), Gerry O’Hara (House That Never Was), Don Leaver (House That Jack Built), episode of Armchair Theatre The Hothouse starring Diana Rigg, trailers, reconstructions for series 1 scripts Kill The King and Dead Of Winter, colourised test footage, French and German opening credits, stills gallery.