The Avengers - The Complete Emma Peel Megaset (1966) Review

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(More customer reviews) The immensely popular ABC series called "The Avengers" has long since achieved legendary status since it appeared back in January 1961. Since then there have been 161 episodes, which break into four major sections. We have the early episodes (1-26) with Patrick Macnee as John Steed and Ian Hendry as Dr. Keel. Then the "Cathy Gail" series (27-78) with Honor Blackman as Cathy Gale, the man-tossing, leather-covered intellectual who broke new ground for female characters on television. Even more popular was the black and white series (79-104) with Diana Rigg and Emma Peel (read "M[en] appeal "), which led not unexpectedly to the color series with Rigg (105-129). Then the final section with Linda Thorson as Tara King (129-- in which she co-starred with Rigg-161).
As of this writing, the early episodes in the Gale series and all of the King series are not yet available. However, A&E has just released all of the Rigg entries, both the black and whites and the color, in a wonderful boxed set called "The Avengers: the Complete Emma Peel Mega-Set." And Mega, I suppose, is as good as any adjective to describe the enjoyment value of the contents therein. We have here all the Rigg episodes, including the transition entry in which Tara takes over for Emma, on 16 DVDs, each holding 3 episodes with an occasional 4th as a "bonus."
Those who have never seen them before will want, of course, to watch them in order. Others will want to jump to their favorite episodes, which is pretty easy on DVD. You will notice that the black and whites were less studio-bound and the sets in general more realistic. With the first color episode, the series took a strong science fiction bent; and the sets, as the producers admitted, were more a view of England as the Americans would like to think it is.
You will also have a lot of fun spotting stars-to-be. There is Donald Sutherland, Brian Blessed and Charlotte Rampling in "The Superlative Seven," Peter Bowles in "Dial a Deadly Number" and "Escape in Time," Geoffrey Palmer in "A Surfeit of H2O," and Christopher Lee in "Never, Never Say Die." It was a policy that no actor could appear more than once a season, so Bowles and Lee, for example, would have to wait for the King series to play other characters. In fact, the only characters as such to reappear in the color Rigg series from the black and whites is the bumbling Brodny (Warren Mitchell) who can be found in "Two's a Crowd" and "The See-Through Man" and the evil assistant (Frederick Jaeger) to the Cybernaut-master.
And for more fun, see how many actors from "Are You Being Served?" you can spot? There are three in all.
The most frequent repeat actor seems to be comedian Roy Kinnear, who also has the honor of being in the very last King episode in the role of Bagpipes Happychap. And then we have rotund Patrick Newell who was murdered in the very first Rigg entry, drugged in a color one, and wound up as Mother in the King series.
But all in all, it is the interplay between Macnee and Rigg that really made this program work. Unlike Cathy Gale, who seemed actively to dislike Steed when she was not merely tolerating him, Mrs. Peel had a genuine fondness for him and was not averse to stirring his tea (anticlockwise, as he preferred it). And as for the question of Peel and Steed being lovers, recall that they are fictional characters and have no life off the screen.
The dialogue was light hearted, and you seldom if ever saw blood after a mere trickle in their third episode. You also never saw a policeman, an element that for some reason the producers thought would be a jarring note. (You figure out why; I cannot.)
The best episodes? There is no question that "The House That Jack Built" leads the pack. This is the one in which Emma finds herself in a house designed to drive her mad and Steed appears only at the start and end. The worst? Possibly "Silent Dust." The silliest? That has to be "Epic." The most serious? "Murdersville." So what if the package costs a small fortune? You could purchase them separately, of course; but think of what you would be missing.

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Avengers '66 - Set 1, Vol. 1 & 2 (1966) Review

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(More customer reviews)These DVD's from A&E represent the best known and certainly the most popular era of the long running British TV fantasy-adventure series "The Avengers." Made between 1965 and 1966, all 26 episodes of the fourth season of the show are available here on four discs.
When Honor Blackman (Mrs. Cathy Gale) left the series after season 3 to take up the lead role in the Bond movie "Goldfinger," the producers had already made the decision to start filming the series, moving it out of the TV studio and giving it a much glossier and dynamic feel. John Steed (Patrick MacNee), the debonair British government agent stayed on and his new partner was devised by the production team to be another tough, all-action girl with "Man Appeal." M-Appeal (geddit?) Elizabeth Shepherd was cast as Mrs. Emma Peel and two episodes were filmed before it was mutually agreed that she didn't meet the expectations of the production team. A quick replacement was sought and in stepped Diana Rigg. A TV legend was born.
The relationship between Steed and Mrs. Gale had always been haughty to say the least. With the introduction of the widowed (or seemingly) Mrs. Peel, the relationship between the two leads became much closer. Mrs. Peel was as intelligent, quick thinking and emasculated as her predecessor, and initially at least shared her penchant for leather outfits, but she was also certainly softer and more readily prepared to act as Steed's partner in their adventures.
The stories were certainly becoming much more fantasy bound, and the use of diabolical masterminds and organizations with bizarre acronyms became the norm for the stories from this series on. The fantasy and sci-fi elements of the show were highlighted more than before and the fashions and design of the show took on a much more stylish and indeed `stylized' look. The success of these elements was immediate, and huge ratings in the UK followed, plus overseas transmissions of the show followed for the first time. Such was their success indeed that another 26 episodes were soon commissioned, this time to be made in color.
The stories have supposedly been digitally re-mastered for these DVD releases, and indeed the picture quality is pretty impressive, but there is still sparkle and dirt on the prints that may detract from the quality for some viewers. The 26 episodes are presented in the same order of their original UK transmission.
This for me is the very best season of the show, with great style and wit accompanying the excellent scripts, direction and production values. I'd certainly recommend this release to anyone.

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The Avengers - The Complete Emma Peel Megaset (2006 Collector's Edition) (1966) Review

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(More customer reviews) The immensely popular ABC series called "The Avengers" has long since achieved legendary status since it appeared back in January 1961. Since then there have been 161 episodes, which break into four major sections. We have the early episodes (1-26) with Patrick Macnee as John Steed and Ian Hendry as Dr. Keel. Then the "Cathy Gail" series (27-78) with Honor Blackman as Cathy Gale, the man-tossing, leather-covered intellectual who broke new ground for female characters on television. Even more popular was the black and white series (79-104) with Diana Rigg and Emma Peel (read "M[en] appeal "), which led not unexpectedly to the color series with Rigg (105-129). Then the final section with Linda Thorson as Tara King (129-- in which she co-starred with Rigg-161).
As of this writing, the early episodes in the Gale series and all of the King series are not yet available. However, A&E has just released all of the Rigg entries, both the black and whites and the color, in a wonderful boxed set called "The Avengers: the Complete Emma Peel Mega-Set." And Mega, I suppose, is as good as any adjective to describe the enjoyment value of the contents therein. We have here all the Rigg episodes, including the transition entry in which Tara takes over for Emma, on 16 DVDs, each holding 3 episodes with an occasional 4th as a "bonus."
Those who have never seen them before will want, of course, to watch them in order. Others will want to jump to their favorite episodes, which is pretty easy on DVD. You will notice that the black and whites were less studio-bound and the sets in general more realistic. With the first color episode, the series took a strong science fiction bent; and the sets, as the producers admitted, were more a view of England as the Americans would like to think it is.
You will also have a lot of fun spotting stars-to-be. There is Donald Sutherland, Brian Blessed and Charlotte Rampling in "The Superlative Seven," Peter Bowles in "Dial a Deadly Number" and "Escape in Time," Geoffrey Palmer in "A Surfeit of H2O," and Christopher Lee in "Never, Never Say Die." It was a policy that no actor could appear more than once a season, so Bowles and Lee, for example, would have to wait for the King series to play other characters. In fact, the only characters as such to reappear in the color Rigg series from the black and whites is the bumbling Brodny (Warren Mitchell) who can be found in "Two's a Crowd" and "The See-Through Man" and the evil assistant (Frederick Jaeger) to the Cybernaut-master.
And for more fun, see how many actors from "Are You Being Served?" you can spot? There are three in all.
The most frequent repeat actor seems to be comedian Roy Kinnear, who also has the honor of being in the very last King episode in the role of Bagpipes Happychap. And then we have rotund Patrick Newell who was murdered in the very first Rigg entry, drugged in a color one, and wound up as Mother in the King series.
But all in all, it is the interplay between Macnee and Rigg that really made this program work. Unlike Cathy Gale, who seemed actively to dislike Steed when she was not merely tolerating him, Mrs. Peel had a genuine fondness for him and was not averse to stirring his tea (anticlockwise, as he preferred it). And as for the question of Peel and Steed being lovers, recall that they are fictional characters and have no life off the screen.
The dialogue was light hearted, and you seldom if ever saw blood after a mere trickle in their third episode. You also never saw a policeman, an element that for some reason the producers thought would be a jarring note. (You figure out why; I cannot.)
The best episodes? There is no question that "The House That Jack Built" leads the pack. This is the one in which Emma finds herself in a house designed to drive her mad and Steed appears only at the start and end. The worst? Possibly "Silent Dust." The silliest? That has to be "Epic." The most serious? "Murdersville." So what if the package costs a small fortune? You could purchase them separately, of course; but think of what you would be missing.

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She is the perfect balance of sexiness and sophistication, wit and whimsy. The object of many prepubescent lads' desires, Mrs. Emma Peel dazzled television screens on both sides of the Atlantic from 1965-1967. Starring Dame Diana Rigg as Peel and Patrick Macnee as John Steed, the Emma Peel era of THE AVENGERS was the high-water-mark of the groundbreaking series, with adventures more fantastic than ever.A one-stop haven for DVD collectors, this special 17-disc Collector's Edition features all 51 digitally remastered Emma Peel episodes plus a new bonus disc containing three "lost" episodes from the debut season of THE AVENGERS, a ‘making-of' documentary film, a classic Emma Peel cameo episode from THE NEW AVENGERS ‘77, and more.

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The Avengers '62 - Complete Set (1966) Review

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(More customer reviews)Fans of "The Avengers" have been drooling over the teasingly impending release of this set for a few years now. A&E did a good job of releasing all the episodes of "The Avengers" from 1963 onward (including the mid-'70s series, "The New Avengers"), but there was the one major omission; how "The Avengers" began.
Unfortunately (as all "Avengers" afficianados know), the bulk of the first series from 1961, starring Ian Hendry as Dr David Keel, was destroyed / erased, as was the common practise back in those days. For years, the only complete "Avengers" episode from the Hendry series was "The Frighteners". A&E Home Video have finally brought to us all the existing footage from Hendry's tenure, as well as the episodes following Hendry's departure, featuring Jon Rollason as Dr Martin King. While these were essentially "Dr Keel" scripts with a recast, there were two most interesting things about the 2nd series of "The Avengers"; 1) John Steed (always deftly played by Patrick Macnee) became the lead character, emerging from Hendry's shadow, and 2) Honor Blackman arrived, and in doing so, changed the course of women in TV forever.
For the casual fans of the series, Dame Diana Rigg's performance as Mrs Emma Peel is universally recognised as the "look" of "The Avengers", along with Macnee's bowler, brolly, and custom-made suits & boots. What is not generally known to the uninitiated is that Honor Blackman's portrayal of Mrs Catherine (Cathy) Gale set up the rest of the world for the strong female leading role. Often clad in leather catsuits, Mrs Gale was easily John Steed's equal, and quite often his superior. The scripts, like the ones featuring Dr King, were still written for a man, but they weren't retooled at all for a typical early-'60s female role; Mrs Gale was often the one to rescue Steed from the jaws of danger. Quite refreshing and definitely groundbreaking for its time.
This series is also quite different from the Steed & Mrs Peel era, in that the characters are differently defined. Steed is much darker, often shady, menacing, even sinister from time to time, and quite frequently just plain dangerous. While some of that persona survived into the 1965 series (some of the early Mrs Peel scripts were retools from Blackman's tenure before she left the series in 1964 to play "Pussy Galore" in the 007 blockbuster, "Goldfinger"), it wasn't very long until the dapper gentleman-spy-with-a-twinkle-in-his-eye we've all come to know and love was cemented. Steed & Mrs Gale bickered a good deal of the time, and it's apparent that, while she enjoyed the dangerous situations Steed put her in, she had little tolerance for Steed's devious manipulations of her, and voiced her disapproval. The one thing that was established early on that survived all the incarnations of "The Avengers" is that Steed & Mrs Gale are equals, regardless of gender. Again, very groundbreaking for its time.
So a big "thank you" to A&E Home Video for finally completing "The Avengers" legacy on video. Do yourself a favour and watch these episodes!

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The Avengers '63, Set 1 (1963) Review

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(More customer reviews)For all the fans of The Avengers familiar with the Emma Peel/Tara King era of the show, these early episodes featuring Cathy Gale and Venus Smith may come as something of a disappointment. In fact, fans of the later shows may find it hard to believe that they are even part of the same TV series!
After the initial run of 26 episodes featuring Police Surgeon David Keel and his cohort John Steed had aired in the UK in 1961/62, the producers of the program opted to bring Steed to the forefront of the action and give him a number of different "assistants." Thus, for season two, 26 further episodes were made and broadcast in 1962/63 featuring Steed abetted by Martin King, Venus Smith or Cathy Gale. Mrs. Gale turned out to be the most popular and successful foil for the suave agent, and the other characters did not return after season two. Unlike the later Peel/King stories which were all made on film, these studio based TV shows are much more reliant on dialogue and plot than visual elements, and can be somewhat heavy going as a result.
A&E is releasing these stories in a somewhat confusing order, and has started with season three. The first two sets released, Avengers 64 1 & 2, feature the LAST six episodes of season three. Next comes Avengers 63 sets 1 & 2 which comprises of the first half of the season. Next up in the release order is 63 sets 3 & 4 which precede 1 & 2 in running order and in fact feature the last seven stories from season two, plus the first from season three. Confused? Ultimately, it doesn't really matter, since thankfully there's no real reason to watch the stories in chronological order anyway.
What is interesting is the development of the production standards. 63 sets 3 & 4, featuring the latter stories from season two, are far more rudimentary in terms of production quality. The sets are extremely small and sparse; The direction very slap-hazard; Camera work shoddy; Sound is extremely poor; and the acting is negligible. With no budget for editing or reshooting, all the actor's fluffs and goofs stayed in. Steed's character is far less suave and sophisticated then he became later during his familiar role alongside Mrs. Peel, and the relationship with Mrs. Gale in particular is at first downright hostile with very little warmth between the two. He seems to get along much better with Miss Venus Smith, a night club singer who he engages at various gigs to act as his eyes and ears. Venus is a very odd character, and played strangely, but enthusiastically by Julie Stevens. She looks about 12, sings like she's forty, and dresses like anything in between. She also seems extremely naïve and it's hard to imagine why Steed engages her to help him at all. The far more intelligent and elegant Mrs. Gale does eventually warm up to Steed, and in the season three stories where she is the exclusive companion to him, their relationship develops nicely and they become much warmer and closer to each other.
The production values on season three are also much better than the earlier episodes. The sets became larger and more elaborate. The direction, lighting and sound improved greatly and the acting was much less wooden. Some editing was clearly allowed on these later stories, whereas the earlier ones clearly were broadcast as if they were live. There's a terrific blunder in "Six hands across a table," where Cathy is called "Ros" in one scene, and both actors realize the mistake, but keep going.
The quality of the DVD's is somewhat disappointing, even accounting for the age of the material and the production values mentioned above. It may not be the case, but it certainly appears that A&E have made no attempt whatsoever to re-master the original tapes, and the flaws, jumps, scratches and sound blips are too numerous to mention. Virtually every episode on 63 sets 3 & 4 are hampered by picture and sound flaws and defects. Things do improve for 63 1 & 2 and 64 1 & 2, but the quality is still disappointing. Mind you, it appears they have done nothing to clean up the Tara King episodes either!
As a big fan of the series, I wouldn't even consider not having these episodes in my collection, but if you're looking for the wacky camp humor and the tele-fantasy of the Peel/King eras, these stories may not be for you.

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