Steed and Peel

The Avengers was unlike any other series on television.

The tone was completely different, and so was the look. Odd plots, odd camera angles. The scores built an unusual eeriness and tension enhancing the feeling that whatever was going on was off kilter. And, of course, there was an English atmosphere in terms of speech, setting and fashion. The main characters were cool and understated in an English manner.

To me, the key of the show was Diana Rigg. The series was not the same after she left in 1968.

Canadian stations started buying the programme in 1965 when Honor Blackman was the female lead. Then late in the year, ABC in the U.S. picked it up for broadcast in 1966. Oddly, it wasn’t on the schedule again when fall of that year rolled around but was added a few months later (the lead-ins were, unbelievably, Rango with Tim Conway and The Pruitts of Southampton with Phyllis Diller).

Here’s a feature story from the National Enterprise Association, dated February 11, 1967, describing the coming season on American television.

‘Avengers’ Fans Welcome Derring Duo's Return to Home Screen
By DON ROYAL
NEW YORK (NEA)—When Emma Peel and John Steed, "The Avengers," returned to American television a warm welcome waited for them from fans they made during their go- around here.
"The Avengers" missed the transatlantic boat when ABC made up last fall's schedule. Viewers and reviewers alike made known their thoughts on dropping the show. And so, the net returns the polished pair of derring-doers to its "second season" lineup.
The sleek Mrs. Peel and the urbane Mr. Steed, secret agents played to the British hilt by Diana Rigg and Patrick Macnee, are on ABC Friday evenings, 10-11 p. m. Eastern time.
"Apparently the British aspects of 'The Avengers' intrigues viewers on the American continent," said R. H. Norris, the chap in charge of production for the English producing firm, from London.
A big change, however, has been effected since the first visit of "The Avengers" the slick and sophisticated Emma Peel and John Steed are now performing their fabulous deeds in color.
This season, Steed is driving a 1929 six-and-a-half litre Green Label Bentley in British racing green; Emma has a new 1966 Lotus Elan in powder blue.
This season, each episode begins and ends with a stylized sequence in Emma's apartment.

At the beginning of each story Steed arrives, in various ways, all unexpected, to say, "Mrs. Peel, we're needed." At the end of each story he returns, but for a more pleasant purpose, perhaps to take Emma to dinner.
Steed's apartment, near London's Houses of Parliament, has had a face lifting. It's been done over in natural pine paneling, with buttoned red leather upholstery and a winding staircase.
Emma has moved from her penthouse on London's Primrose Hill to an airy, L-shaped studio nearby, which has an artist's north light ceiling window, a scarlet alcove, and an early Victorian sofa and chair in white and gold.
Emma's new wardrobe is the work of a new, young English designer, Alun Hughes, who was recommended by Diana Rigg. This year she introduces a new outfit called the "Emmapeeler" in a variety of colors. It's a skin-tight, all-over suit. Steed's wardrobe is a version of the famous Pierre Cardin's clothes of Paris—but he still favors the British bowler and brolly.
One outfit, which could start a men's fashion trend, is a pearl gray suit with a pearl gray velvet collar. The shoes are the same color, in suede, and the gray bowler completes the costume.
The science fiction element in the stories will be stronger this time around, though the seemingly supernatural happenings may have a logical explanation. The emphasis is a development based on several highly successful episodes of last season.
Unlike James Bond, Emma and John report to no one such as "M." And their adversaries are mostly private villains, madmen with delusions of power, rather than merely agents of You-Know-Who.
Emma, of course, remains Mrs. Peel, internationally educated daughter of a wealthy shipowner and youthful widow of a famous test pilot. She is obviously chummy with John Steed, but we never really know exactly what they mean to each other— at least, they never tell the audience.
Diana herself is unmarried, tall (5 feet 8 1/2), shapely and quite knowledgeable about judo and karate. (An autograph-seeking fan once asked her if she were indeed the woman who throws men through walls.)
She does throw people about as the distaff partner in "The Avengers," but never outside the studio. A Yorkshire actress who learned her craft with the Royal Shakespearean Company, she was with them again when the call came to make new adventures for "The Avengers."
Diana spent her early years in Jodhpur in Rajputana, where her father was in the Indian Government Service. Back in England, she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art—but getting started in the theater was a sticky wicket.
Too tall, they said. So she became a model, eventually to begin as an actress in a reperatory theater and later, in 1959, to gain a fine reputation with the Shakespeareans at Stratford-on-Avon. A quest for a change of pace brought her to television, succeeding Steed's first partner, Honor Blackman.

Patrick Macnee is a native of London who has been living the role of undercover agent John Steed since 1961. A cousin of David Niven, the role was created especially for Macnee and has developed around his own background and personality.
Many of Steed's tastes, habits of speech and dress are Macnee's—others are projections of the man he would like to be—a romantic who would have favored the grand life of a Regency swinger in the days of George III.
Macnee was educated at Eton (he began his acting career there, by playing Queen Victoria in a school play).
Macnee served with the Royal Navy in World War II as a torpedo boat commander. He returned to busy himself on the London stage, in television and in films. Unlike father, his son is a student at Princeton.
By the 1950s he was an established actor, working in major television dramas in England, the United States, and in Canada, for four years. He is well-known in the Hollywood teleseries centers, and still owns a house on Malibu Beach.
"The Avengers" are based in England and they never really leave for any more exotic arena.
What is presented in this series is wit and satire, and an awful lot of Jolly Ol’, especially those aspects of British life as it is promoted overseas — from atomic laboratories, biochemical plants, automated factories to fox-hunting, stately estates of lord sand earls, and the Olde English Inne.
Many American viewers call it their cup of tea.