The Avengers Series 4

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 1 – The Town of No Return

And so, drum roll, The Town of No Return and the beginning of series 4. And with it the arrival of Diana Rigg as Mrs Emma Peel, the story going that the new partner for Steed would have to have … Read more

Steed tries to release Mrs Peel who is tied to the railway track

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 2 – The Gravediggers

Like a classic album that warms us up with an opening track before hitting us with a doozy, episode two of series four of The Avengers, The Gravediggers, is vintage entertainment that gets just about everything right. The plot is … Read more

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 3 – The Cybernauts

The sixth of the Diana Rigg episodes to be made, though the third to be shown, The Cybernauts looks vaguely back to the Honor Blackman era – Mrs Peel still in leather and a bit helmet-haired – but in other … Read more

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 4 – Death at Bargain Prices

Charles Crichton directed one of the best Ealing comedies, 1951’s Lavender Hill Mob, and the highest grossing British comedy of the 1980s, 1988’s A Fish Called Wanda – both crime capers – so is just the man for an episode … Read more

John Steed with a sword. Assailant with a gun

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 5 – Castle De’ath

Three Bond movies had been released and a fourth was just around the corner, when Castle De’ath was broadcast on an autumnal Saturday night in 1965. It’s a mini-me version of Bond, with Scotland standing in for myriad exotic locations, … Read more

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 6 – The Master Minds

The Master Minds was episode six in series four in transmission terms, but only the second episode that Diana Rigg and Patrick Macnee had made together. Hence the not-quite-thereness of their relationship – notice throughout how rarely Rigg actually looks … Read more

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 7 – The Murder Market

The Murder Market is one of the episodes first shot with Elizabeth Shepherd playing Mrs Peel, then reshot with Diana Rigg in the role after it was decided that Shepherd didn’t fit the bill. Hence the two directors on the … Read more

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 8 – A Surfeit of H2O

Undoubtedly a fancy episode when it first aired in late November 1965, A Surfeit of H2O manages to be whimsical, sinister, ridiculous and ingenious all in one go, with a good belt of fine character actors to help things along. … Read more

John Steed and Emma Peel on a deserted air base

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 9 – The Hour That Never Was

Mrs Peel comes of age in The Hour That Never Was, the ninth episode of series 4 and a typical classic-era Avengers based on unlikely goings-on in locales almost devoid of people. “Comes of age” because in this episode she … Read more

Clifford Evans, Peter Bowles, Patrick Macnee

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 10 – Dial a Deadly Number

Set in the world of the well-to-do, the very satisfying Dial a Deadly Number first aired in the UK in the early days of December 1965 and returns to two regular Avengers fascinations – businessmen and undertakers. In what sounds … Read more

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 11 – Man-Eater of Surrey Green

Man-Eater of Surrey Green is the perfect Avengers episode title. Camp, corny, a bit sexy, a lot parochial, it sums up the series perfectly. And this episode, which is a mix of scientific blah blah and a lot of eccentric … Read more

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 12 – Two’s a Crowd

Tricks are what Two’s a Crowd is about, and the 12th episode of series four starts with two quite good ones. First up, a shot of a plane. It’s not a real plane, but a model, and the trick is … Read more

Patrick Macnee surrounded by cutout Christmas trees

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 13 – Too Many Christmas Trees

Time magazine’s Swinging London issue appeared in April 1966 and made “official” what had been obvious for some time – something was going on in the UK capital. To find out what that looked like at the time, you could … Read more

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 14 – Silent Dust

Silent Dust first aired on New Year’s Eve 1965 and from a 21st-century vantage point has all the makings of a very prescient episode of The Avengers. In what starts out as an obvious parody of a nature documentary, we … Read more

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 15 – Room Without a View

The title of EM Forster’s novel is parodied in Room Without a View, for reasons which never really became clear to me, but then on looking back over my notes to this episode I realised I could remember barely any … Read more

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 16 – Small Game for Big Hunters

Two weeks after a coup in the Central African Republic, one day after a forcible change of regime in Nigeria, Small Game for Big Hunters had something of the topical about it – and the tropical – when it first … Read more

Liz Fraser, Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg on set

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 17 – The Girl from Auntie

The Girl from Auntie this episode is called, a nod to The Man from Uncle, which had debuted about six months earlier on US TV and become an instant hit with its sexy spies, gadgets, 007 goofery and strong sense of … Read more

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 18 – The Thirteenth Hole

The Thirteenth Hole sees Steed and Peel in action at a golf club where golfers seem to keep dying. Once again, it’s an episode with a needlessly elaborate plot about an international consortium of bad hats getting up to skulduggery. … Read more

Mrs Peel listens in as John Steed is spirited away

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 19 – Quick-Quick Slow Death

Lean, arch and fast, Quick-Quick Slow Death is high-church Avengers, with barely a normal person in it. Instead a busload of eccentrics power a plot that starts odd – a full-grown man in evening dress and bearing a “Lucille” tattoo … Read more

Emma Peel plays a deadly beat the buzzer game

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 20 – The Danger Makers

The Danger Makers is the 13th episode of The Avengers written by Roger Marshall, the amazingly prolific writer of scripts for everything from 1959’s William Tell to 1992’s London’s Burning by way of Public Eye, The Sweeney and Lovejoy. And … Read more

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 21 – A Touch of Brimstone

And so we come to A Touch of Brimstone, an episode that didn’t make it onto US TV screens in 1966, thanks to the bondage gear that Mrs Peel eventually gets into in the final scene. How we get there … Read more

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 22 – What the Butler Saw

What the Butler Saw is an episode about what the butler did rather than saw, though it does kick off with John Le Mesurier – tongue doing at least half of his acting as usual – handing his employer a … Read more

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 23 – The House That Jack Built

John Lennon’s declaration that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus” had gone public just the day before The House That Jack Built aired in the UK on 5 March 1966. Not that this episode of The Avengers has anything … Read more

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 24 – A Sense of History

Fifty years before a referendum determined that the UK wanted to leave the EU, the subject was tackled in this Avengers episode called A Sense of History. But Martin Woodhouse’s screenplay doesn’t call on Winston Churchill or the Second World … Read more

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 25 – How to Succeed… at Murder

Feminist or not feminist? That’s the question that hovers over the whole of How to Succeed… at Murder, a Brian Clemens script for The Avengers that first aired in March 1966. Secretaries are what it’s all about, trusted right-hand women of … Read more

The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 26 – Honey for the Prince

Mystical, mad and rather weird, Honey for the Prince was the last episode in series four of The Avengers, in terms of both production and transmission, and puts an exclamation mark on what has been an increasingly unreal and self-referential … Read more

The Avengers Series 4

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