The Avengers Series 5

Emma Peel in cartoon form being menaged by a giant bird

The Avengers: Series 5, Episode 6 – The Winged Avenger

The Winged Avenger, self-referentiality to one side, is a comic-book title and a comic-book episode – look at the framing throughout – and intriguingly suggests that The Avengers now has another genre reference point, having conclusively ditched noirish crime fiction as … Read more

Mrs Peel surrounded by a halo reading a ZZ Schnerk Production

The Avengers: Series 5, Episode 11 – Epic

When writers run out of ideas, they either start cannibalising their own old ones (see the episode from two weeks’ prior – The Correct Way to Kill), they duck into comedy (no refuge for a series that already has its … Read more

Lola and Emma in a mind-swap machine

The Avengers: Series 5, Episode 16 – Who’s Who???

The Nicolas Cage/John Travolta film Face/Off might perhaps have borrowed its central idea from Who’s Who???, a crackingly conceived episode of The Avengers built around the idea of a mind-swap between Steed and the dastardly Basil (Freddie Jones). There’s a … Read more

Spooky mystery figure

The Avengers: Series 5, Episode 18 – Death’s Door

Closer co-operation between European countries is a good thing, right? That’s the idea driving Death’s Door, an episode with a mind-control theme and a jaunty spy-fi approach to what is essentially an espionage thriller plot. But before the Europhobes get … Read more

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