The Avengers Series 6

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 1 – The Forget-Me-Knot

Exit Diana Rigg, enter Linda Thorson. Out with the old, in with the new in The Forget-Me-Knot, a handover episode that saw Diana Rigg leave The Avengers and Linda Thorson join it. Much has been said about Thorson – a … Read more

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 2 – Game

After new opening titles – a mix of the medieval (Steed’s swordplay with his brolly) and the modern (Tara King in sophisticated black evening dress and then action-girl attire) – we’re off into Game, the first proper Tara King era … Read more

Window cleaners in white bowler hats and overalls

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 3 – Super Secret Cypher Snatch

As mentioned briefly in the previous post (and explained much more fully on the Avengers Forever website), there was a brief interregnum in the final series of The Avengers, when John Bryce took over as producer, only for Brian Clemens … Read more

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 4 – You’ll Catch Your Death

Boring but prescient is how you’d describe You’ll Catch Your Death, fourth episode of the final series of The Avengers. Prescient because it’s all about biological warfare, people dying due to exposure to some deadly toxin, Steed and King investigating … Read more

Tara King about to undergo a mind-blend procedure

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 5 – Split!

Split! is the title, as in personality, a mind-control episode co-written by Brian Clemens and the similarly fecund Dennis Spooner. After John Bryce’s trio of episodes, The Invasion of the Earthmen, The Curious Case of the Countless Clues and The … Read more

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 6 – Whoever Shot Poor George Oblique Stroke XR40?

Whoever Shot Poor George Oblique Stroke XR40? isn’t just a great title, it’s an announcement that the classic Avengers team – Fennell and Clemens – are back in the driving seat. This was the second episode they turned out after … Read more

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 7 – False Witness

An episode of The Avengers with the name of director Charles Crichton on it is usually a good sign. A claim borne out by False Witness, a permutation on a favourite of showrunner Brian Clemens – mind control – scripted … Read more

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 8 – All Done with Mirrors

A strange episode in many respects, All Done with Mirrors leaves John Steed almost entirely out of the picture, instead focusing on Tara King’s attempts to find out who is leaking secrets from a communications facility when Steed is arrested … Read more

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 9 – Legacy of Death

“A bit crap,” is what I wrote in my notes towards the end of watching The Avengers episode Legacy of Death. Perhaps I was being too harsh. My memory of it now is of being a pleasingly entertaining episode, and … Read more

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 10 – Noon-Doomsday

High Noon, the 1952 movie starring Gary Cooper, is the inspiration behind this Terry Nation-scripted episode of The Avengers. Nation had done something similarly pastiche-y the previous week with Legacy of Death, an episode that leaned on 1940s noir. Quick … Read more

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 11 – Look – (Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One)…

Look – (Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One) but There Were These Two Fellers… that’s the full title to an episode determined that, since the day of The Avengers are numbered, things might as well go out with a … Read more

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 12 – Have Guns – Will Haggle

Intended as a 90-minute episode designed to introduce Tara King and originally called Invitation to a Killing, what became the 12th episode of the final series of The Avengers instead ran the usual 50-ish minutes, wound up being called Have … Read more

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 13 – They Keep Killing Steed

Improbable and fluffy, They Keep Killing Steed is a prime screenplay by showrunner and writer Brian Clemens, and a clear sign that the series is entirely back on track with a plot pivoting on the ideas of doubles – a … Read more

Christopher Lee, Linda Thorson and Cecil Cheng

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 14 – The Interrogators

Charles Crichton directs and Christopher Lee guest-stars in The Interrogators, so we’re expecting good things of this episode of The Avengers, right? The plot is a good one – writer Richard Harris fleshing out an idea by Brian Clemens – … Read more

Tara King holds a lock but the door's disappeared!

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 15 – The Rotters

What do you get if you draft in a comedy writer to pen an episode of The Avengers? The answer is The Rotters, by Dave Freeman, a prolific writer for TV comedy from the likes of Benny Hill, Terry Scott, … Read more

Tara surrounded by people all dressed the same

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 16 – Invasion of the Earthmen

Here we are, Invasion of the Earthmen, the first Tara King episode shot by returning showrunner John Bryce, one of three he managed to get in the can before Brian Clemens and Albert Fennell again resumed control of The Avengers. … Read more

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 17 – Killer

Were showrunner Brian Clemens, fellow producer Albert Fennell and the rest of the production team trying to get rid of Linda Thorson? She had been introduced during his brief interregnum by producer John Bryce and when Clemens and Fennell returned, … Read more

Peter Barkworth, Brian Blessed and Patrick Macnee

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 18 – The Morning After

Peter Barkworth, Joss Ackland and Brian Blessed fortify The Morning After, a decent “abandoned town” caper with an egregious USP – Tara King isn’t in it. It’s insult added to injury, given that the previous week Linda Thorson had been … Read more

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 19 – The Curious Case of the Countless Clues

If you had been watching The Avengers every week in 1969, you’d have seen Tara King effectively neutralised – warming the bench – in the two previous episodes, Killer and The Morning After. And at first The Curious Case of … Read more

Tara looks through the hole in a T shirt

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 20 – Wish You Were Here

After a couple of Tara-lite outings, a Steed-lite one for fans of Linda Thorson, who rises to the occasion in a fairly jokey episode, Wish You Were Here, which sees The Avengers doffing its hat to The Prisoner, whose 13 … Read more

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 21 – Love All

The phrase “pale, stale and male” was still waiting to be coined when this episode was first broadcast on a dark February night in 1969. And you didn’t hear the term “misogyny” on TV much either, particularly not on a … Read more

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 22 – Stay Tuned

Mind control as a plot driver became The Avengers go-to narrative, and it gets another run around the block in Stay Tuned, a fine example of the show’s ongoing attempts to recapture old glory. It takes flight quickly – Steed … Read more

John Steed and Tara King blowing wind instruments

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 23 – Take Me to Your Leader

Coined as a film-making term by Alfred Hitchcock collaborator Angus McPhail, the Macguffin (spell it anyway you like) is a simple plot device which doesn’t do much on its own, but acts as a string on which a number of … Read more

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 24 – Fog

London was still notorious for its fog in 1969 when The Avengers episode Fog aired, even though the Clean Air Acts of 1956 and 1968 had largely consigned all-enveloping, life-shortening meteorological damp blankets to history. No matter, fog is what’s … Read more

Steed, King and a stack of champagne glasses

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 25 – Who Was That Man I Saw You With?

There’s something a bit dead in the water about Who Was That Man I Saw You With?, a late-era Avengers episode with a lot going for it – but no spark. Jeremy Burnham wrote it, and atones for the messiness … Read more

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 26 – Homicide and Old Lace

An episode written by Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks, and then rewritten by Brian Clemens when he returned to the series. It was Clemens who inserted the framework narrative device – Mother visiting a pair of aged aunts and spinning … Read more

John Steed in a pair of welder's goggles

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 27 – Thingumajig

Thingumajig, a can’t-be-bothered title for an average episode that starts well – a woman carrying a skull into a small church is horrified when the organ starts playing on its own and the lights start to strobe. Meanwhile, underground, her … Read more