The Avengers Series 6

Steed caught in a giant game

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

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

Ray Brooks and TP McKenna play cowboys

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

Tara King and John Steed examine a clue

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

Sir Rodney and Martha

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

Nigel Green

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

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

Angela Douglas as Miranda

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 29 – Requiem

Requiem sounds like it should be the title for the last-ever episode of The Avengers, now only weeks away. That it’s not is a typical piece of perversity by showrunner Brian Clemens. Another is Clemens’s ongoing attempt to sideline Linda … Read more

Steed arrives laden with gifts

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 30 – Take-Over

Take-Over it was called in 1969 when it first aired. In the intervening decades the word takeover has lost its hyphen but this episode of The Avengers remains fresh and watchable precisely because of its antique quality. But first a … Read more

Tara King in front of a portrait of Pandora

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 31 – Pandora

The benign king deceived by his courtiers – a wicked grand vizier, a scheming cardinal, a treacherous brother – is a comforting story told and retold down the ages. The Avengers episode Pandora is Brian Clemens’s version of it: a … Read more

Steed pours vodka on his bowler

The Avengers: Series 6, Episode 32 – Get-A-Way!

The penultimate Avengers episode actually goes right back to the early days of this series’ production run. There was over a year between the completion of Get-A-Way! in February 1968 and its transmission in May 1969. It’s one of the … Read more

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