Original Avengers Best of the

I won't dwell too much on the content of each episode since the other reviewers cover them in depth, except to say the Patrick Macnee did an excellent job of selecting two episodes each featuring each of his three female leads; Honor Blackman, Diana Rigg, and Linda Thorson. And, for a man his age, Patrick is still holding up quite well in the newly-videotaped segments.

The extras in the package are a strong point, too. Patrick's overall introduction is worth the time to watch before watching any of the episodes. Also, he gives a short introduction to each episode. Some of his remarks seem candid such as his displeasure about the introduction of the "Mother" character in the last season in which he states that this took away some of the mystery and charm of the Avengers team by bringing out into the open the governmental spy organization in which they worked. Before, the Avengers seemed to be more like free agents loosely working within a hidden framework. "We would just show up," he said, "at the scene of a crime" and no one would question from where.

Another extra, Linda Thorson's 15 minute promo film the box set called "Town Girl" (even though no title is shown on the film) does it's best to show Linda as a happy-go-lucky star on the rise. It appears to have been filmed after the Avengers series ended around 1969 or the early Seventies. The color is crisp and sharp and shows her running around the English countryside in tight blue jeans with dirt on the seat of her pants. Then there's a scene of her jumping into a swimming pool and trying to keep her head above water. It's all good clean fun.

All in all, this is a great package from Honor Blackman's film noir episode "Don't Look Behind You" to Diana Rigg's quirky department store-turned-atomic bomb episode "Death At Bargain Prices" to Linda Thornson's wonderful "All Done With Mirrors."

This set is a great place to start for anyone who is interested in the evolution of the Avengers or a person who has never heard of the Avengers or for even the die-hard Avengers fan.

For starters, "Look - Stop Me If You've Heard This One..." is simply the best episode ever made in the series' long run. It has been argued that this brilliantly balanced crime melodrama/vaudeville act was an Emma Peel story filmed after its time, but if it was, then Linda Thorson's Tara King was well up to the task of pulling it off. The script is low comedy as high camp, yet succeeds in achieving some genuinely horrific moments. The performances all round are excellent, especially from guest stars Jimmy Jewel and Julian Chagrin as a killer clown and a murderous mime.

The Cathy Gale episodes chosen are those that put Honor Blackman's talent to the fore. "Mr. Teddy Bear" was the first genuinely bizarre story in the series, with Cathy going undercover to hire perhaps the world's best hit-man - with Steed as the target. The master assassin's name derives from his birth name, "Edward Bruin," and his eccentric trademark of doing business through a remote-control robot teddy bear. "Don't Look Behind You" is a superior piece of film noir, in which Cathy is lured into a sadistic death-trap by an escaped psychopath she helped put behind bars years before. Later re-filmed with Diana Rigg as "The Joker," Blackman's version is actually much better, both for its excellent use of black-and-white light and shadow and for Blackman's genuinely terrified performance.

The Emma Peel episodes are both from Diana Rigg's first year, "Death At Bargain Prices" and "Too Many Christmas Trees," the latter a well-known Avengers classic and one of its most sparkling scripts, and the former one of its cleverer and wittier suspense pieces.

Anyone might quibble over whether these are truly the best of the series, but no one will contest that they are excellent episodes all, and well worth watching.