Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsAlas! Mrs. Peel Leaves us! Episode details follow...
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 27, 2008
Prior to 1967, "The Avengers" was yielded in black-and-white. Going to color was a definite improvement!
This DVD package, (2 DVDs, individually cased and further packaged in a box, this is "Set No. 4," color-coded PURPLE), is just one of FOUR sets which take in all the 1967 episodes. The marketing of "The Avengers" can be quite confusing so I wanted to get that information out up front. This is also the BEST way to buy the DVDs (by the "set") for any season, from 1963 through 1968.
1967 was Diana Rigg's last season as Steed's partner. The BONUS EPISODE in this set, introduces Steed's new partner, Tara King, (played by Linda Thorson), and she takes us into and through 1968 which was the final season for "The Avengers".
Rigg's career really launched in 1965 from this fine series in her role as Mrs. Emma Peel, the sexy and lively partner to the refined secret agent Englishman, John Steed, who was shrewdly played by Patrick Macnee. In fact, in the U.S., most of us didn't even know about Honor Blackman and Macnee's other (earlier, '63 and '64) partners until many years later.
Diana Rigg can probably claim about 60% of the credit for the vast number of U.S. audience members who were glued to their TVs when "The Avengers" finally hit here. The other 40% (not forgetting Macnee's fine performances) had to do with the presentation of the series. Starting in 1965, with Rigg, the filmscore was notably updated and played more prominently throughout the story, enhancing the action and suspense. Also, the action itself was boosted. Never a dull moment with Steed and Mrs. Peel. And these episodes were all FUN -- one embraced a sense that Macnee and Rigg were having a great time in making these films. Now that I've seen episodes from "The Avengers'" earlier years, ('63 and '64), I can see that they dragged quite a bit during that earlier era and were much more soap opera-ish.
Each 52-minute episode is futuristic and on the cutting edge of excellent television productions. I know of no series, "The Original Star Trek Series" excepted, which has remained as timeless as "The Avengers". You'll encounter, in these episodes, every nemesis ranging from a killer nanny to a mind-transfer device!
Here, we're talking about SEVEN very enjoyable, action-packed, color episodes.
Volume 7:
"The £50,000 Breakfast" -- A ventriloquist is comatose due to a car crash. X-rays reveal £50,000 in stolen diamonds in his stomach which were about to be smuggled out of England and into Switzerland. Steed, posing as a blackmailer, fences them back to the Litoff Corporation, the original owners of the jewels who want no publicity since the ventriloquist was their own employee. But very soon thereafter, one of the Litoff people gives the lamentable ventriloquist a fatal injection before he can recover and tell what he knows. Then, the ventriloquist's wife trys her own hand at blackmail -- she soon meets her husband's fate. As it turns out, Litoff's people are hiding another BIG (criminal) secret. Steed and Mrs. Peel get a bit too nosy for these devious folks and you know what that means!
"Dead Man's Treasure" -- A millionaire sponsors a sports car rally and the prize is a big, red treasure chest with a nice bit of cash inside. But, through a comedy of British spy errors, the chest also contains a secret government document. To retrieve it, Steed and Mrs. Peel must compete in the car rally with partners that they don't know... they also have to compete for their lives!
"You Have Just Been Murdered" -- Millionaires are being intimidated into paying extortion money when it's demonstrated to each one that he can, and will, be murdered if he doesn't pay up. Steed and Mrs. Peel try to help out one target millionaire by stealing the suitcase filled with cash. Mrs. Peel makes a successful grab but she doesn't know that, in addition to the cash, this shrewd millionaire has also placed a bomb in the suitcase!
Volume 8:
"The Positive-Negative Man" -- The secret notes for "Project 90" have been mysteriously rendered to ashes. Then, all the scientists involved with the project are being systematically murdered... by a man who can electrocute people with simply a touch of his finger! Steed and Mrs. Peel soon discover the "source of power" -- in more ways than one. A great episode.
"Murdersville" -- A murderer kills a rich man in a small village. He bribes most of the townsfolk, keeping them quiet by splitting the take of the murdered man's millions -- but a few honest hold-outs must be held in the town's little museum. Then, the crooked folks of the village let it be known that you can murder anyone there... for a price. Unfortunately, an old friend of Mrs. Peel decides to retire and Mrs. Peel drives him to his doom at his new resdience near "Murdersville". Steed races to Mrs. Peel's rescue.
"Mission Highly Improbable" -- This is another "sci-fi" episode. An old professor on a military base is worried about an upcoming audit and inspection in regard to how he's been spending the government's money. But he need not worry becuase when it's discovered that he's used the funds to invent a great secret weapon for Great Britain, clearly all will be forgiven -- it's a ray gun that shrinks anything it's aimed at! But there's trouble right off. A high-ranking military officer goes missing as he enters the base. Then, the primary military weapon which was also invented by the professor, an armored vehicle which withstands direct artillery fire, also disappears. No doubt there is a defector on the premises and he's about to sell the secret vehicle, as well as the shrinking ray, to the Ruskies. Steed and Mrs. Peel encounter a "little" trouble!
"BONUS EPISODE: The Forget-Me-Knot" -- This is the episode that broke my heart. Agents of Steed's and Mrs. Peel's organization are developing amnesia, (thanks to strategically-wielded dart guns loaded with a memory-loss drug), and then they go missing. There's a defector in the agency and the top man is advised that it's Steed, who also goes missing. Meanwhile, Steed has met agent-in-training Tara King (played by Linda Thorson), who believes in Steed's loyalty and she tries to help him. Mrs. Peel also takes a dart which further complicates Steed's investigation of the matter. I'll spare you the spoiler but the heartbreaker is that Mrs. Peel's husband, ace flyer Peter Peel, is suddenly located in the Amazonian jungle where he had apparently crashed years before! So, Mrs. Peel retires from the agency to become a full-time wife and Steed gets a new partner, Tara King, the sweet gal who takes us into the final year of "The Avengers," 1968! This is really a sad episode for fans of Mrs. Peel, (Diana Rigg).
The storylines of the various "The Avengers" episodes seem absurd to varying degrees as we view them today - but 1967 marked an even higher level of absurdity. This did not diminish my love for the "The Avengers" because the overall series always manifested a "Batman" (TV series) tongue-and-cheekness about it. I mention it only to prepare viewers for this actuality.
The casting in all episodes is spot-on, punctuated with the very best sets and scenic locations. And Rigg's provocative, '60s mod body suits much accentuate her sensual magnetism with the notable change from black-and-white to color.
I've reviewed all the '65, '66, and '67 sets so you can check the appropriate sites for details of each episode. In the meantime, this particular set garners my highest recommendation!
![The Avengers '67 - Set 4, Vols. 7 & 8 [DVD]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51MCKY9PDAL._AC_US60_SCLZZZZZZZ__.jpg)
