Chapeau melon et bottes de cuir

Patrick MacNee made a welcome return, in The New Avengers. This time, he had two assistants, Purdy and Mike Gambit. Gambit was supposed to handle the action, while Steed was more in the background, but Patrick MacNee soon set this right. The stories were a mixed bag, as the formula fell prey to time and finance. Also, the surreal nature of the 60's was replaced by the relevance of the 70's.

MacNee was in fine form, especially after he dropped some weight and showed that he was still able to hold his own with his young upstarts. He could still charm a lion into giving up its kill and shaving its mane, while dazzling the ladies of any age.

Gareth Hunt was a bit "hit-or-miss" as Mike Gambit. He lacked Steed's charm and was more of tough guy, which didn't mesh as well with the series formula. Steed got all of the best lines, so Gambit was left to scowl and punch. He was good with the action, but would have been better suited to a more realistic series.

Joanna Lumley was a treat as Purdy. She was funny, charming, and a good fighter, the perfect embodiment of Steed's female partner. She had a miscievious nature and a stunning look. It's hard to believe that the beautiful and likable Purdy would later become the irrepressible Patsy Stone. Well, it would be if Joanna Lumley were less of an actress.

The series was uneven, handicapped by budget and a lack of imagination. The best episodes were in the first series and hewed closest to the old formula.

Perhaps time had passed the series by, but they made a valiant effort. Personal favorites include The Eagle's Nest, House of Cards, The Last of the Cybernauts, Target, and Dirtier by the Dozen. The series was hard to catch in the US, playing late night on CBS. Now, thanks again to A&E, The New Avengers live again on DVD. Still waiting for those extras, though.

Love that lion/Union Jack symbol.

The idea of The New Avengers was to combine the idiosyncrasies of the old show, yet update it to compete with the then current cop show genre. Thereby capture the audience of middle America.

Ultimately it failed commercially and where The Avengers, with Steed and Emma Peel, led The New Avengers followed. The strengths were some cracking stories and performances from the three lead actors (special mention to Joanna Lumley - a worthy successor to Emma Peel). Weaknesses were some rushed and hurried plots and a continued lack of funding.

By following the trends of the 1970s it became far more dated than it's more stylish predecessor.

If you were a child of the 1970s, then you will probably remember this as the definitive Avengers, and find the original rather odd. It's not to say I dislike the original, but when I watched The New Avengers in the 1970s, it had that sense of realism and style that was very formative in my younger days.

Technically, the 1970s saw lighter cameras and greater use of location filming, two things that made The New Avengers different from its forebear. These enabled the series to be grittier, in keeping with the mood of the time. Preserving the fanciful, "British Batman" ideals of the 1960s' series would have gone sharply against the realism that viewers demanded in the 1970s. Britons (and plenty of people worldwide) wanted to see Britain, not a studio mock-up of it. And car chases were de rigueur. On these counts, The New Avengers delivered.

Purdey, not Emma Peel, was the first strong female character I knew on television. Columbia Pictures Television's Police Woman seemed phoney with Angie Dickinson getting her gun out of her handbag; it was Joanna Lumley's willingness to do her own action sequences that made her Purdey character more convincing. The fact she did her high kicks while wearing Laura Ashley, and not encased in PVC, did not seem strange; it was more her short hair that naice girls on telly did not have.

And because I was introduced to the Avengers' mystique through this series, I have always been used to the idea of Patrick Macnee's John Steed being the elder statesman. The suggestive nature of his relationships with his female partners in the 1960s seemed inappropriate when I viewed The Avengers in re-runs (and Macnee once quipped that he felt John Steed did consummate his relationships 'continuously and in his spare time'). The Gambit character played by Gareth Hunt was more my idea of the action-oriented British gent who had spent time in the military, though I recall both being relatively wooden, save for a few episodes.

The spy story lines were entertaining, and I understand the original series' fans being less than impressed. But they were a clever differentiation from the typical cop shows of the decade, and even though there were some corners cut (using old footage of Diana Rigg in one episode), I never felt cheated by The New Avengers. The thriller style that Brian Clemens and his team introduced to this series kept viewers on the edge of their seats, and it must have been good enough to warrant a second season at the time—even if the latter was partly made in France and Canada. Even then, the episodes were not as bad as some have made out—Continental filming, in particular, gave me one of my earliest impressions of Europe. I don't think I had seen anything made in Canada prior to The New Avengers.

In many respects, The New Avengers was more a forerunner to The Professionals—one of the greatest British TV actioners made—than a successor to The Avengers. It had the same producers and very similar crews. By coincidence, The Professionals' Lewis Collins and Martin Shaw guest-starred together in one episode. And, like The Professionals, it gave the sense that after an hour, you got great value. The same could not be said for most TV series of this genre today, made to please a network and an accounting firm rather than the audience.

Knock me over with a feather! At first I was not sure what I was watching on late night Detroit or Windsor television -- then it dawned. I made it my business every Friday night after the news to catch THE NEW AVENGERS, but probably saw little more than half.

No, it was not the old time religion, because the old chemistry would be impossible to create. This programme stood on its own, suffering in comparison only if one wanted the more of same. THE NEW AVENGERS was "bigger" (which does not make it better), less wacky, and to employ the amorphous, less artistic. The budgets of the 1960s were no doubt modest, forcing more creativity.

None the less, it was well cast with Steed as more of an elder statesman -- not "old" at 54 as another commentator was unkind enough to allege. Purdy was not Rigg or Blackman, but then she created her own viable character as a woman, much distinguished from the "youth market" Tara of 1968-9.

I make no comment upon individual episodes, because it would not be fair given the time elapsed, for me 1980 at latest. Having no cable television, nor being a videophile, I have not seen THE NEW AVENGERS since.

THE NEW AVENGERS Is the sequel series to THE AVENGERS, and for new viewers sees John Steed still as a top secret agent, this time teamed up with the unruffled Purdey, and the dangerous but kind-hearted Mike Gambit. THE NEW AVENGERS Is slightly different to the sixties original, since It takes a polished and lavish look, and makes It tougher and grittier (like a cop show). It Is very difficult to say what kind of AVENGERS fans will like this, but It should satisfy most people.