Opening disclaimer: at the time of writing I’ve yet to get through the entire seven disc Blu-ray set that Studiocanal have lovingly put together for Series 5 of TV classic The Avengers (in the wake of series 4 enjoying similar treatment earlier this year). However, I just had to bring this review forward a little, in light of the sad news that the show’s lead actor Patrick Macnee died this week. Horror fans may remember him best for The Howling, others perhaps as the “old poofter” who presided over Spinal Tap’s record label, but when all’s said and done Patrick Macnee and John Steed are pretty much indistinguishable in the popular consciousness, and it’s touching to see many tributes applauding the real man as being every bit as much the charming raconteur as the fictional character he portrayed for so many years was. But with Macnee’s demise coming so soon after those of Christopher Lee, Richard Johnson and Ron Moody… come on now, Mr Reaper, we know you’ve got a quota to meet, but please, leave the great British screen veterans alone for a while, would you?
Back when we celebrated Peter Cushing’s centenary in 2013, Keri paid affectionate tribute to Cushing’s long, close friendship with his frequent co-star Christopher Lee (an article which I’m happy to say has proved among our most popular since Lee’s passing), wherein she discussed at length the old-fashioned ideal of the English gentleman, and how that breed of man seems to have all but died out today. Macnee would certainly seem to fit that archetype too, and as such it’s nice to see him share the screen with both Lee and Cushing in this run of The Avengers. I’m not sure whether I’d necessarily agree that the English gentleman no longer exists; rather that he has changed with the times, as all things must if they hope to survive. In a way, we might easily take The Avengers as representative of this transition, with Macnee’s none-more-trad man-about-town – suited, booted and never without his bowler hat and umbrella – working side-by-side with Diana Rigg’s none-more-modern Mrs Peel, whose wits, skills and strength are truly equal to those of her male counterpart. The idea of the old guard and new guard (or, to put it more directly, the patriarchy and the radical feminist) finding common ground and working together for the common good is, I daresay, a rather agreeable notion that many of us might do well to consider today. Could it be that we’re stronger together? After all, while at a glance Steed and Mrs Peel might appear total opposites, once you’ve seen them in action side-by-side it’s hard to ever imagine them apart.
This being the case, it’s fair to describe series 5 as where the golden age of The Avengers came to an end, as these were the last episodes in which Rigg appeared. Though the series went on for one more series with Linda Thorson as Tara King, and was revived in the mid-70s as The New Avengers which united the returning Macnee with Joanna Lumley and Gareth Hunt, even the most devoted fans would agree the series was never the same without the Steed and Mrs Peel dynamic.
While Series 4 introduced Mrs Peel and saw the show shot on film for the first time, Series 5’s major leap forward was the move into colour. There are ways in which we might see this as being to the show’s detriment; while there was a certain timelessness to the monochrome, now there’s absolutely no mistaking The Avengers as a product of the late 1960s, primarily because everything is so damn colourful, bright and loud tones with often more-than faintly psychedelic overtones abounding from the sets, props and costumes. And on the latter subject – the key change, and perhaps the greatest source of potential disappointment for a certain type of Avengers fan, is that Mrs Peel’s black leather catsuits are gone. Just gone. I know, I’m sorry. The new opening credits (embedded below) see her clad in a less restrictive-looking daffodil jumpsuit, and her climactic action scene outfits of choice tend to be along those lines. In between, Mrs Peel is again every bit the woman of the moment, which in 1967 apparently meant wearing every colour under the sun. It’s a striking new aesthetic, and makes quite the contrast from the earlier episodes – and it even seems to prompt some slight variations from Steed, whose standard black suit and bowler now also vary between shades of grey, brown and blue.
This series also added another key signature touch, each episode boasting a brief intro which sees Mrs Peel going about her business when Steed unexpectedly pops up to inform her, in increasingly surreal ways, “we’re needed.” This replaces the recurring driving off at the end gag from the last series, as this time around most episodes end much as they begin, with Steed and Mrs Peel opening a bottle of champagne. I’m not sure quite why the justly lamented 1998 Avengers movie worked in a running gag about everyone drinking tea all the time (playing up English stereotypes in the hopes of amusing international audiences, I expect), as in the show they never touch the stuff; while they might go for coffee before noon, our heroes are quite clearly high functioning alcoholics, rarely seen without a drop of bubbly to hand. Even in a scene when Mrs Peel wakes up to find herself taken prisoner (yet again), the first thing she does is get up and pour herself a glass.
This aside, series 5 follows much the same beats content-wise, each tale boasting outlandish schemes hinged on unexpected twists, and an abundance of big winks to the pop culture of the day: witness a lampoon of Batman in which Steed literally bashes the villain about the head with signs reading “BASH!” “POW!” etc, or the fact that Christopher Lee appears as a Dr Frank N Stone. There’s also an episode I haven’t got to yet entitled ‘Mission… Highly Improbable.’ I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we didn’t invent self-reference, kids. Brian Clemens and co were revelling in it this time 50 years ago.
Based on what I’ve seen (I’ve reached disc 5 at the time of writing), I’m not sure The Avengers Series 5 is quite so impeccable as the one that came before it, but there’s a very, very slim margin there indeed. Once again it’s a veritable smorgasbord of celebrity cameos for pop culture aficionados; as well as the aforementioned Lee and Cushing, we have such returning guest stars as Peter Wyngarde, Julian Glover and Michael Gough, plus appearances from the likes of Roy Kinnear, and one particularly star-studded episode boasts Charlotte Rampling, Brian Blessed and Donald Sutherland. All in all I can think of no better way to honour the memory of the dear departed Patrick Macnee than to doff your hat, crack open a bottle of champers (with a gun if you must), and slap this in the Blu-ray player.
The Avengers Series 5 is out now on Blu-ray from Studiocanal.