That's What We Watched On TV Year Ago # 11

There are not many TV serials which could have reached on the one hand a cult status and be looked, on the other hand, by the whole family. One of those are The Avengers. The protagonists and their clothes as well as the stories of the single episodes were nearly revolutionary for Germany at that time.

There is the figure which embodies the typical Britain in itself. He is discreet, well dressed, is quick-fitted and from a careless sovereignty which still sticks in the face of obvious death danger iron to the habit of the Five o'clock tea. He is, very briefly, how John Steed. A cosmopolitan secret agent in the service of the Secret service. He is British so computable that it could be dull if he was not above all one: ironically. It is a play, everything is a play, this order, this series, this life. And is played it by incomparable Patrick Macnee who melted thus with the role of his life that there has been first no film life after the end of "The Avengers" for him. To him it was provided a woman who shows the crass opposite - Emma Peel., played wonderful by the amazing Diana Rigg. The film name Emma Peel is copied to the sound by "Man Appeal", an allusion on the magnetic effect of the pert lady on the man's world. The fact that this series became so quickly popular lay not least with the costumes and clothes of the series. Miss Peel had an extremely considerable slope to varnish and leather. Not without exaggerating as the German television doers found at that time and kept the ominous result 99 from the German spectators because Peel appeared as sketched) leather corsage with choke chain as sharp Domina in (itself. One still had to learn irony in this country just. Peel was self-confident, intelligent, grabbing and was equal in every regard. How generally the consciously unclear erotic status of the respect of the protagonists inspired to each other the imagination of the spectators incredibly. Generally it was in this series about accessories. Maybe above all therefore. Since the action was always a little abstruse. Cracked researchers, ghost-clouded castle owners or eccentric collectors – just a cross section of British everyday life – reached for power, for world domination even, often with means of futuristic apparatuses. The science fiction learnt here the running. There Steed and partner had to get down to it. „Miss Peel, we we're needed“. But importantly was not what they did, but how. Style hits story. This was the whole secret. And after all it was the blueprint of the upcoming movies with James Bond.

The soundtrack to the series was composed by Sir John Dankworth, a legendary English jazz composer, saxophonist, clarinetist and Big Band leader.

Enjoy and have a good weekend.