The Avengers Video ~ Peel The Reel

Diana Rigg / Emma Peel Gallery

Enter Honor Blackman: Seasons Two & Three

During the first season of The Avengers, an actor's strike halted production in 1961 at episode 26, and it did not resume for almost a year. Once production was due to recommence, Ian Hendry had decided to leave the show for a movie career. The producers asked Patrick Macnee to continue which he agreed to do. Macnee, thus, became the lynch pin of the series.

With this decision, actor Jon Rollason temporarily replaced Hendry for three episodes at the beginning of season two, playing Dr. Martin King. However, it was decided that a woman should be Steed's new crime-fighting partner.

Cathy Gale would become the first liberated female character created for television. Honor Blackman won the role (albeit Nyree Dawn Porter was the producers' first choice), and her first filmed episode was "Death Dispatch" in June, 1962.


Honor Blackman completed 43 episodes during her tenure. By 1964, for reasons which are still unclear, she had decided to leave and accept the role of Pussy Galore in the upcoming James Bond extravaganza, Goldfinger. This left The Avengers without a female lead, but after several months the production team started to look in earnest for a replacement. Eventually, an actress was found and she would take the series to new levels and the television world by storm...

How It All Began

The Avengers was a replacement for the short-lived TV series Police Surgeon, produced by ABC-TV in the UK, and ran from September to December 1960. It starred Ian Hendry as Dr. Geoffrey Brent, but when it was suddenly cancelled he was asked to pair up with Patrick Macnee. Thus, The Avengers was born with Hendry playing Dr. David Keel and Macnee, John Steed. At this point, Hendry was considered the star of the show with Macnee as his mysterious, sometimes ruthless sidekick.


The first two episodes featured Steed and Keel avenging the shooting death of Keel's fianceé, Peggy, by members of a drug ring. Unfortunately, only the first twenty minutes of this introduction are known to exist (from the episode Hot Snow), along with two other full episodes from this first season: The Frighteners and Girl on a Trapeze.

The Avengers: An Introduction

The TV series The Avengers is a blend of espionage, fantasy and sometimes science fiction that has appealed to those who enjoy witty, off-beat television. While this British programme (produced by ABC-TV in the UK) acquired a huge international following back in the Sixties, it has, for many, been nearly forgotten until its revival in its cinematic incarnation in 1998, and its recent re-runs on BBC4 and BBC America in the USA. It has, however, always been a cult favourite and considered by many to be among the best of its genre from that era.

The series aired in the United Kingdom from January 1961 until May 1969, and comprised 161 episodes. The Avengers became one of the most popular television series of all time, when it was bought by television companies from 120 different countries. The majority of the show's popularity was due to the pairing of Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg as agents John Steed and Emma Peel. While this duo are probably the best remembered and most loved, there was certainly more to the series than Steed with Peel. This is my homage to television at its best...the style of the Sixties lives on in The Avengers!