Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Sexylocher Masterful Movie

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Joxerlives As a kid this was actually my first introduction to the series, then I watched the Tara King season when it was repeated by Channel 4 in the early 80s, then I caught up with the earlier seasons via DVD.Very interesting, acts almost as a bridging ep between the old Avengers and The Professionals. Very much more set in the real world than it's predecessors, uniformed policemen, drugs, poor people, the Cold War with the Soviet Union replacing some unnamed 'foreign power'. More violent, gunfights (which Patrick McNee always tried to avoid due to his World War 2 combat experiences), car chases and fight scenes with a lot more vigour than before. Still no blood and no women getting killed (good!), still gentlemen spies and villains. The structure of 2 young agents supervised by a stern yet affectionate superior is repeated in The Professionals and Mike Gambit is very much a prototype for Bodie in a great many ways in terms of style and background. Given the success of Purdey's character it almost seems strange that they didn't try to introduce a female CI5 agents into the mix? But maybe that would have seemed too close? Of course one episode actually features future Professionals Martin Shaw and Lewis Collins as the villains, Collins remarking to Shaw that they "Make a good team, we should work together again some time".McNee still magnificent as ever especially in 'Dead Men are Dangerous' which is extremely good, possibly the best ep ever. If there's a weakness to the series it's the sometimes rather ropey special effects (especially the 'giant' rat), a lack of budget and the endlessly repeated cliché off a dying man's final words setting the team off on their adventure. The Canada eps are a little flat but no offence to the canucks 70s Canada didn't lend it's much to great drama as Brian Clemens comments. The French eps are much better, Paris lending itself to the Avengers and the idea of literal Soviet 'sleeper agents' terrific. All told it's a classic even if very much of it's time and well worth the look.

Jack Yan 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.

mccabed The box set of New Avengers '76 (season one) has the following episodes: The Eagle's Nest, The Midas Touch, House of Cards, The Last of the Cybernauts...?, To Catch a Rat, Cat Amongst the Pigeons, Target!, Faces, The Tale of the Big Why, Three Handed Game, Sleeper, Gnaws, and Dirtier By the Dozen. A favorite of mine when new, I now give this rejuvenated Avengers series four stars out of five. I have heard Patrick MacNee did not like the way Steed takes a back seat in the new format, but I like the team's new balance. Steed has matured into a team leader with two young field operatives, Mike Gambit (Gareth Hunt) and Purdey (Joanna Lumley, later of Absolutely Fabulous). Wild plots and flirtatious banter abound as the three save the world every week, with high style, good looks, and great wardrobes.Sound and picture quality are fine, although clearly not remastered. Extras are minimal: three "production stills" per episode.There was a second season, cofinanced by France and Canada, with episodes in those countries as well as the UK. When that box set comes out, I will buy it.

Dave Matthews Neo-nazis maquerading as Trappist Monks, killer robots, a man carrying every deadly disease yet remaining immune, a shooting range that fires back, a machine that steals minds, government ministers programmed to self-destruct, a deadly Russian computer disguised as the Canadian National Security building!! Yes the Avengers were back in a big way. Well, they would have been were it not for terrible scheduling in the UK and the anti-violence lobby in the USA...The New Avengers was a laudable attempt to recapture past glories with plots as offbeat as its classic 1960s ancestor. With many of the original crew, higher production values and a determination to make the stories even pacier, The New Avengers couldn't fail... could it?Patrick Macnee was back as suave top agent John Steed and old fans eagerly anticipated the return of their favourite female partner, Diana Rigg's Emma Peel. However it was not to be - the actress having made it clear she had had quite enough of the show a decade previously. The Avengers without Mrs Peel?! Surely it could never work...?In her place came Joanna Lumley as the tough, resourceful, witty, beautiful and ultra-feminine Purdey. Easily a worthy successor to Emma.... though most old fans would never admit it!In an unexpected move, a third member of the team was introduced. As Patrick Macnee was now that much older, the producers understandably felt a younger man was required to carry out much of Steed's "heavy duty" work. Gareth Hunt, relatively new to acting at the time, was introduced as tough but quiet ex-Para Mike Gambit. The presence of the third character has probably caused more debate than any other element of The New Avengers!In some ways the use of a three players put paid to any believable sexual tension between the characters. Clearly Steed was too old for Purdey and, unfortunately, the humorous sexual subtlety he had shared with previous co-stars was replaced by rather obvious, belaboured innuendo between Gambit and Purdey.Perhaps the biggest fault of the series in terms of the characterisations was that previously Steed had known he didn't have to worry about his partners when they went into battle. With the new series, although Purdey was portrayed as being independent and deadly as her predecessors, Steed always seemed to feel he needed to protect her.Nevertheless all three actors clearly shared a marvellous bond of friendship working together and handled their roles with conviction, invention and style... though, of course, never taking themselves too seriously!As this was the 1970s, it was felt the action scenes needed to be toughened up and the knockabout fun of the original show was replaced with deadly jousts - particularly when Gambit was involved. Nevertheless Purdey's lethal fighting style (essentially based on the French 'Panache' technique) imbued many of her own fight scenes with a good dose of humour. Unfortunately this tougher nature would later prove to be a handicap to American sales.Either way it has to be said that the action scenes were superbly staged - particularly with its use of crafty camera angles and clipped editing - and, twenty-five years on, we have still to see a British show surpass it in this area. And all credit to Lumley and Hunt who insisted on handling much of their own tremendous stuntwork. (Indeed the original show's use of stunt doubles was often embarrassingly obvious!)With excellent storylines and good exposure in the UK media, the first season did very well, despite ITV's inability to find the programme a proper networked slot.However The New Avengers was ultimately doomed. Part-financed by French company IDTV ("A load of crooks" as producer Brian Clemens described them), promised money never appeared and a Canadian company was brought in to prop up the production. Somewhat inevitably this led to demands for several episodes to be filmed in Canada. At this point Brian Clemens found himself virtually forced to hand over the series to a Canadian team who promptly demonstrated they didn't have a clue about what The Avengers was about. After just twenty-six episodes the show was brought to a halt. And when American broadcasters deemed the programme too violent to be screened in a primetime slot, clearly the series would be gone for good.Looking back now, although The New Avengers will never be seen as an outright improvement over its forebear, it largely succeeded in its own right. In many ways, though, it was a victim of its times, particularly that of the British economy and the appalling fashions of the day. Although it undeniably had some poor episodes, when The New Avengers was good (as it often was), it was GREAT! Play that funky music, white boy!