Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jul 20, 2024 | 3 comments

A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE to the late, great, Dame Diana Rigg…

By PETER BOSCH

When Honor Blackman decided to quit after two years with the UK’s hot show The Avengers, there was a panic by the producers to find a replacement. After auditioning many actresses, they decided to go with Elizabeth Shepherd as a new character, Emma Peel. However, it was decided during filming she wasn’t what they’d hoped for and the search resumed. They were about ready to call it quits, but one of their casting people suggested they view an actress in an episode of the British TV series Armchair Theatre, “The Hothouse” — Diana Rigg.

Her first episode aired October 2, 1965, almost two years after Blackman’s last one.

In honor of the late Dame Diana Rigg’s birthday (July 20, 1938), here are my 13 favorite episodes of The Avengers. HOWEVER, before we get into those, here are a few bonuses…

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BONUS #1: The episode of Armchair Theatre that convinced them to test Diana Rigg:

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BONUS #2: The Avengers British opening credits:

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BONUS #3: The Avengers opening created for American audiences:

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BONUS #4: The color opening credits (plus the closing credits from Escape in Time) for Rigg’s second season:

And here are my 13 FAVORITE EPISODES — RANKED:

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13. Too Many Christmas Trees. Mrs. Peel determines enemy psychics are working on cracking Steed to spill secrets through nightmares they plant in his mind.

Why it is on my list: It’s a good psychological thriller. There’s also a nice in-joke with Steed receiving a Christmas card from Cathy Gale, Emma’s predecessor, played by Honor Blackman. Reading it, he wonders what she is doing at Fort Knox? (The answer is Goldfinger, 1964.)

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12. The Town of No Return. Steed and Mrs. Peel discover that groups of foreign enemies have been brought in by submarine to a coastal village and replaced the population there.

Why it is on my list: This was the first aired episode with Diana Rigg, though not the first filmed with her (that was The Murder Market).

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11. The Cybernauts. A maker of ultra-strong automatons sends his Cybernaut out to kill competitors who were also bidding on a Japanese circuitry invention. When Steed and Mrs. Peel get too close to finding he is the culprit, he turns the automaton on them.

Why it is on my list: The Cybernauts were really the only returning menace in the series, and they were incredibly memorable. Plus, the head villain was played by Michael Gough, known to Batman movie fans as Alfred to Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne.)

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10. The House That Jack Built. Emma receives a letter from her family’s lawyer saying she has inherited a house from an uncle… but she finds herself trapped in it by a vengeful ex-employee she fired from her father’s company when she was younger.

Why it is on my list: The script was basically 95% Emma Peel and served as the blueprint for the next season’s color episode The Joker.

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9. Murdersville. The citizens of Little Storping-in-the-Swuff care nothing when visitors kill or get killed as they have been paid to look the other way. However, when a friend of Emma’s moves to the village, they decide to stop him from interfering… permanently.

Why it is on my list: It’s an interesting idea for a story, and the location chosen for filming, Aldbury, England, was also used in The Dirty Dozen and TV shows such as Inspector Morse and Midsomer Murders, as well as another episode of The Avengers, Dead Man’s Treasure.

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8. Escape in Time. Steed and Mrs. Peel investigate the disappearance of wanted criminals and discover a man who has apparently perfected a means of time travel that allows crooks – for a fee – to go back in time to escape the law.

Why it is on my list: Escape in Time includes time travel, period costumes, and a fun mixup of identities in a colorful alley of spy intrigue.

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7. Who’s Who? A pair of male and female enemy agents switch minds with Steed and Mrs. Peel as a means of getting a list of government agents, whom they kill one by one. Meanwhile, the real Steed and Peel, whose minds are now in the bodies of the enemy agents, are mistaken for the bad guys.

Why it is on my list: The switcheroo gag gave Macnee and Rigg a chance to adopt the mannerisms of the lowbrow criminals and they even get to share a couple of passionate kisses.

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6. Return of the Cybernauts. The brother of the deceased inventor of the Cybernauts takes up where his brother left off, and adds in revenge against Steed and Peel.

Why it is on my list: The brother is played by Peter Cushing.

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5. The Forget-Me-Knot. Steed and Mrs. Peel are the targets of darts from enemy agents that give people amnesia, ranging from temporary to permanent based on the dosage. When Steed is informed there is a traitor in the British spy organization, he meets a new recruit, Tara King.

Why it is on my list: A sentimental farewell episode tag to Emma Peel and Diana Rigg.

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4. A Touch of Brimstone. A modern-day version of the Hellfire Club in England murders a political figure. Steed and Emma join the club undercover.

Why it is on my list: Besides being a great episode and seeing Diana Rigg in the Queen of Sin costume (which she designed), it was also the inspiration for Chris Claremont’s inclusion of the Hellfire Club in The X-Men and of Jean Grey as their Black Queen. One side note: The woman who played the mistress of the club’s leader, John Cartney (Peter Wyngarde), was Carol Cleveland of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

Photo from A Touch of Brimstone and the John Byrne/Terry Austin cover of The X-Men #134 (June 1980)

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3. The Winged Avenger. After greedy publishers of comic books are murdered, Steed and Mrs. Peel realize it was possibly done by the lead character in one of the comics, the Winged Avenger.

Why it is on my list: Well, that’s easy, it’s about comics. Also, the illustrations used in the show were by one of my favorite UK artists, Frank Bellamy. (Check out this link to see my birthday salute to him, along with drawings and photos from this episode.

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2. Epic. Emma is kidnapped and taken to an abandoned film studio by a screwy old-time film director and two silent movie has-beens, all looking to be restored to their former glory by murdering her in an art film they are making.

Why it is on my list: The story is genuinely funny, with the most inept villains ever, played by Kenneth J. Warren as the director Z.Z. Von Schnerk, and Peter Wyngarde (the villain from A Touch of Brimstone) and Isa Miranda as the two ham actors.

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1. The Joker. A psychotic enemy of Steed and Mrs. Peel escapes from jail and lures Emma out to an estate in order to carry out his revenge.

Why it is on my list: Though it had its script origins in the episode The House That Jack Built, this is – in my opinion – the most dramatic of all Emma Peel stories. The Joker features a supposedly empty house with a mysterious person secretly watching her through peepholes. Rigg and Macnee are the only actors performing naturally throughout. The villain of the piece (played by Peter Jeffrey) and his two accomplices (including Sally Nesbitt) take the art of acting nutso to a level of scenery chewing rarely seen. Still, it is a suspenseful story of frightening madness that the viewer experiences with Emma as it unfolds.

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Following her leaving The Avengers, Rigg went on to do films, Broadway, British theater, and her own American TV sitcom, Diana (with one episode guest-starring Macnee). In 1988, she was honored with the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire), and the DBE (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1994.

Acting roles for Dame Diana continued for many years, including on Game of Thrones. She died at age 82 on September 10, 2020.

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MORE

— The Pop Art Stylings of BATMAN ’66 MEETS STEED and MRS. PEEL. Click here.

— THE STUNNING ART OF FRANK BELLAMY: A Birthday Tribute to One of the Best. Click here.

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13th Dimension contributor-at-large PETER BOSCH’s first book, American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s – From the Small Screen to the Printed Page, was published by TwoMorrows. He is currently at work on a sequel, about movie comics. Peter has written articles and conducted celebrity interviews for various magazines and newspapers. He lives in Hollywood.