Season five of The Avengers carries over the same set of leading characters as season four: Patrick Macnee as prim, bowler-hatted British secret agent John Steed and Diana Rigg as Steed's "talented amateur" partner, demurely sexy martial-arts expert Mrs. Emma Peel. And no, the relationship between Mr. Steed and Mrs. Peel has still not progressed beyond the "professional" stage -- presumably because Emma's husband is not dead, only missing. This season's 26 episodes are the first to be filmed in color rather than black-and-white. The transition was made not out of any artistic consideration, but for purely economic reasons. The British-made The Avengers had scored a hit on American TV the previous season, and had been renewed by that country's ABC network, which in 1967 was boasting a "full-color" prime-time lineup, raking in huge advertising revenues as a result. While the switchover to color would eventually force the The Avengers to cut budgetary corners elsewhere, the season-five episodes maintain as high a standard of quality as had ever been seen on the series. Indeed, many fans consider such episodes as "From Venus With Love," "The Bird Who Knew Too Much," "The Correct Way to Kill," and "Epic" to be among The Avengers' finest (and funniest) outings.
by Hal Erickson
synopsis
