Fun Facts About THE AVENGERS

1. Though BBC America runs a single season of 26 episodes, The Avengers actually ran 6 seasons. Included in those are one season with Diana Rigg which was in black and white, a season with Linda Thorson as Emma Peel's replacement Tara King, and two seasons with Honor (Pussy Galore) Blackman as Cathy Gale. All Avengers seasons had Patrick MacNee as dapper secret agent John Steed.
2. The Avengers was a spinoff from another season, incredibly called POLICE SURGEON. That show was canceled but the character of the surgeon ("David Keel") was popular; they put him in another show and paired him with a shadowy secret agent. In the first few episodes Steed and Keel tracked down the killers of Keel's wife. Hence, the avengers.
3. Blackman left the show after two seasons to become a Bond girl; Diana Rigg left the show after two seasons to become a bond girl. The Linda Thorson years only ran one and a half seasons.
4. Before Diana Rigg, the show was practically live. That is to say it was either live or videotaped the day of airing. In other words, they didn't have time to take the mistakes out. The show went to film when the producers found an American market for it.
5. The last season, with Linda Thorson, was actually the highest-rated in Britain and Europe. Sadly, Americans didn't take to it. Without American money, the show went off the air.
6. Prolific producer and writer Brian Clemens went on in the nineties to write several episodes of REMINGTON STEELE.
7. Diana Rigg hated leather catsuits and is seldom seen in one, despite what you may think, or may have liked.
8. Some Diana Rigg episodes are rewrites of Honor Blackman episodes, because they were never syndicated and it seemed like a waste of a good idea.
9. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee both appeared in episodes; in both cases the plot revolved around remote-controlled humanoids.
10. Almost everybody agrees the movie just didn't get it.
11. The theme of the show was written by Laurie Anderson; he also wrote the theme to Space: 1999. As you will recall, the moon flew out of Earth's orbit 8 years ago, taking with it the entire crew of Moonbase Alpha. Long story.
12. Steed drove six different Bentleys (plus a Vauxhall) during the original series, even though he and Emma spoke as if he had only one. Patrick Macnee says he never learned how to drive them; he left them in third gear all of the time, and often they would have to be pushed into the camera frame by the crew or driven by a double. The Bentleys were usually rented from private owners, and most are said to have been in rather poor condition. (paragraph courtesy Avengers Forver!)
13. BBC America is canceling the Avengers, opting for shows which aren't 35 years old. More's the pity, I say.