I can only comment on the episodes using Patrick MacNee and Diana Rigg between 1965 and 1968.
What a diverting show it was. MacNee is John Steed, the proper gentleman in bowler hat, wielding his deadly brolly. His character and appearance are perfect for a vehicle like this. It isn't so much that he was never nonplussed, so much as that he was always plussed. Rigg is Emma Peel in her jump suits, zippered up front, with that tantalizing, over-sized ring dangling from the zipper just below her sternoclavicular notch. Diana Rigg has a curious beauty. She sports a pair of wide-set eyes, elevated cheekbones, a perfunctory nose and tiny lips, like a Hentai cartoon. She's a good actress too. Did a fine job as one of the bad daughters in Lawrence Olivier's TV production of "King Lear." She was so popular at the time she left this series that she was whisked off to Broadway for "Abelard and Heloise," which included a topless scene. I understand the theater was jammed, but then the story has always been immensely popular with the masses. There are Abelard and Heloise fan clubs in every dusty little town in the world.
The two of them work off each other very well, whether popping the cork of a champagne bottle or fending off evildoers. Their, um, relationship is never fully explained. They both work for some ultra-secret British government organization apparently. Each show opens with Mrs. Peel uncovering a message from Steed, coyly hidden in a box of chocolate or under some peeling wallpaper -- "Mrs. Peel. We're needed." The forces they battle are absurd. Some fantastic organization is breeding a horde of robotic soldiers in a vast, excavated place under a cemetery, and they plan to emerge and take over the British Isles. Or another cabal -- P.U.R.R. -- has invented a device that turns ordinary pussy cats into demonic, homicidal beasts that will be used to eliminate the world's leaders so that P.U.R.R. can take over. Somebody is always trying to take over the world. And Steed and Mrs. Peel are always there to thwart their plans.
It isn't broad comedy. A viewer is more likely to smile than laugh out loud. But the scripts are quietly witty and suggestive. The episode about felines -- "The Hidden Tiger" -- has an uncountable number of references and puns on the subject. P.U.R.R. is run by a Mr. Cheshire. (Cheshire cat, get it? "Alice in Wonderland"?) The manager's name is Mr. Manx. Too many puns on pussies and cats to enumerate, but the last word spoken in the episode is "cat-astrophe." The fashion is that of Britain in the period of the early Beatles, and Carnaby Street, and the general sense conveyed is that of a loose-limbed freedom from earlier conventions. Nothing is taken seriously. If a man drops dead in front of Steed and Mrs. Peel, they kneel down, check his pulse, and look at each other with a slight, quizzical frown.
The plots are convoluted, and it's easy to lose track of what's going on. At times, one's mind drifts. A series like this must walk a tightrope. "Whimsy" can too easily slip into "cute" or, worse, the abyssal "silly." But the plot is never very important anyway.
Everything is handled with style and panache. Bowler-hatted or coiffed auburn, these episodes are heads and shoulders above most of the junk that fill the TV screens today.
What a diverting show it was. MacNee is John Steed, the proper gentleman in bowler hat, wielding his deadly brolly. His character and appearance are perfect for a vehicle like this. It isn't so much that he was never nonplussed, so much as that he was always plussed. Rigg is Emma Peel in her jump suits, zippered up front, with that tantalizing, over-sized ring dangling from the zipper just below her sternoclavicular notch. Diana Rigg has a curious beauty. She sports a pair of wide-set eyes, elevated cheekbones, a perfunctory nose and tiny lips, like a Hentai cartoon. She's a good actress too. Did a fine job as one of the bad daughters in Lawrence Olivier's TV production of "King Lear." She was so popular at the time she left this series that she was whisked off to Broadway for "Abelard and Heloise," which included a topless scene. I understand the theater was jammed, but then the story has always been immensely popular with the masses. There are Abelard and Heloise fan clubs in every dusty little town in the world.
The two of them work off each other very well, whether popping the cork of a champagne bottle or fending off evildoers. Their, um, relationship is never fully explained. They both work for some ultra-secret British government organization apparently. Each show opens with Mrs. Peel uncovering a message from Steed, coyly hidden in a box of chocolate or under some peeling wallpaper -- "Mrs. Peel. We're needed." The forces they battle are absurd. Some fantastic organization is breeding a horde of robotic soldiers in a vast, excavated place under a cemetery, and they plan to emerge and take over the British Isles. Or another cabal -- P.U.R.R. -- has invented a device that turns ordinary pussy cats into demonic, homicidal beasts that will be used to eliminate the world's leaders so that P.U.R.R. can take over. Somebody is always trying to take over the world. And Steed and Mrs. Peel are always there to thwart their plans.
It isn't broad comedy. A viewer is more likely to smile than laugh out loud. But the scripts are quietly witty and suggestive. The episode about felines -- "The Hidden Tiger" -- has an uncountable number of references and puns on the subject. P.U.R.R. is run by a Mr. Cheshire. (Cheshire cat, get it? "Alice in Wonderland"?) The manager's name is Mr. Manx. Too many puns on pussies and cats to enumerate, but the last word spoken in the episode is "cat-astrophe." The fashion is that of Britain in the period of the early Beatles, and Carnaby Street, and the general sense conveyed is that of a loose-limbed freedom from earlier conventions. Nothing is taken seriously. If a man drops dead in front of Steed and Mrs. Peel, they kneel down, check his pulse, and look at each other with a slight, quizzical frown.
The plots are convoluted, and it's easy to lose track of what's going on. At times, one's mind drifts. A series like this must walk a tightrope. "Whimsy" can too easily slip into "cute" or, worse, the abyssal "silly." But the plot is never very important anyway.
Everything is handled with style and panache. Bowler-hatted or coiffed auburn, these episodes are heads and shoulders above most of the junk that fill the TV screens today.