Should Patrick Macnee have stepped down?

[Frankymole]

I'm not saying that Patrick Macnee needed replacing because his Steed wasn't good - it was excellent - but in remaining in the role throughout the entirity of the series, it was then incredibly difficult to recast when it was needed. There was no precedent - Macnee WAS Steed. And frankly it needed recasting - first with Tara and especially with Purdey.

Totally disagree.

And I'm a huge Moore fan too - have all the Saints, Persuaders!, Bonds, his autobiography etc... but he simply isn't Steed.

Maybe Patrick Troughton could have played Steed, but he could have played anyone... and often did. Patrick Allen might have been good too - charm, looks great in a bowler hat, steel...

[Alan]

Should Macnee have stepped down? No, I don't think so. I take the point that his staying the full run made him pretty much irreplaceable, but I don't see that as a downside. The Avengers was not a soap, and therefore didn't need to run and run and run. I don't regret that there weren't more than the 187 episodes we got. That's plenty. It's a fine and varied legacy and it doesn't need to be running today as a continuing programme.

Yes, we could have had a recast Steed, but frankly, I agree with Dandy and Sam, we'd much more likely have either got a different actor as a different character, or they'd rename the series and start afresh if Macnee had left. A replacement character could have been introduced at the start of the film series, but after that? The series was too much Steed + another after that. I can't see it would have worked with Di Rigg and another character replacing Steed for the colour series, for instance.

As for Halfhide's comment about Ralph Fiennes - that doesn't prove that there's no-one who can assume the Steed mantle, it just means that Fiennes was not really that man.

Interesting question, though - and I do like the suggestion of Patrick Allen as an alternate Steed and fully concur with Timeless that Donald Monat is the living proof that the role is not completely Macnee-exclusive (though I also agree that radio is a very different medium to TV).

[Timeless A-Peel]

Interesting question, though - and I do like the suggestion of Patrick Allen as an alternate Steed and fully concur with Timeless that Donald Monat is the living proof that the role is not completely Macnee-exclusive (though I also agree that radio is a very different medium to TV).

Not only that, but I think the radio series is the Avengers' best shot at a viable "alternate universe." Radio Emma is most definitely a different character, a bona fide agent (due not least of all to the use of Tara King stories, so she becomes something of a mash-up), and radio Steed follows suit. Different is not a bad thing--I think the radio series does wonderful things with the scripts and characters. It's fun to have something to put alongside the TV episodes. But the casting was out of necessity, and simply recasting Steed over and over just for the sake of "longevity" seems a bit...gratuitous. I honestly don't think Patrick was the only limiting factor for the series continuing. I doubt it would have, or should have, continued much longer (maybe a year or two) regardless of what went on it casting. The break between it and TNA was probably a good thing. Instead of recasting Steed, I would have liked another series or two of TNA, with the show ultimately wrapping up and giving us a little bit of closure for the character. I like that idea of progression better than a recasting.

[helenofirvine]

Well, there's a proliferation of fan made Star Trek, Dr. Who and the like.

Perhaps a fan made Avengers to play with these ideas?

[Dandy Forsdyke]

I would agree about the radio series being an interesting alternative from the TV series. It was cast well, had all the elements of The Avengers and was still in the same time frame. It sits nicely between the original series and the revival.

I wouldn't care for a revival, but an audio book version that reflected the radio series would be an interesting possibility.

[Alan]

Indeed. Of course the other consideration in suggesting that Macnee should have stepped down after the videotaped era, is that it would have been a poor career move for him. With The Avengers about to go international in a big way (i.e. America), it basically cemented his international reputation and gave him a career and profile on the world stage which he most likely wouldn't have had if he'd moved to another UK series.

He might have had a more varied career post-Avengers if he'd left earlier, but would he have been one of those actors who disappeared, and was mostly forgotten. Would the chap who took over from him be a bigger name than him now? All "what ifs" of course, but interesting to consider...

[Dandy Forsdyke]

It's easy to get the impression that Patrick Macnee was very ambitious young actor. He has said many times over that pre-Avengers he had reinvented himself as a producer. Well, that's debatable - if you look at his IMDB he produced very little - Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years and that's it.

He had tried lots of time to get into America, even creating (or perpetuating) the myth that David Niven was his cousin. Leslie Phillips' biography reads

"However Niven turned out to be, in Patrick's words 'No ****ing help, whatsoever'. "

and I think producing was just a way of extending his CV or paying the rent. I don't think it was a permanent career choice. But that's speculation ...

My point is The Avengers was his first big success. After failure upon failure he wasn't going to walk away from that into uncharted waters. That's why she stuck with it - and returned to John Steed and The Avengers several times after (including the French Champagne commercial and other TV adverts, the revived series and even the movie).

He now says he regrets not leaving when Diana did and regrets The New Avengers, but at the time I think he knew it was best he stayed with a successful vehicle.

[Frankymole]

Interesting question, though - and I do like the suggestion of Patrick Allen as an alternate Steed

He'd got the hat

[Rodney]

No one else could have played Steed IMO. For one thing, Macnee was partly responsible for creating the character in that first series, working alongside directors like Leaver to bolster fairly lightweight scripts. Later his input helped to reinventi the character. Had Macnee left when Blackman did the show would have stopped. Everyone working on the show at the time is quite clear about that.

[Allard]

I wonder if they had bothered to continue with the show if Macnee had quit.