Clemens best/worst screenplay

[Lhbizness]

Not...sure...where Emma makes prim jealous comments

At the end of "The Correct Way to Kill", for one.

I was comparing how they write the women. Emma in season 4 seems like a grown woman in her equality with steed, but has definitely been a bit infantilised by Season 5. Just part of the more cardboard characterisations, I guess. More regressing than developing...

She teases him about Olga and then refers to their obvious sexual relationship - I don't see any "prim jealous comments" there, unless you really want to read against the grain (or feel a deep-seated prejudice against Emma in general). Mostly it seems to be the two of them flirting.

How you can claim that Emma is infantalised but Tara ever grows up entirely escapes me. If anything, Emma behaves more like an adult woman in an adult relationship in Season 5 than she does in Season 4 (if you want to read their relationship as stronger than friendship, of course). But once again, you seem to want to make this about Emma vs. Tara, which is not really what it's about.

There's a disturbing tendency on this board in general to push the opinions of the writers and directors as evidence that an argument is correct - I really don't care what Clemens thought or didn't think about the Season 6 scripts. It's an interesting piece of trivia, but it really proves nothing except that Clemens, like everyone, has an opinion.

So let me be totally opinionated, based on my viewing of the series: I find the season messy and unclear, the scripts largely subpar, and the leading lady veering between boring and insipid. While I don't think the attacks on Thorson as an actress are warranted, the attacks on the season itself certainly are. The love it receives on this board is equally as incomprehensible to me as the apparent hatred of Season 5 - and I've yet to see that they're backed up with much. I'm not certain sometimes that we're watching the same show. It's been more or less said that too many people worship at the altar of Emma Peel - I'm afraid that too many people seem to want to worship Tara King as well.

Once more, however, we seem to have gone off the topic of the thread.

[mousemeat]

Not...sure...where Emma makes prim jealous comments

At the end of "The Correct Way to Kill", for one.

I was comparing how they write the women. Emma in season 4 seems like a grown woman in her equality with steed, but has definitely been a bit infantilised by Season 5. Just part of the more cardboard characterisations, I guess. More regressing than developing...

She teases him about Olga and then refers to their obvious sexual relationship - I don't see any "prim jealous comments" there, unless you really want to read against the grain (or feel a deep-seated prejudice against Emma in general). Mostly it seems to be the two of them flirting.

How you can claim that Emma is infantalised but Tara ever grows up entirely escapes me. If anything, Emma behaves more like an adult woman in an adult relationship in Season 5 than she does in Season 4 (if you want to read their relationship as stronger than friendship, of course). But once again, you seem to want to make this about Emma vs. Tara, which is not really what it's about.

There's a disturbing tendency on this board in general to push the opinions of the writers and directors as evidence that an argument is correct - I really don't care what Clemens thought or didn't think about the Season 6 scripts. It's an interesting piece of trivia, but it really proves nothing except that Clemens, like everyone, has an opinion.

So let me be totally opinionated, based on my viewing of the series: I find the season messy and unclear, the scripts largely subpar, and the leading lady veering between boring and insipid. While I don't think the attacks on Thorson as an actress are warranted, the attacks on the season itself certainly are. The love it receives on this board is equally as incomprehensible to me as the apparent hatred of Season 5 - and I've yet to see that they're backed up with much. I'm not certain sometimes that we're watching the same show. It's been more or less said that too many people worship at the altar of Emma Peel - I'm afraid that too many people seem to want to worship Tara King as well.

not me......and besides....Peel was emotionally more complex..than Tara

Once more, however, we seem to have gone off the topic of the thread.

[darren]

I love the show for the diversity of styles in the different eras, always something different to suit my mood.

The end of Emma's era moving into Tara's is fascinating for its tone. I've talked a bit about it in one of my chapters for the season 6 book. You can see a darker edge coming along in the late Peel episodes and regardless of the production hassles, you can see the more serious tone in aspects of John Bryce's aborted episodes. Philip Levene started season 6 as script consultant but allegedly left due to disagreements with Clemens. Once Levene has gone the show becomes more frivolous again and it's only towards the end that the darker episodes like Requiem and Take Over start appearing. I do think that Levene was on the right track before leaving the show. Clemens seems to have seen it eventually. But I do like the variety in season 6.

Crikey, Darren, which episode is your avatar from??

Game.

It's from when Tara and Steed are waiting for the Brigadier to turn up in a field. Great work from Bob Fuest!

[darren]

It's worth remembering that Tara's role was kind of demanded by the ABC bosses who were concerned about what they saw as Steed being made to look weak when Emma would come to his rescue.

Also Linda says that she always played Tara as though she were madly in love with Steed. It's not an aspect I'm especially fond of but it doesn't bother me.

You're not likely to get consistency when Terry Nation is the script editor. Bless him.

[Lhbizness]

It's worth remembering that Tara's role was kind of demanded by the ABC bosses who were concerned about what they saw as Steed being made to look weak when Emma would come to his rescue.

Also Linda says that she always played Tara as though she were madly in love with Steed. It's not an aspect I'm especially fond of but it doesn't bother me.

You're not likely to get consistency when Terry Nation is the script editor. Bless him.

Yeah - it's (mostly) the fault of the producers, but we still have the series that we have. It's not saying that Thorson couldn't have done better or that Tara could have been a better character - she obviously could have. The production circumstances sucked, and the producers were wrong. But it's still what was produced. I don't see the usefulness of excusing or explaining Tara as a character because of what she didn't do.

[mousemeat]

It's worth remembering that Tara's role was kind of demanded by the ABC bosses who were concerned about what they saw as Steed being made to look weak when Emma would come to his rescue.

Also Linda says that she always played Tara as though she were madly in love with Steed. It's not an aspect I'm especially fond of but it doesn't bother me.

You're not likely to get consistency when Terry Nation is the script editor. Bless him.

i never liked the potential angle of Tara lusting after Steed...but I learned to deal with it...

[Frankymole]

I don't see any need at all to "excuse" or "explain" Tara. She was great.

What would not have been great would have been to have another Emma Peel. That would indeed have been repetitive.

I'm glad they got rid of Beth Shepherd and the Emma as scripted in "The Murder Market" as that character was essentially another Cathy Gale.

People vary - some you like, some you don't. Luckily Tara has her fans

[Lhbizness]

I don't see any need at all to "excuse" or "explain" Tara. She was great.

What would not have been great would have been to have another Emma Peel. That would indeed have been repetitive.

I'm glad they got rid of Beth Shepherd and the Emma as scripted in "The Murder Market" as that character was essentially another Cathy Gale.

People vary - some you like, some you don't. Luckily Tara has her fans

And I think they could have managed a better character than a vacant Girl Friday. Emma was different from Cathy, but shared certain traits (like intellect and independence) that made them both an advance on the usual "girl in danger" tropes. With Tara, we went right back to the trope, and then the show ended. But like I say, I don't think Season 6's problems are entirely an issue of Tara - it's the whole season that feels scattered and directionless. Half the time I don't think Macnee is certain what he's supposed to be doing. Really, it's the nadir of The Avengers.

Lest it appear that I have zero appreciation for Season 6, I do often enjoy Steed a great deal in that season. His heroism is in full swing, he's very likable (if a little humorless), and his clothes are gorgeous.

Let me try to put it differently: in your mind, are there any problems with Season 6, either with the character of Tara herself or with the season in general (problems that are not explained away by shifting production circumstances)?

[mousemeat]

I don't see any need at all to "excuse" or "explain" Tara. She was great.

What would not have been great would have been to have another Emma Peel. That would indeed have been repetitive.

I'm glad they got rid of Beth Shepherd and the Emma as scripted in "The Murder Market" as that character was essentially another Cathy Gale.

People vary - some you like, some you don't. Luckily Tara has her fans

yeah...few ' fans '.....LOL.......I would not be so quick to judge Beth..as Emma, after all, she only had and episode and an half..to try to put her take on the character..given time, she
might have down just fine....and NO, I've never seen those episodes...

[paulpdjh]

So let me be totally opinionated, based on my viewing of the series: I find the season messy and unclear, the scripts largely subpar, and the leading lady veering between boring and insipid. While I don't think the attacks on Thorson as an actress are warranted, the attacks on the season itself certainly are. The love it receives on this board is equally as incomprehensible to me as the apparent hatred of Season 5 - and I've yet to see that they're backed up with much. I'm not certain sometimes that we're watching the same show. It's been more or less said that too many people worship at the altar of Emma Peel - I'm afraid that too many people seem to want to worship Tara King as well.

Once more, however, we seem to have gone off the topic of the thread.

It's interesting how people are attracted to different aspects of the show. For me, the wide variation in the styles and story lines in season six, together with the introduction of Tara King, is what makes it one of my favourite seasons of The Avengers. It would have been easy for the producers to have introduced another Cathy/Emma type character. Tara was young and inexperiened, but I don't see her as incompetent and as the series progressed she handled many situations just as well as Cathy or Emma.

Personally I don't dislike season five, but apart from the odd episode, the series seemed to have lost its edge and it felt like Avenging by checklist. As for Emma Peel, I do like her, but I think my opinion is greatly coloured by my interpretation of the end of The Forget-me-knot. I had thought that Steed and Emma were the closest of all his partners, but the fact that Peter Peel was almost a carbon copy of Steed made it seem that Emma had just latched onto Steed as a substitute for her husband. (It's obvious from Steed's reaction that he had never met Peter, so they weren't close family friends or anything like that). No doubt others see things very differently, but it made me question what Emma was doing there in the first place! Unlike Dr Keel and Mrs Gale, she didn't seem to be driven by a strong humanitarian instinct and she wasn't a professional agent like Tara, Gambit and Purdey. Her relationship with Steed was the obvious reason, but that ending made it feel to me like it was built on sand.