Where was Clemens going?

[Ketman]

Apart from some of the Cathy Gale eps that they showed on Channel 4 (I think) in the late 1980s, I haven't seen the Avengers since it was first broadcast, and then only between late '65 and early '68. And I remember it only in fragments, so really it's all new to me. Of course, the colour era is wonderfully shot. The look of it is stunning, the clothes are gorgeous, there is plenty of wit and invention, plenty of oddball characters, and most of all some wonderful actors. And yet... having got through the DVDs of the black and white era, I find myself watching the colour series with increasing unease. While I'm enjoying it, I'm also aware that some of its sharp corners are being knocked off. I had a look through the TAF site for some clue to this apparent change of direction, and I came across this:

"As for the stark differences between The Avengers and The New Avengers, Clemens explains that he knew the original had limited appeal—that is, it was never understood by mid-west America, and he very much wanted to develop something for this audience."

Let's consider that. The Avengers has been a hit in - what was it? 120 countries? - where not more than 5% speak English and have to watch with subtitles. But they get it, and want more. There's no problem with the audiences of France, Italy, Argentina, Western Samoa and the Upper Togo Basin. But the English-speaking peoples of mid-west America don't get it, it seems. So having identified mid-west Americans as the thickest people on earth, he then tells us he wants to write for them.

The article goes on:

"Essentially he was shooting for a glossy, British version of Starsky and Hutch."

It's certainly true that television is full of people who secretly think the key to success is to make shows like other shows, but very few of them would admit to it. They at least like to claim originality, even if they can't produce it when the time comes. But Clemens is up front about his copy-cat intentions.

But this next bit surely beats the band:

".... he concedes that British television is not what it used to be. Brits can no longer smugly think of American television as crap, he maintains, because the quality of British television is diminishing."

If that's true, is it because there aren't enough people left who want to make shows like other shows?

While on the TAF site, my eye was caught by Roger Marshall's name. He was familiar to me, because I started watching Public Eye at about the same time as The Avengers, and I recently bought the DVDs to revisit those early memories. He created and wrote many of the episodes of that series, which was the polar opposite of "a glossy, British version of Starsky and Hutch". It was down-beat, seedy, and realistic to a degree you rarely encounter on TV. So I wasn't at all surprised to read his comments on the re-jigging of The Avengers following the injection of American money: "...I have no doubt that it could and should have been better; a whole lot better. Some of the film people who replaced their TV counterparts were too old and not up to scratch; too many veterans broken on Lew Grade's mid-Atlantic wheel." And about the restrictions placed on him as a writer, he says, "Working on the show had started to become a chore. No longer was a writer able to write what he wanted and in the way he wanted".

That clarifies things. It explains why there are so many things that irritate me about the new glossy period. What's going wrong is that Clemens and the "mid-Atlantic" men are taking over, and writers like Marshall are being squeezed out. I can almost see it happening there on the screen. Well, I'll watch the remaining Rigg episodes of the colour era, because, despite the drop in quality, there's still a lot to enjoy. I'm also tempted to get the Cathy Gale era, now that I know Roger Marshall worked on those. But that's it for me. I'll go backwards in time, but not forwards. I'll pass on the post-Rigg era. It would be too depressing.

[kim]

You would be doing yourself a great disservice by ignoring the eras beyond the Rigg episodes. Will you like 'em, love 'em, hate 'em? Who's to say? But you owe yourself the opportunity to see them. The Tara King and TNA eras have a lot to offer.

[norw27]

The Thorson era is a far more inventive season than the colour Rigg episodes, there is bound to be something in there you'll enjoy so I shouldn't cast them off without looking.

[Cariheart]

I understood the concept of The Avengers or as Patrick explained it to America-...the man with the umbrella and the woman who threw men over her shoulders... or something like that. I caught on to it right away and I was only 7 years old at the time. America wasn't as thick as Clemens thought. I mean for Pete's sake , we had Batman... and that was pretty far-out for that time!

[Dandy Forsdyke]

^ The Avengers can be watched on many different levels. I watched it as a kid and thought it was like Batman too, but there are quite a few layers to it. I don't think BC thought the Americans 'thick' - he went to work over the pond many times.

The culture is slightly different; we're a bit more cynical over here.

[darren]

I think that what Brian Clemens did was make the show identifiable. He simplified it in many ways, by creating iconic images and a simple concept (pretty much outlined in that opening narration for US audiences). It's that simplicity that made it easier to capture audiences. I don't think it's so much regarding audiences as thick but making it accessible (but there are arguments against that, regarded as spoon feeding sometimes).

[Courier]

The Thorson era is a far more inventive season than the colour Rigg episodes, there is bound to be something in there you'll enjoy so I shouldn't cast them off without looking.

What I have seen of The Thorson era makes me disagree with you, especially with Thorson's stoned look and Steed's (seemingly) constant absence in the stories.

[Dandy Forsdyke]

I think Brian Clemens gave us a British view of an American view of Britain.

[Ketman]

Things crystallized for me last night while I was watching "Epic", which I loved and hated at the same time. The centre-piece is a wonderful sequence where Emma wakes up on the floor of what looks like her flat, but turns out to be a film-set. She finds herself at her own wedding, then her own funeral, she gets into fights with a cowboy, a Roman soldier, a WWI German officer, etc, who are all played by the same actor. It's a wonderful phantasmagoric sequence, beautifully shot, and could send chills down your spine. Except it won't, because, as is becoming increasingly common in the colour series, we meet the villains right at the start. We've already met ZZ von Schnerk and Damita Syn doing their Sunset Boulevard pastiche. We know they're making a film, we know there's a Steed double (dead), and we know they want Emma Peel in it too. They're not even planning to control the world. They're just pantomime villains making a film, that's all. That's the complete plot. So when that phantasmagoric sequence arrives, it's completely wasted because the mystery is already solved. But in the b/w days, that sequence is where they would have started. Emma would keep waking up on the floor of her flat, keep breaking out into a film-set, keep fighting the same villains in different guises... with no explanation. Just as in The Hour that Never Was, they'd have us in a state of total bewilderment, and keep it that way for half the show. That was the Avengers in its heyday. It was funny, whimsical and stylish - but also terrifying. But now the terror has gone. Now the audience has to be reassured right from the start that nothing seriously bad is going to happen, nothing to disturb their dreams.

After Epic I watched the next episode, The Superlative Seven. It's a variation of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, where one amongst a group gradually eliminates all the others. But this version decides to dispense with all the tension and mystery of that great story. Because - again! - we meet the villain at the outset. We already know the mastermind. The only interest left is how each of the participants gets killed. It's completely uninvolving. What is the point of having such quality in the cast as Donald Sutherland, Charlotte Rampling and Brian Blessed when the vehicle for their talents is a complete bore-fest?

Presumably, making thrillers that don't thrill, and mysteries that don't mystify, is Brian Clemens's idea of what "the American mid-west" wants. And presumably he borrowed his opinion from American network executives who came up with the money. But my own opinion is that the thickest people in America are not mid-westerners, but network executives. After more than 40 years of following their machinations, I believe them to be utterly clueless. The reason companies like HBO and PBS were formed was to get out from under the control of idiots like them. It's sad to see the Avengers going downhill, becoming a very safe and unchallenging parody of itself, but quality never disappears overnight, so there are bound to be a few good episodes left for me to watch, or at least some poor episodes with a few good scenes. "Epic" has them, so there must be others. I'll keep going...

[Frankymole]

But that's it for me. I'll go backwards in time, but not forwards. I'll pass on the post-Rigg era. It would be too depressing.

You're missing two things: the post-Rigg era is actually more experimental and with less formulaic scripts, more like the pre-colour era; and also that the B&W Rigg episodes are extremely clever and varied. It's the move into colour ("color") that is the problem, where the US started calling the shots, as opposed to the earlier filmed episodes with Rigg which were still UK-funded.
As for "The Superlative Seven", the "Ten Little ******s" plots was done in the Cathy era, as "Dressed to Kill", and the villain is a mystery (though we suspect it is one of the people on the stranded train, which stands in for the island in the colour story). Far, far better. Spoil yourself and watch it!