Imagine an 80's era Avengers incarnation

[Borgus Weems]

We have the original 60's Avengers... we have the 70's era New Avengers... we have the 90's era film... but what would an 80's era Avengers have been like? Here are my thoughts of how it would have went down:

Title: The Avengers
Era: 1983-84
Theme Music Style: Synthy New Wave version of the traditional theme
Cast:

Patrick Macnee as John Steed (possibly in a more Mother-like limited role, since he was fairly active in films in this era).

A man & woman team under him like Purdy and Gambit... no idea for names or actors who would be great in the role that I can think of. Any ideas?

One adventure that would bring back all the living actors in their famous roles.

Returning villains: Cybernauts, Hellfire Club based around a Malcome McClaren type punk rock impresario

[Frankymole]

The Gambit-type bloke would have to have a bleached mullet hairstyle, bootlace tie, a Midge Ure-pencil 'tache, jazzy patterned jumper in his off-duty moments, and rolled-up suit sleeves when "on the case". The woman would wear New Romantic make-up, huge shoulder pads, a leather mini-skirt, and three tons of hairspray.

Their car of choice would be a Mini Maestro in pastel blue, which relays Ministry orders to them via its innovative talking seatbelt system.

The first Christmas adventure would involve mysterious sinkings of canal boats in the waterways of East Anglia, "Ho-Ho-Hoseasons Boating Holidays".

Nickolas "Max Headroom" Grace would be the eye-rolling diabolical mastermind.

Male Avenger: "Nick Vortex" played by Andrew Hall;
Female Avenger: "Gloria Spun" played by Kim Thomson (or Rosalyn Landor at a pinch).

Theme song by Sheena Easton.

[Dandy Forsdyke]

As there were plans for several 'Avengers' projects in the 80s and 90s there's really no need to try and guess or imagine. We already know.

Here is the original thread

AVENGERS THE FIRST MOVIE (1980)
Project commissioned by the TV movie TV channel CBS (USA), which should give rise to a series of other films
Written by Dennis Spooner and Brian Clemens
With Steed, Gambit and their new female partner, Carruthers

This scenario is very close to the spirit and style of the original Avengers features a villain who managed to domesticate the ants. The latter are used to kill, to ensure an effective result thanks to their strength (they can lift up to 500 times their weight), endurance, and ability to infiltrate any building security (due to their size ). The man was half crazy lives suspended from elastic, so as not to crush his army! Among the guest stars, a role specially written for John Cleese (Monty Python): That of a paranoid expert in miniaturization, who lives in an airship that insects are unable to reach, and manufactures contact lenses for butterflies. When asked Steed: "why contact lenses for butterflies? "He replied, gesticulating like a madman"-because the glasses do not stop falling! .
Writings by the original writers, this project and the following are the only respectful of the series to date.

AVENGERS THE INTERNATIONAL (1985) aka REINCARNATION
Project commissioned by TV movie Taft Entertainment and Sarah Lawson (USA) to give rise to a series of episodes of 50 minutes
Written by Brian Clemens
With John Steed and two new agents working under him Samantha Peel (Niece of Emma Peel) and Christopher Cambridge (Young American equivalent Steed)

Adapted from one of the best episodes of the season Tara King SplitThis scenario depicts Lomax, an old enemy Steed that he had left for dead in the past. Lomax, who has lived paralyzed, managed through an ingenious system to transfer his mind into the bodies of three different people, including a woman. Now three times more dangerous, he undertook to carry out the vengeance which he has dreamed for years. His first two incarnations are identified and eliminated by Mrs. Peel and Cambridge, but the third, a sexy blonde, is gaining favour with Steed, who seems not to suspect deception.
Like its predecessor, the realization of this project depended on the purchase by an American TV channel, which unfortunately does not succeed.

THE AVENGING ANGEL (1988)
Project proposed by telefilm Universal Studios which would lead to a series of episodes of 50 minutes
Scheduled to be written and produced by Michael Sloane
With John Steed, Cathy Gale and Tara King

Michael Sloane, author of the already disastrous Returning from UNCLE, Wanted to buy the rights of Avengers to produce the pilot for a new TV series. The original idea for his screenplay that nobody has ever read (which we doubt the actual existence), was all right "borrowed" the first ideas of Spooner and Clemens for First Avenger Movie (DRAFT 3). God thank you for the spectators, fans and the series, Sloan was unable to acquire the rights. The last I heard he was still sitting in his office at Universal, to ask how old series it could adapt without too much effort or talent.

THE AVENGERS (1989)
Film project commissioned by film Weintraub Entertainment
Scenario Sam Hamm (Batman)
With John Steed and Emma Peel

In June 1987, when Weintraub Ent. retrieves the rights of the series (movies, masters, copyrights etc. ...), the Director Jerry Weintraub decided to tap the vein Avengers to create a series of films in his words "more than Bondienne James Bond" and Patrick Macnee without.
Weintraub met Mel Gibson at a dinner party and asks if he likes Avengers. After a positive response (Gibson is a big fan and has all the episodes on video in his collection), Weintraub spreading the rumor that Mel Steed will play, although this has not been discussed during the conversation!
Note that Mel Gibson is still defends to this day have envisioned what would take over the role of Patrick Macnee, who has the utmost respect.
Weintraub then decided to hire Sam Hamm, author of the scenario Batman (Which in 1989 made a splash across the Atlantic) to write a script featuring the first meeting between Steed and Emma Peel.
This script reveals itself to be a sadness rare: there is absolutely no connection with the universe and style Avengers. It proves that Sam Hamm certainly never seen more than three episodes in his life. There is a character named Steed, and a character called Emma Peel, but this is not Steed, Emma Peel is not, in short, this is not the Avengers. This script will end up in limbo, or almost: Sam Hamm from recycled ideas from his script for a TV pilot called The Resurrectors, Filmed in 1993 and promoted as being "in style for 1990 Avengers," with "Liz Hurley in the role of Circe, an Emma Peel of the '90s". We believe in it ...
Nobody will be surprised to learn that this driver does not give rise to a series.

And the 1990s...

THE AVENGERS (1993)
Film project commissioned by film ... Jerry Weintraub !
Scenario Don MacPherson
With John Steed and Emma Peel

Weintraub 2: The Return! If he sold the rights to movies Light Pictures, Weintraub has however retained the rights to film adaptation. He announced in mid 1993 that is still in the race, and deliver it with a new writer.
He believes it is useful to specify "the film version of the series with Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, made in the 50s and had 400 to 500 episodes," which speaks volumes about his knowledge of Derby hat, He seems to believe to be a sitcom ...
Obviously contacted by Weintraub, David Fincher, director of Alien 3, Then proclaims mid-1993, in an interview with American magazine Imagi-MoviesThat he "thinks adapt Avengers, Perhaps with Charles Dance in the role of Steed. Charles Dance is an excellent actor who plays the role of a doctor named ... Clemens (!) In Alien 3. Fincher plans to make the movie "scope black and white version of cool 60's mod .... maybe! . Since then, no news.
By cons, Jerry Weintraub, interviewed by us in 1994, confirmed that he "will produce the film in 1995, it will be full of special effects, very Bondien, and he staged Steed and Emma Peel and young in the 90s. Good news? Think again: the question "Will the movie's In the mad spirit of the series? "Weintraub looks at you as if you were a Martian, and takes refuge in a quotation from yet another Bond. If you've seen his latest production, The expert Sharon Stone and Sylvester Stallone, you understand that we can expect anything ...


THE NEW, NEW AVENGERS (1994)
Draft telefilm written by Brian Clemens
With Gambit and Purdey

The news comes falling! A New Script New Avengers Written by Brian Clemens, who has the rights New Avengers Has just been completed. It tells a new adventure of Purdey and Gambit. If Joanna Lumley and Gareth Hunt agreed, the project may well see the day!

[Frankymole]

As there were plans for several 'Avengers' projects in the 80s and 90s there's really no need to try and guess or imagine. We already know.

Yes but making up what-ifs is more fun

Plus "Note that Mel Gibson is still defends to this day have envisioned what would take over the role of Patrick Macnee, who has the utmost respect" sounds completely nuts. Then again the eventual movie was actually nuts. "A sadness rare" indeed.

[Dandy Forsdyke]

I was thinking (again) the other night about the show returning, and why it has never come back on the scale of Bond, Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes is that it might be unreinventable.

The Avengers started as Keel and Steed in dirty macs and ended in Canada in the late 70s. I think those have become the perimeters now simply because there was no 80s or 90s adventures. So we have the complete story arc there. It seems quite neat and in order.

I think it's easy work out that Steed in the 1980s would have taken a less prominent role (he is beginning to do that already in the 70s) and Gambit and Purdey working as a duo.

I haven't decided if Steed's role were to become completely like that of One-Ten, Mother, etc. Or whether he would happily decline and reacquaint himself with Mrs Peel again. I think I prefer the latter option.

[Timeless A-Peel]

In some ways, I feel as though an '80s Avengers came about in the form of other detective/mystery series of the time, which obviously owed more than a little to the "man/woman duo solve somewhat quirky mysteries formula". I picture it as being like Remington Steele in feel (and hopefully in wardrobe, because eighties clothes are pretty terrible, and it's still the only eighties show I've come across where both the leads were well-dressed).

I think ideally I would have rather had a couple more seasons of TNA (1978 and 1979) before things wrapped up, leaving the show in its original decade. By that point Patrick would definitely want to move on, and Gareth and Joanna would have had their fill of being Purdey and Gambit, and collecting scars from all the stuntwork. The most frustrating thing about the end of TNA is that it doesn't provide much closure for the series as a whole, so I'd have liked them to wrap things up in the last couple of seasons. Purdey and Gambit finally get their mess together, but since they already argue like an old married couple, it doesn't really take the edge off their dynamic. Steed drifts gradually into the next stage of his career, and restarts a deliberately ambiguous relationship with Emma, whom we never see but makes herself known through little visual clues. John Frieda, trying to work out where to go after the Purdey bob, perhaps cuts it quite short the way Joanna did during her Sapphire and Steel days (but doesn't dye it red, obviously). Any of the previous cast who were willing could make an appearance. By the end we have Purdey and Gambit working as a duo, but get the sense that Steed will always have a hand in there, somewhere. And we leave the eighties untouched (avoiding some of Joanna's huge eighties do's in the process).

[Dandy Forsdyke]

I think I'd agree with Timeless. G&P would be the way to go and I like the Steed/Emma suggestion too (we would have to convince Diana though ... )

I actually don't mind the red crop Joanna sported, but I like the big hair she had as well. She never looked more stunning than the way she looked promoting the early '90s Video Gems releases.

[Timeless A-Peel]

I think I'd agree with Timeless. G&P would be the way to go and I like the Steed/Emma suggestion too (we would have to convince Diana though ... )

I actually don't mind the red crop Joanna sported, but I like the big hair she had as well. She never looked more stunning than the way she looked promoting the early '90s Video Gems releases.

Thanks, Dandy. It would have been the most logical continuation, I think. The likelihood of a post-pregnancy Diana coming back would probably be pretty low, hence why I'd have her unseen but "present"--you might see evidence around Steed's house, or have him on the phone without the other half of the conversation (no more recycled footage--the idea that Emma still looks and dresses exactly the same way as she did in 1967 is too unrealistic). If she was persuaded to make a one-off appearance, I'd put her at the end, offering Steed a reassuring word that yes, Purdey and Gambit would be just fine on their own, and mentioning that he's never really going to be out of the game, is he?

The hairdo in the Parkinson interview is the one I was thinking of--I doubt they'd let Joanna have it red anymore than the S&S people did, but they might let her go with the actual style. Joanna always wanted Purdey to be practical, with easy-to-keep hair that didn't get in the way of the stuntwork, so I can't see her growing it out. That would be a new way to do it that didn't look like a retread of the Purdey bob. I'm never particularly keen on really big, teased hair, which is why the eighties styles don't appeal (though I think Joanna herself actually got lovelier with age). She started styling it more simply after AbFab got started, and I liked that better, but for the character, short seems the most fitting.

If Honor or Linda wanted to pop up, that would be fun, too, so long as they acknowledged that they'd aged, and updated them accordingly (they did it with Steed, after all, so the ladies shouldn't be any different). I can see Tara engaged with a fiancé she doesn't see quite as often as she would like due to the globetrotting nature of her career, and Cathy ensconced in academia, classically dressed with reading glasses perched on her forehead, only just back from a working sabbatical in Africa.

If they really wanted to carry it on into the eighties, and Patrick didn't want to do it any longer, they could always introduce new characters with Purdey and Gambit as the background link, and then phase them out as things went along to keep the continuity link going. The biggest problem with reviving the show is that, if you don't have Steed any longer, what makes it any different than some other random series with completely new characters? But if you use Purdey and Gambit to retain the Steed connection, by the time they were gone, the new people would hopefully be established well enough that it felt like they were part of the series' legacy, and they could hand off to future leads in turn.

[Frankymole]

Blimey, so was Sapphire's hair in S&S always a wig?

If Cathy went to Africa I hope she'd take a gun... things didn't get much easier then they were in her Mau-Mau uprising days...

It'd be nice if Mother was seen, maybe in retirement, too, but available to be consulted and perhaps more convincingly than Emma "not Mrs Peel any more" - Patrick Newell was still acting in plenty of stuff in the 80s.

[Timeless A-Peel]

Blimey, so was Sapphire's hair in S&S always a wig?

If Cathy went to Africa I hope she'd take a gun... things didn't get much easier then they were in her Mau-Mau uprising days...

It'd be nice if Mother was seen, maybe in retirement, too, but available to be consulted and perhaps more convincingly than Emma "not Mrs Peel any more" - Patrick Newell was still acting in plenty of stuff in the 80s.

Her hair was only a wig in Assignment Three, I believe--that was the one where she turned up for filming with the new do (rather like she did with the Purdey bob) and argued, "Sapphire can be all things, can't she?" The answer was no, and they stuck a long blonde wig on her--it's pretty obviously a wig if you watch. Before that it's likely her own hair, and the next assignment you can tell she's growing it out because it's fairly short.

Of course Cathy would have brought her gun. She might still have some of those jellied bumblebees of Steed's to take along, too.

I hadn't thought of Mother, but they could have brought him back quite easily, definitely. Bonus points if Rhonda came along, too.