Does anyone else think Mrs Peel should have been killed off?

[QueenOfSin]

Hi there, I'm new and a mega fan, of series 4 and 5 that is. Can you be a mega fan if you only like certain series of a show? Anyway, I love these two and found this site looking up episode guides and decided that two series only or not, it'd be fun to discuss them with other fans. So here goes my first post...

I love Emma Peel. I only watch series 4 & 5 because she's not in the others so they hold no interest whatsoever. Even Steed, though I love him, I only like him with Mrs Peel, on his own I wouldn't want to watch him. But although I adore her /them together, I really wish they'd killed her off in her last episode. That might sound odd from someone who professes to love the character but I think it would have been a better and more fitting end than her husband returning and her leaving with him. I don't believe for a second that by that point she would have willingly left Steed for anything or anyone. They were joined at the hip, knew each other in and out, almost telepathic in knowing the mind and thoughts of the other and quite obviously adored one another. It's really hard to swallow that she would have just dropped all that because some long lost husband suddenly turned up.

Killing her off on the other hand would have been much more believable. Death is the only thing that realistically would part her from Steed, and also imo the only realistic way he could have moved on to another. I don't know why they didn't go this route, the actress obviously wasn't coming back so they had nothing to lose. The alternative, which I'd have preferred even better is that the series ended when Emma left. I've not seen any of the other series and don't want to, but I think some characters are so iconic that the show is no good without them. Murder She Wrote with JB Fletcher, Life On Mars with Gene Hunt or Fawlty Towers with Basil & Sibyl spring to mind. These shows would never work with out those characters played by those specific actors, and personally for me, The Avengers don't work without the Steed & Peel pairing.

I've only seen The Forget Me Knot once and am unlikely to watch it again. Seeing Steed and Mrs Peel part ways once is hard to watch once never mind repeated viewing. For me, the series ends at TFMK but in my head Emma tells the returned Mr Peel to foxtrot oscar and returns to Steed, whereby to this day they're having enticing exciting adventures full of dastardly deeds, diabolical masterminds, dangerous encounters and the UST between them is finally resolved on screen. I say on screen because it was clearly done off screen in the other 50 episodes .

[Rhonda]

I'll think about that, but my first thought is there are often quite enough people leaving the stories as it is! But thank you and welcome.

[Frankymole]

No, I think it would've retrospectively put a depressing damper on the show which had increasingly moved away from reality into a kind of heightened fantasy world (which is the best way of putting it). Rewatching episodes would've been overshadowed by what happened to her in the end, similar to rewatching (say) Blakes 7. The Avengers, at least of that era, is meant to be fun and a bit way-out divorced from reality.

Maybe Steed and Emma should've both been shot into space.

I think her marriage would've parted her from Steed, and was a clever and inventive way to introduce a "prior claim" she could go back to. And potentially a safer life.

Though, what did she mean by "I'm not Mrs Peel any more" in The New Avengers? Is she implying she is available again? Steed never settled down to a permanent relationship after Emma, he has a succession of "lady visitors" in TNA. Would he give that up for Emma? He just replies "you'll always be Mrs Peel to me". So maybe he has not forgiven her for going back to Peter Peel. Even though Peter Peel is also Patrick Macnee

[Allard]

It would have gone against the whole grain of the series.

For one there was a "rule" of no ladies dying / being killed.
Two: The Avengers has a light atmosphere, there maybe evil, but it's always good and well at the end.
Three: If Steed's partners get all bumped off, it would make him a pretty ominous character.
Four: Steed's partners are noted for their independence, be weird to deny them an existence without Steed and off screen.

I would say that the departure of Cathy was handled better, she left by here own choosing and that spared us the sappy departure we got for Emma.

People can lament Rigg's exit, but in the end we got Tara King episodes, which may have a few duds, yet it is more vibrant than the Peel colour series that preceded it.

[mousemeat]

I also concur, no, she shouldn't have been 'killed' off...it simply would have not worked well for the series.

[dissolute]

I too, was a megafan of the series based solely on series 5, which is all we saw here in Australia between 1978 and... well, forever. It was only getting the DVD and blurays that expanded that horizon.

As to you question, I can see your reasoning but I agree with others, killing off a character, other that Steed's extraneous colleagues, is not in the Avengers ethos and wouldn't have meshed with the rest of the show, which is all about a fairytale Britain that never existed. (At least, from series 4 onwards, perhaps a bit earlier).

Personally, I like The Forget-Me Knot, it gives Emma a graceful and happy exit with a tinge of sadness and regret, which is Britishness to its core.

If I can lift my run rate above the shooting schedule, sixty years later, you'll get a rewrite of this episode on my website before 2028 ...

[Frankymole]

Personally, I like The Forget-Me Knot, it gives Emma a graceful and happy exit with a tinge of sadness and regret, which is Britishness to its core.

Emma, like Cathy before her, was able to move on with her life in a way Steed never can. It's interesting how similar he is to Doctor Who, whose companions grow and leave him, whereas he must keep on with his "mission".

[QueenOfSin]

I can see I'm a lone view on this

Was there really a rule that ladies weren't allowed to die on the show? I'm sure the puppet shop lady in the £50,000 Breakfast was killed Although I didn't mean a horrible gruesome death for Emma, I wouldn't have wanted that at all either. I meant a 'tragic heroine' type of exit that would have believably parted her from Steed. I'm afraid I simply don't buy her long lost marriage being enough after everything she's experienced and been through with Steed. Yes it may be a safer option but it would be so dull, I can't see how she (or anyone else) could settle for that after knowing what she had. It'd be like a millionaire losing his luxury lifestyle of freedom, fancy cars and private yacht and being made to work 9-5 on minimum wage, he'd go stir crazy comparing the life he's now stuck with compared to the one he had. That's a tad extreme perhaps but it's the best comparison I can think of for going from a high octane life to a sedentary one.

I don't personally think it would make it hard to watch the rest of the series, plenty of films and shows are watched and rewatched knowing full well what happens in the end. To me it doesn't distract from the enjoyment of watching up to that point and you can always skip over it .

[Frankymole]

But Peter Peel was at least as adventurous as John Steed. And he had adventures overseas whereas Steed was now stuck to Blighty!

That's the kind of man it takes to marry Emma Peel. She wasn't a frumpy housewife before she met Steed.

Having Patrick Macnee play him, and the knowing look Emma gives both of them at the end, shows the playfulness the series has with its audience (who generally buy in to the humour and light-heartedness of the series in this era). Killing off a tremendously beloved character would be a huge betrayal of that buy-in.

Yes, it would be a shock that would be talked about to this day, like Blakes 7, but it would've killed the series stone dead in most people's affections, because of that betrayal of the weekly promise between makers and viewers. And given how much the colour Tara King episodes improve on the jaded, faded colour Emma Peel ones (so much more staid and repetitive than her monochrome tour-de-force), I'd have hated that.

That's how I interpret it, everyone else is of course entitled to their own opinion

[dissolute]

Yes, there was a writer's directive in the colour era that women were not to be killed, and blood was not to be shown, nor any policemen. They wanted a fairytale Britain, not a real one.
Of course, the rules were broken when the plot required it...

I think having Emma drive off into her glorious sunset is fitting for this fairytale version of the show.