The Avengers International Fan Forum

Okay, I'm close to finishing off the Mrs. Peel mega set, and I'm wondering - what is the next step?

Tara King Year?
Cathy Gale sets?
The New Avengers?

I really can't make up my mind which one would be the next compared to the great Mrs. Peel episodes... what would the board recommend?

It depends what you're looking for. If you want something closest in spirit to the Peel years (plots, humour, overall atmosphere), then the Kings would be your best bet (provided you find yourself able to accept Tara, and when I'd only seen, and loved, Emma, I found her hard to swallow. It took seeing TNA to give her a second chance. Now I find her quite pleasant).

If you want to go for something totally different to try and ward off direct comparisons, then the Cathys would be best. Going from Steed and Emma's light banter to Steed and Cathy yelling at each other, occasionally trading blows, and watching Patrick play a manipulative bastard is about as different as you can get. Plus they're studiobound "live" episodes. It's another animal completely. After this, anything else you watch can't help but be closer to the show you know from Emma's tenure.

If you want to follow my lead, you can do what I did and check out TNA, all the while being very careful not to compare it to the original every 10 seconds. Purdey and Gambit have the closest to Steed and Emma's relationship, although there's is laced with some of the Steed/Cathy abrasiveness (but not to the point that you don't feel they don't care about each other). TNA is my favourite era after Emma, so that would be my personal choice. It's sort of a cross between the Emma and Cathy years. Look for some darker stuff here--old friends meeting their ends, pasts catching up, thicker cardboard, occasionally a sucker-punch of emotion. Yes, season 2 is weaker, but you can't deny the stark brilliance of Obsession and Dead Men are Dangerous. And Gambit and Purdey keep the tone from getting too oppressive.

But it's ultimately up to you. Everyone's got their favourites, and I'm sure they'll have a different take. Hopefully some of that helps.

I'd recommend you go back to the Cathy era and see how it all started. I assume you've already viewed the bonus disk in the megaset, so you have some idea.

I viewed the Emma years first, and part of the Tara year because I saw them originally on TV, and in PBS/BBC reruns. However, I'm suspending Tara and going back to the Cathy era because I haven't seen most of them. I only caught a few on PBS here in the states. TNA will be the last I see on this pass.

You'll find the Cathy era primative, very gritty, very different, and quite claustrophobic. It seems like much of the time all you see is two heads filling the whole screen during their dialog.

However, every now and then, I pull a random CD with my eyes closed and see what I get.

Thanks for the input! I'm still not sure where I'll wind up, as I've got about 4 disks of Mrs. Peel left, but I want to go ahead and purchanse the next one I want to go with.

Flipping through YouTube, I can see many kinds of Avengers clips up - maybe I should watch snippits and see which ones grab me!

The Tara King season is hugely underrated, and far more reminiscent of the best of the Peel years than the Cathy shows are. It's also how we all saw the show when it was first shown and then repeated properly - it followed straight on, most of the same writers and directors ensured an evenness of style and if anything the stories got more inventive.

I'm in a similar position. I've been loving the B&W Emma series on BBC 4 and have just got about half way through the Dutch colour series box set.

After that I've got the Tara set on the way. I recell seeing some on video a few years ago and loving the whole groovy technicolour look of Tara's flat and the surrealism of the later episodes. I'm thinking it might be good to go back to Cathy Gale after that and see how it all started.

Borgus Weems wrote:Thanks for the input! I'm still not sure where I'll wind up, as I've got about 4 disks of Mrs. Peel left, but I want to go ahead and purchanse the next one I want to go with.

Flipping through YouTube, I can see many kinds of Avengers clips up - maybe I should watch snippits and see which ones grab me!

I have uploaded quite a few of the Cathy episodes to Youtube so perhaps you could check those out first and see what you think of them before buying the dvd's...
Personally I love the Cathy episodes, but some people find them boring, and it would be a shame if you spend money on the dvd's first, and realise afterwards that you don't like them very much.
But ofcourse it's completely up to you.

The Tara King episodes are the natural direction to move in. The Thorson era is superb in its own right. The Avengers is no different from any other series that has a change of lead. It just takes a bit of adjustment to accept the new character, most of the stories are actually better and more grounded than the fantastical OTT episodes of the Rigg colour season. That said nothing can beat Steed & Emma at their monochrome best

Perhaps a smart idea to link you to my Youtube page
Link