The Avengers (TV series)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Avengers was a British television series featuring secret agents in 1960s Britain. The programmes were made by TV company Associated British Corporation, and created by its Head of Drama Sydney Newman. It was an early example of the spy-fi genre, often combining secret agent storylines with science fiction elements,preceding the James Bond films, during the 'cold war'. Running from 1961 to 1969, it is the longest running espionage series produced for English-language television, though the American series Mission: Impossible had more episodes (171).
In 1965 The Avengers was the first British series to be filmed, rather than be broadcast live, or video-taped, and by 1969 was shown on syndicate television stations in over 90 countries throughout the world. As a filmed series, music was specially composed for each episode, by the talented composer, Laurie Johnson, with some of the Linda Thorson episodes being scored, or shared, at Laurie Johnson's request, by Howard Blake (owing to the composer's busy schedule writing for the film 'Hot Millions'). The original 1961 series was sparsely dubbed with library music, but opened with a jazz-influenced theme by John Dankworth.
Three of the series' stars would appear in the Bond films: Honor Blackman ('Goldfinger'), Diana Rigg ('On Her Majesty's Secret Service'), and Patrick Macnee ('A View To A Kill').
