The Avengers - Complete Series 2 And Surviving Episodes From Series 1 [DVD]

What with Network's slew of soundtrack releases from other cult fare like 'The Protectors' & 'Jason King' and now this: Season 2 & what's left of Season 1 of 'The Avengers' remastered and crammed full of extras, it's been an expensive year.For those late arrivals to The Avengers phenomena and who may only know The Avengers via the (much repeated) Diana Rigg seasons (4&5), season 2 is an altogether different beast. Firstly, the Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman)character appears in only 17 of the 26 episodes, the remaining 6 were shared between Dr.Martin King (Jon Rollason) and nightclub singer Venus Smith (Julie Stevens). The majority of the episodes are highly conventional and hold few surprises. Even the most devoted Avengerphile must concede that due to the way in which Season 2 was recorded, mostly live, the production values are basic to say the least. Cameras and sets are prone to shake, props are dropped, lines often fluffed and musical cues arrive late - a technician, behind the scenes, had to manually drop the needle onto the record. Sometimes the camera is out of position and the actors are obscured by props. In episodes where a scene has been pre-recorded, it is often out of focus and some episodes contain stock footage that seems to date from as far back as the 40's. If an episode was judged to be running over-time, scenes had to be scrapped there and then. Each episode is more akin to watching theatre than TV and in some cases the acting is bigger than it should be. Due to the fast turnover between scenes, it was not unusual for main actors to be wearing the next costume underneath their clothes - for Honor Blackman undressing behind the sets in front of studio techs became second nature. Knowing all this, it is a testament to both crew and actors that The Avengers ran as smoothly as it did.The highlights of any episode are when Steed & Gale are featured in a scene. The interplay between both is a delight to watch and made more sexier by the restrictions placed upon them by the strict moral code of the day. Macnee was one of those rare actors with an innate ability to improvise 'business' without getting in the way of his fellow actors. Intuitively, he knew just how far he could take his performance without resorting to farce. In direct contrast, Honor Blackman's Gale is a study of intellectual cool, beautiful, witty and ultimately deadly.The discs are crammed with extras, the quotient of rare stills for each episode are staggering and feature many candid shots taken in rehearsal. The picture quality is as good as you will get and for those used to VHS copies will find it a revelation. The accompanying book has a run down of all Season 1 episodes and reproduces one of Leonard White's scrap books made at the time.Personally, I had no problem accessing the extras but with the promise from Optimum to replace all offending discs, and with the considerale drop in price (I've seen it on the High Street for £80.00) I have no choice but to award 5 stars.

Before buying this set I'd never watched a full episode of the Avengers. I did however have distant memories as a child of watching repeats of the Diana Rigg episodes and so I thought I'd give it a go.As a fan or archive television and film this series really is great and although these early episodes don't have the same production values as later on, the quality of the storytelling is right here from the start.By rights, this should be a 5 star review but the claim on the box that these episodes have been "digitally restored" should not be taken at face value.It may be true that SOME restoration has occurred but it very definitely wasn't finished - video dropout, tape degeneration and print damage are all painfully obvious and even the uninitiated would struggle to ignore it whilst watching. The audio fairs slightly better but a lot of the high frequency sounds have not been brought back in and as a result listening to the muffled dialogue can sometimes be difficult. Yes, these recordings are nearly 60 years old but if you look at the sterling work done on the early 60s episodes of Doctor Who you'll see that that is really not a good enough excuse.Overall though, this is worth buying...just expect to be distracted by all those artefacts of age.

The complete series 2 and i mean the complete series 2 [with the acts picture cards at the start and at the end of the acts]and the surviving Ian Hendry Series 1 episodes Hot Snow (Act One only),Girl on the Trapeze and The Frighteners. Hot snow has an audio commentary by Producer Leonard White and at the end of the surviving episode it explains what happens in acts 2 and 3. It also has the surviving episode of Police Surgeon [Easy Money] starring Ian Hendry with a filmed introduction to Police Surgeon by Producer Leonard White. Also an exclusive, newly filmed interview with Honor Blackman plus another interview involving Honor Blackman quizing a fan.also - exclusive audio commentary by writer Martin Woodhouse on Mr Teddy Bear exclusive audio commentary by Producer Leonard White on The Mauritius Penny exclusive audio commentary by writer Roger Marshall on Death of A Great Dane exclusive audio commentary by actress Julie Stevens on A Chorus of Frogs filmed introductions by actress Julie Stevens on some episodes a reprint of original publicity brochure for the first Honor Blackman season a book with reprints of Leonard White's scrapbooks featuring telesnaps of lost Series 1 episodes and episode guide to series 1 PDF material including original scripts and more extensive stills galleries and i mean extensive with over 2,000 [i think about 2,500] which gives insight into series 1 and 2 [series 1 is great]The box is also great and the only flaw is that they mispronouce Patrick Macnee name on the back as Mcnee! which is nothing really. But best of all are the episodes themselves [all have been REMASTERED and they are sharp and clear] They are 10 times better than the other Avengers dvds of the same episodes.I look forward to feb 2010 for series 3.