[Self] The Avengers (Original!)

Call it the curse of SG's shopping culture, but I was smiling happily when I plonked down a hundred plus SGD for 3 boxsets of The Avengers (the Steed + Mrs. Peel period).

FYI - I caught The Avengers in my high school years on Friday afternoons on TV3, and loved the wry, deadpan, weirdness of each episode.

Mrs. Emma Peel was a total hottie and she had gracefully kicked arse (being a redhead didn't hurt either); while Steed "set the standard for civility and refinement while killing enemies".

Where else could you get stories where:
- Cats are activated into mauling monsters with a simple radio trigger? (The Hidden Tiger)

- A nutjob directer, an actor and actress trying to reclaim their former glory plots a snuff film "The Death of Mrs. Peel"? (Epic)

- An army hides in an underground city ... waiting to take over Great Britain when the time is right? (The Living Dead)
- A department store in the middle of London was taken over by a bunch of terrorists who planted a nuclear bomb in the basement ~ that would detonate when somebody bought a washing machine? (Death At Bargain Prices)

As the boxset said .... "whimsical yet deadly serious". Couldn't agree more. I still need to find the other Emma Peel season boxsets though.

Additional ramblings:

- I did notice that Mrs. Peel seemed to wear a lot of leather in the 65 season, and later on the style drifted into a softer fabric (mostly jumpsuit) tone.

- The last revisionism in 1998 by Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, and Sean Connery was terrible. It just did not translate the essence of The Avengers properly onto the big screen - bad writing probably done it in, but I also suspect that like some great classics its greatness should be sealed forever in its time (eg: try doing a revisionist movie for Casablanca or My Fair Lady and it would be destined for failure).

- The Avengers was best defined by the Steed + Emma Peel years. I did not see the one before, and think the Tara King years lacked the dynamic and weird relationship tension btw Steed and Mrs. Peel.