The Avengers: The Complete Emma Peel Collection 1965-1967 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.5
Overall		4.5

The Avengers: The Complete Emma Peel Collection 1965-1967 Blu-ray Movie Review

A terrific collection for The Avengers superfan in your life...

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown May 11, 2024

John Steed: According to your file, you're a psychopathic personality with schizophrenic delusions, suffering from recurring amnesia based on traumatic repression leading to outbursts of antisocial and violent behavior...

Emma Peel: Is that really what you think of me?

John Steed: Well, just my type, Mrs. Peel.

The wit. The charm. The smooth, snarky sassiness. The deadpan humor and the rapid-fire dialogue. The stoic glances and oh-so-serious line delivery that earns genuine laughs. The Diana Rigg years of The Avengers represent (and remain) some of its best, and certainly make it easy to understand how a little British secret agent series stormed American shores and earned a whole new batch of fans on this side of the pond. Traditionalist in His Majesty's Secret Service, Patrick Macnee's John Steed was the perfect complement to the modern feminine allure of a character like Diana Rigg's Emma Peel, and the chemistry alone might have been enough to fuel the show for decades. But nestled within The Avengers is a string of adventures -- some unforgettable, some silly, some downright groan-inducing -- that, for good or ill, toy with the superspies of Bond's world, adds in a dash of Doctor Who, and churns out something far more original than you might assume. The result is a show as chummy as Adam West's Batman, as dashing as Sean Connery's Jimmy B, and as quick-footed as comedy troupes like Monty Python.

Extraordinary crimes against the people of Britain and the State at large need to be assigned to the most extraordinary of agents; agents like steely John Steed (Patrick Macnee), a consummate professional, and his new partner, Emma Peel (Diana Rigg), a skilled recruit eager to prove her worth. This incredible duo, known as The Avengers, deploy lethal bowler hats, gadgets galore, killer fashion, and kung fu as they investigate bizarre and memorable adventures with tact, efficiency, sophistication and charm. And while every era of the long-running British series boasts its own style and wit, it's the Emma Peel years that fans remember fondly as the show's most iconic and recognizable seasons, with Rigg's portrayal of Peel influencing the real TV-viewing world as Macnee's sublimely slick Steed grounded the series in everything its legions loved and continue to love.

This review will primarily focus on the 16-disc set itself; its AV quality and its extensive special features. However, if you'd like to read more about The Avengers during its Emma Peel run, click here to peruse Jeffrey Kauffman's 2014 review of Season 5, which he calls "an unqualified success on both sides of the Atlantic" which was responsible for "raising the pop cultural profiles of natty agent John Steed and his 'talented amateur' sidekick, the extremely elegant Emma Peel, to new heights."

The Avengers: The Complete Emma Peel Collection 1965-1967 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: the black and white screenshots accompanying this review are entirely taken from Season 4. To see screenshots from Season 5, click here.

Stunning. Utilizing the series' original 35mm film elements, lovingly restored by Studio Canal, The Avengers defies expectations and looks as good as it ever has, and perhaps ever will. There are differences from start to finish -- black and white episodes, for example, are a tad crisper than later color episodes -- but nothing here suggests such things are attributable to anything beyond each season's source materials. The occasional speck and bits of slight print wear appear as well, but are infrequent enough to all but shrug off. Color tones, black and white gradients, contrast, black levels et al look fantastic, breathing new life into a classic show and its lineup of eclectic agents, spies, heroes and villains. Detail is refined and revealing as well, with exacting fine textures, clean edges free of halos and other nuisances, and solid delineation. A faint veneer of grain grants the episodes a filmic quality befitting the era, though some have pointed to scenes where minor noise reduction seems to have been applied. (I can't say I disagree. Just that, as it is, it didn't bother me at all.) The real beauty of the restoration is in earlier episodes' striking depth and dimensionality, and later episodes' color saturation and lifelike skin tones. Between the two seasons, there's so eye-candy to enjoy that it's difficult to nitpick, or at least to grow irritated with any issues. Thankfully, things along the lines of macroblocking, banding, digital noise, smearing and other remastering and encoding problems are MIA, making for a pleasing, satisfying image that rarely stumbles.

The Avengers: The Complete Emma Peel Collection 1965-1967 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Presented with a fit and finessed uncompressed LPCM stereo mix, The Avengers has never sounded better either. There isn't a whole lot to cover here, of course. There's only so much two channels can offer. But faithfulness to the original sound design is a big one, and the track both clings to the tone and tenor of the era and sounds properly renewed and restored. There also isn't anything in the way of pesky hiss, overly tinny audio elements, or canned dialogue. Prioritization is on point, voices are intelligible at all times and neatly grounded in the mix, and the series' delightful spy-vs-spy score is bright and buoyant, not to mention oozing with '60s charm. No complaints here.

The Avengers: The Complete Emma Peel Collection 1965-1967 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The standard 16-disc set offers a ton of extras (minus the Hardbox packaging, limited edition status, and 120-page booklet of its bigger, badder alternate release)... and yet it still doesn't feel like we're getting everything imaginable, particularly when you reach the later discs in Season 5. It's by no means disappointing, but it also doesn't feel as extensive as it could had each episode been granted a commentary or a look-back style behind the scenes featurette. Still, there's enough here to more than satiate fans' appetites, making this quite the collection to spend a weekend (or four) digging through.

Season 4 Extras

• Season 4 & 5 Audio Commentaries (Discs 1-16) - Ten commentaries are included, one of which ("The Joker") was recorded in 2022 and is new to the series' home video releases. Included are "The Town of No Return" with writer/producer Brian Clemens and director Roy Ward Baker, "The Master Minds" with writer Robert Banks Stewart, "Dial A Deadly Number" with writer Roger Marshall, "The Hour That Never Was with director Gerry O'Hara, "The House That Jack Built" with director Don Leaver, "The Winged Avenger" with writer Richard Harris, "Epic" with guest actor Peter Wyngarde, "The Joker" with filmmakers Sam Clemens and George Clemens (sons of writer/producer Brian Clemens), "Return of The Cybernauts" with Diana Rigg's stunt-double Cyd Child, and finally "Murderville" with writer/producer Brian Clemens.
  
  Rather than hit-or-miss tracks, the commentaries actually prove to be quite engaging and comprehensive, offering a broad overview of the series' production, more intimate memories of working with Macnee and Rigg, and anecdotes aplenty, many of which explain the origin of the chemistry that made the show such a hit with audiences.

• Episode Photo Galleries (Discs 1-16, HD) - Numerous photo galleries are included across the 16-disc set.

• Original USA Chessboard Opening Title (Disc 1, HD, 1 minute)

• Reconstructed John Stamp Series Trailer (Disc 1, HD, 1 minute)

• Original UK Commercial Break Bumper Slate (Disc 1, HD, 1 minute)

• "The Master Minds" Alternate UK Credits and Commercial Break Bumpers (Disc 1, HD, 4 minutes)

• Actress Elizabeth Shepherd Audio Interview (Disc 1, 11 minutes) - Shepherd, who was originally cast as Emma Peel, discusses "The Series of No Return". The episode she shot has been lost to history (and Britain's habit of recording over original tapes) but this is a nice walk down what-might-have-been regardless.

• Armchair Theatre: The Hothouse (Disc 1, SD, 53 minutes) - An original episode of "Armchair Theater" starring Rigg.

• "Death at Bargain Prices" Alternate End Tag and Colorisation Test Footage (Disc 2, HD, 3 minutes)

• Vintage Interview with Behind the Scenes Footage (Disc 2, HD, 1 minute) - Featuring Macnee on "The Cybernauts".

• The Avengers at 50 Interview (Disc 2, SD, 42 minutes) - An interview with director Don Leaver.

• Variant Opening Titles (Disc 3, HD, 6 minutes) - Alternate titles for "The Gravediggers", German titles for "Mit Schirm, Charme und Melone", and French titles for "Chapeau Melon et Bottes de Cuir".

• The Avengers at 50 Interview (Disc 4, HD, 37 minutes) - An interview with director Gerry O'Hara.

• Audio Recollection of Filming "The Thirteenth Hole" (Disc 5, HD, 1 minute) - With actor Francis Matthews.

• Vintage News Reels (Disc 5, HD, 2 minutes) - Four reels, three of which don't include any audio: "The Avengers Fashion Show", "Patrick Macnee's Wedding", a "Diana Rigg Interview", and "The Avengers Sold to the USA".

• Colourisation Test Footage (Disc 6, SD, 1 minute) - For "A Touch of Brimstone".

• Diana Rigg at the BFI (Disc 6, HD, 29 minutes) - A 2015 interview and Q&A session with Rigg.

• Teaser Film (Disc 7, HD, 3 minutes) - For "The Strange Case of the Missing Corpse".

• The Avengers at 50 Interviews (Disc 7, HD, 46 minutes) - Three A50 chats are included: a four-minute "Patrick Macnee Video Message", a five-minute interview with "A Sense of History" guest actor Carol Cleveland, and a lengthy interview with writer Roger Marshall.

• The Avengers at 50 Interviews (Disc 8, HD, 84 minutes) - Four additional A50 interviews: a twenty-one-minute panel with screenwriters Brian Clemens, Richard Harris, Richard Bates and Terrance Dicks; a fourteen-minute convo with Rigg's stunt double; an eight-minute talk with writer Jeremy Burnham; and finally an expanded forty-minute interview with composer Laurie Johnson (three cheers for a music score chat!)

• Diana Rigg German Super 8 Films (Disc 8, HD, 70 minutes) - Six short films, among them "Das Diadem", "Minikillers: Operation Costa Brava", "Minikillers: Heroin", "Minikillers: Macabre", "Minikillers: Flamenco", and "Der Goldene Schlussell".

• Conversation at the BFI (Disc 8, HD, 7 minutes) - Filmed in 2010 with writer/producer Brian Clemens.

• The Avengers Fashion Show Photo Gallery (Disc 8, HD)

• Diana Rigg Photo Gallery (Disc 8, HD)

Season 5 Extras

• Granada Plus Points (Discs 9-15, HD, 31 minutes) - Quick factoids and intros with Macnee, composer Laurie Johnson and Rigg stunt-double Cyd Child for "The Fear Merchants", "Escape in Time", "The Bird Who Knew Too Much", "From Venus with Love", "The See-Through Man", "The Winged Avenger", "The Living Dead", "The Hidden Tiger", "The Correct Way to Kill", "Never Never Say Die", "Epic", "The Superlative Seven", "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station", "Something Nasty in the Nursery", "The Joker", "Who's Who", "Death's Door", "Return of the Cybernauts", "Dead Man's Treasure", "The £50,000 Breakfast", "You Have Just Been Murdered", "Murderville", "The Positive-Negative Man", "Mission... Highly Improbable" and "The Forget Me Knot".

• Original Series 5 Opening Slate (Discs 9-15, HD) - Season 5 episodes now include their original broadcast opening slate, with "The Avengers in Color" in, well, dazzling color!

• Season 5 Episode Introductions (Discs 10-15, HD, 18 minutes) - A cheeky Brian Clemens introduces seven Season 5 episodes, having a good bit of fun while doing so.

• Deleted Scenes (Discs 9-10, HD, 8 minutes) - While they're missing audio, these "trims" offer a glimpse into scenes that were altered or never quite made it to broadcast.

• German Television Interview (Disc 9, HD, 10 minutes) - Jochim Fuchsberger interviews Rigg and Macnee.

• Series 5 German Opening Titles (Disc 9, HD, 5 minutes)

• The Avengers at 50 Interview (Disc 9, HD, 22 minutes) - Another interview with Clemens.

• Vintage, Archival & German Cinema Trailers (Disc 11, HD, 4 minutes)

• Newsreel (Disc 12, HD, 1 minute) - "Diana Rigg Receives Television Award"

• The Avengers at 50 (Disc 13-14, HD, 50 minutes) - Three 2011 interviews, the first with Patrick Macnee biographer Marie Cameron, the second with stunt coordinator Raymond Austin, and the third with guest actress Anneke Wills.

• "The ₤50,000 Breakfast" Introduction (Disc 14, HD, 1 minute) - Actress Anneke Wills intros the episode.

• The Avengers: A Retrospective (Disc 15, HD, 63 minutes) - A 1993 home video promotional program presented by Macnee in which the lead actor discusses all things The Avengers, homing in especially on why the series worked so well and for as long as it did.

• Diana Rigg Interview (Disc 15, HD, 6 minutes) - A brief Bobby Wygant interview with Rigg.

• K Is for Kill (Disc 15, HD, 2 minutes) - An excerpt from "The New Avengers" episode featuring Peel.

• The Original Episodes (Disc 16, SD) - Rounding out the supplements are four Season 2 and 3 episodes that were remade in Seasons 4 and 5, including "Death of a Great Dane" (with optional commentary with writer Roger Marshall), "Don't Look Behind You" (with commentary by Honor Blackman and Paul O'Grady, in addition to a Blackman and Macnee intro), "Dressed to Kill", and "The Charmers". Sadly all four episodes are presented in standard definition with lossy Dolby Digital audio.

The Avengers: The Complete Emma Peel Collection 1965-1967 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Avengers may be wholly a product of its era, but there's a lot of fun to be had in its spy-vs-spy adventures and mid-60s moxie. Macnee and Rigg play off one another to charming ends, and their dynamic is as winning as it is infectious. Sure, it all gets as cheesy and campy as you might expect, but that's the joy of these classic shows, innit guv'ner? Whatever your taste or patience for the hits of old may be, though, it's exceedingly difficult to be disappointed with this 16-disc set. Brimming with striking video restorations of the episodes, solid and faithful uncompressed audio, and extra after extra after extra, it justifies its price tag and then some. If you're a fan of the show, this one is as easy to recommend as they come.