The New Avengers | |
---|---|
Genre | Action[1] Spy fiction[1] |
Created by | Brian Clemens, Albert Fennell |
Based on | The Avengers by Sydney Newman |
Starring | Patrick Macnee Gareth Hunt Joanna Lumley |
Theme music composer | Laurie Johnson |
Country of origin | United Kingdom Canada France |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 2 |
No. of episodes | 26 |
Production | |
Producer | Brian Clemens |
Running time | 50 minutes per episode |
Production companies | The Avengers (Film and TV) Enterprises Ltd for London Weekend |
Original release | |
Network | ITV |
Release | 22 October 1976 17 December 1977 | –
Related | |
The Avengers Escapade | |
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The New Avengers is a secret agent action television series produced during 1976 and 1977. It is a sequel to the 1960s series The Avengers and was developed by original series producers Albert Fennell and Brian Clemens.
The series was produced by The Avengers (Film and TV) Enterprises Ltd for the ITV network, cost £125,000 per episode to produce at Pinewood Studios, and was seen in 120 countries.[2]
A joint United Kingdom-France-Canada production,[2] the series picks up the adventures of John Steed (again played by Patrick Macnee) as he and his team of "Avengers" fight evil plots and world domination. Whereas in the original series Steed had almost always been partnered with a woman, in the new series he had two partners: Mike Gambit (Gareth Hunt), a top agent, crack marksman and trained martial artist, and Purdey (Joanna Lumley), a former trainee with The Royal Ballet (to which she ascribed the high-kicking skills she frequently used in the series) who was an amalgam of many of the best talents from Steed's female partners in The Avengers.