The Avengers was a British espionage television series created by film and television producer Sydney Newman, airing a total of 161 episodes from 1961 to 1969. The series primarily followed the adventures of John Steed (portrayed by Patrick Macnee), a gentleman spy employed by a mysterious organization known as "The Ministry" to investigate various criminal activities or disappearances around the United Kingdom.
Steed had several partners over the course of the series, including Dr. David Keel (Ian Hendry), Dr. Martin King (Jon Rollason), Venus Smith (Julie Stevens), Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman), Emma Peel (Diana Rigg), and Tara King (Linda Thorson).
Series Overview[]
The show's first series focused on Dr. David Keel, a London-based surgeon whose receptionist/fiancée Peggy Stevens is murdered by drug dealers. After Peggy's death, Keel encounters John Steed, who has been tracking the drug dealers for some time before the murder. Steed offers David the chance to "avenge" Peggy's untimely passing and help him bring the criminals responsible to justice. After apprehending the murderers, Dr. Keel resumed his career as a surgeon, though he would continue to help Steed with several other cases in the following year.
Keel returned full-time to his medical practice, and Steed would continue to pick-up "freelance" partners from 1962 to 1968 to investigate and combat the UK's criminal underworld, with the two most notable being Cathy Gale, a widowed anthropologist and museum curator, and Emma Peel, the wealthy heiress of Knight Industries who sought a lifestyle of action and adventure after her husband was believed to have died in a plane crash two years prior. In late 1968, The Ministry (Steed's secret employer and a group which is believed to be a secret division of MI5) assigned him his first "official" partner, Tara King, after Emma Peel's husband had been found alive in the Amazon jungle.