His most famous assistants were intelligent, stylish, and assertive women: Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman), Emma Peel (Diana Rigg), and Tara King (Linda Thorson).

The Avengers began with the episode "Hot Snow", in which medical doctor David H. Keel (Hendry) investigates the murder of his fiancée, office receptionist Peggy, by a drug ring.

As seen in one of the three surviving episodes from the first series, "The Frighteners", Steed also had informants among the general population to aid his investigations, similar to the "Baker Street Irregulars" of Sherlock Holmes.

At present, only three complete Series 1 episodes are known to exist and are held in archives as 16-mm film telerecordings: "Girl on the Trapeze" (which does not feature Steed), "The Frighteners" and "Tunnel of Fear".

[10] Additionally, the first 15 minutes of the first episode, "Hot Snow", also exist as a telerecording; the extant footage ends at the conclusion of the first act, prior to the introduction of John Steed.

Dr Martin King (Jon Rollason), a thinly disguised recreation of the Dr. Keel character, saw action in only three episodes, which were produced from scripts written for the first series.

Series scriptwriter Dennis Spooner described about this detail: "There's the famous story of how Honor Blackman played Ian Hendry's part, which is why they stuck her in leather and such—it was so much cheaper than changing the lines!

During the Gale era, Steed was transformed from a rugged trenchcoat-wearing agent into the stereotypical English gentleman, complete with Savile Row suit, bowler hat and umbrella, with clothes later designed by Pierre Cardin.

Another 20 actresses were auditioned before the show's casting director, Dodo Watts, suggested that producers Brian Clemens and Albert Fennell check out a televised drama featuring the relatively unknown Diana Rigg.

For the 1965 season, some of her most memorable outfits were designed by John Bates, including graphic black-and-white Op art mini-coats and accessories, and a silver ensemble comprising a bra bodice, low-slung trousers and jacket.

The show opened with the caption The Avengers in Color (required by the US ABC for colour series at that time), followed by Steed unwrapping the foil from a champagne bottle and Emma Peel shooting the cork away.

Emma Peel would be conducting her normal activities when she unexpectedly received a message on a calling card or within a delivered gift, at which point Steed suddenly appeared (usually in her apartment).

On 25 October 2015, to mark 50 years of Emma Peel, the BFI (British Film Institute) screened an episode of The Avengers followed by an onstage interview with Diana Rigg, during which she discussed her reasons for leaving the show and Patrick Macnee's reaction to her departure.

Linda Thorson played the role with more innocence in mind and at heart, and unlike the previous partnerships with Cathy Gale and Emma Peel, the writers allowed subtle hints of romance to blossom between Steed and Tara King.

After a rough cut screening of these episodes to studio executives, John Bryce was fired and Brian Clemens and Albert Fennell were summoned back.

This, the third episode filmed for the sixth series, was titled "The Forget-Me-Knot" and bade farewell to Emma Peel and introduced her successor, a trained but inexperienced agent named Tara King.

He attributes the overall success of the show to its light approach: "We spoofed everything; we took Mission: Impossible, Bad Day at Black Rock, High Noon, The Dirty Dozen, The Birds... we took them all.

Laurie Johnson re-scored the theme when Linda Thorson joined the series, adding a counter-melody on trumpet, based on the leitmotif for Tara King from the final Diana Rigg episode "The Forget-Me-Knot."

Ray Austin had been training with Chee Soo and they worked techniques from Feng Shou kung fu and tai chi into the fight scenes and credit sequences.

Ray Austin, Diana Rigg and Chee Soo were later awarded a Guinness world record[33] as the first people to show kung fu on television.

The sale of The Avengers to United States television prompted a change in production style from the 405-line British multi-camera stand to the single-camera shooting method, originated on 35mm film.

[38] American censors objected to some content, in particular the episode "A Touch of Brimstone", which featured a modern-day version of the Hellfire Club and climaxed with Emma being dressed in a skimpy corset costume with spiked collar and high-heeled boots to become the Queen of Sin, and being attacked with a whip by guest star Peter Wyngarde.

From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, A&E TV Home Entertainment (under license from Canal+ Image International) released the remaining surviving series on Region 1 DVD in North America, with newly remastered picture and sound quality.

The sustained popularity of the Tara King episodes in France led to a 1975 French television advertisement for Laurent-Perrier champagne, in which Thorson and Macnee reprised their roles.

[citation needed] The first UK Avengers comic strips,[43] featuring Steed and Cathy Gale, first appeared in regional TV listings magazines Look Westward and The Viewer from 14 September 1963 to 9 May 1964 (and later in 1964, re-printed in the Manchester Evening News).

The Avengers also have made a number of cameo appearances in comics over the years: A stage adaptation was produced in Britain in 1971, written by TV series veterans Brian Clemens and Terence Feely, and directed by Leslie Phillips.

[48] A character named Hana Wilde (played by Charlotte Rampling) had essentially acted as Steed's partner in series five's "The Superlative Seven", an episode in which Emma Peel appears only briefly.

The Avengers were played by two British expatriate actors, Donald Monat as Steed and Diane Appleby as Mrs Peel, with Hugh Rouse as the tongue-in-cheek narrator.

Ultimately, the 1998 film, starring Uma Thurman as Emma Peel and Ralph Fiennes as John Steed, with Sean Connery as the villain, received extremely negative reviews from critics and fans, and is a notorious commercial failure.

[52] The main cast includes Julian Wadham as Steed, Anthony Howell as Dr David Keel, and Lucy Briggs-Owen as Carol Wilson.