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.
A joint United Kingdom-France-Canada production, 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.
Contents
Overview
As he was for most of the original Avengers series, John Steed is once again acting without a direct superior—in many ways his character takes on the duties of "Mother" from the Tara King era of that series. Steed is seen to be the mentor to Mike Gambit and Purdey, taking on a paternal role towards them (especially in the episode "Hostage"). Gambit is the athletic action hero, while Purdey incorporates the wit and fighting skills of her predecessors. The verbal interplay between Gambit and Purdey, with her humorously keeping his romantic advances at bay, harks back to the Steed/Cathy Gale era of The Avengers.
One reason for the addition of Gambit was the question of whether Macnee, aged 53 when the series began production, could handle the potential stuntwork and action scenes. Macnee was able to increase his role's visibility as the series progressed, losing weight to improve his athleticism and "keep up" with his new partners.
The first series featured several episodes using science fiction themes similar to those of the classic "Emma Peel" Avengers era. The new trio had to deal with suspended animation ("The Eagle's Nest"), biological warfare ("The Midas Touch"), robotics ("The Last of The Cybernauts?"), mind transfer ("Three-Handed Game") and even a giant rat ("Gnaws", a title patterned after the hit movie Jaws). Second series episodes featured science fiction elements, such as the artificially-intelligent supercomputer of "Complex", the Russian soldiers revived from suspended animation in "K is for Kill", the submersible Russian community in "Forward Base" and the superhumans of "The Gladiators". Other episodes of that season dealt with more realistic plots.
The Avengers and The New Avengers scriptwriter Dennis Spooner said that at the end of its run The Avengers had gone as far as it could in terms of parody. For this reason, producer Brian Clemens intentionally aimed for real stories and straight, Len Deighton-type spy stories in The New Avengers. Spooner explained that "it's no good saying 'I don't like The New Avengers so much, because it wasn't like the old show'-because it never could have been. We did everything – we did the kitchen sink! – and there was no way of going back on it". When reminded of his The New Avengers script "Gnaws", Spooner admitted that "well, yes, towards the end we relaxed a bit!" Some of the storylines used in the series were recycled from earlier scripts penned by Clemens or Spooner from other series. "Medium Rare" was based on the episode "Murder in Mind" of the British series Thriller, and "Gnaws" was based on the Thunderbirds story "Attack of the Alligators!"
Episodes
Airdates given here are for a transmission on ATV (Midlands); other ITV regions' air dates vary.
Series 2 (1977)
All prints of the final four episodes of series 2 begin with a sting of the theme tune over a cue card, which reads The New Avengers in Canada.
"K Is for Kill" is titled "The Dragon Awakes" ("Der Drache erwacht") in Germany and "The Long Sleep" ("Le Long Sommeil") in France.
Spin-offs
Novels
The New Avengers spawned a series of novels based on episode scripts. Only three were published in the US:
House of Cards, Peter Cave, 1976
The Eagle's Nest, John Carter, 1976 (“The Eagle's Nest” and “The Midas Touch”)
To Catch a Rat, Walter Harris, 1977
Fighting Men, Justin Cartwright, 1977 (“Dirtier by the Dozen”)
The Cybernauts, Cave, 1977 (“The Last of the Cybernauts”)
Hostage, Cave, 1977
Comics
Two hardback annuals of The New Avengers were also published in the UK, containing self-contained comic strip adventures, short fiction and features:
The New Avengers Annual (1977), Brown Watson – comic strips Fangs for the Memory, drawn by John Bolton (uncredited); Hypno-twist, drawn by John Bolton (signed).
The New Avengers Annual (1978), Brown Watson – comic strips Midas Touch, drawn by Pierre Le Goff; The Cybernauts, drawn by Pierre Le Goff.
Home release
The complete series was made available on DVD in both the UK and North America. A&E Home Video, under license from StudioCanal International, released the Region 1 editions of series 1 in 2003 and series 2 in 2004, while Optimum/Studio Canal released both series as a single set in 2006.
In November 2025, StudioCanal released remastered versions of both series in a complete region-free box set, available in UHD, Blu-ray or DVD, with the episodes fully restored from the 35 mm original camera negatives in 4K resolution and various new special features.