The Avengers

The New Avengers was a British secret agent fantasy adventure television series produced during 1976 and 1977. It is a sequel to the 1960s series, The Avengers (created by Sydney Newman) 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.

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.