The Bowler, the Leather, and the Long Goodbye

Three posts on the 1961 to 1969 run of The Avengers, from its accidental origins as a crime drama nobody planned to its pop-art peak with Diana Rigg to its slow institutional collapse under Linda Thorson and the 1976 New Avengers revival. Same show, three very different shows, one bowler hat that outlasted all of them.

M. Appeal: How Diana Rigg Invented the Modern Action Hero and Nobody Bothered to Pay Her for It

Before Emma Peel, television heroines waited to be rescued. After her, the ones who couldn't throw a punch were the boring ones. Also, the BBC paid her less than the cameraman. Of course they did.