The Avengers Forever: Website News Archive

	Website News Archive February 2003

Good news for fans down under. 22 February. The Avengers are being released on DVD in Australia. Pop over to Piers Johnson's site for a peek at the first set. That is some slick packaging!

Biography. 16 February. Having gained access to a rare book, I have at last been able to compose a bio of Julian Wintle, producer of the Emma Peel era.

What's all this then? 15 February. Been receiving a steady stream of emails about the possibility of The New Avengers being released in the States via an exclusive deal with Deep Discount DVD. While it appears legitimate, I have yet to unearth any press release, advertisement or other official notice from A&E, who have distribution rights in North America. If it is in fact legit, it follows a trend begun in the UK not long ago for exclusive Avengers DVD releases—in this case, MVC. Exclusive contracts are a good way for a distributor to gauge the potential popularity of a product at reduced risk: the sales outlet assumes much of the financial risk since they agree to order a fixed quantity, regardless of sales. If they move well, the distributor can have more manufactured and approach the general market armed with a good sense of the potential sales rate. If the Deep Discount deal follows the same course as MVC, it will remain exclusive for several months prior to general market availability—which means, with a mid-April target for the TNA Season 1 set, it would probably not hit the street until fall. Obviously, with no information on these DVDs other than their rather mysterious appearance at Deep Discount, I cannot offer any clue as to their potential quality or the availability of extras; I will, however, go out on a limb and speculate that they will likely be a virtual carbon copy of the UK sets, with the occasional less-than-ideal print and no extras.

Is that a gun in your pocket? 9 February. Mike Kunkel here in the States earns some serious bonus points for spotting something that has gone unnoticed for a very long time indeed: Steed carries a gun—in the pocket of his trousers!—in "The Girl from Auntie." After knocking down Ivanoff, he pulls it out of his pocket and hands it to Georgie. I can just imagine her remarking, "Still warm." Well done, Mike!

Wait... wait... 8 February. As if to underscore what fans must do when it comes to video releases, Carlos Los Vengadores Pagés has kindly provided a wonderful little animated "busy" cursor (the ubiquitous hourglass). He's created an entire micro-episode in a 32-pixel square—download it from Avenge Your PC and enjoy! I apologize in advance for the acutely negative tone of the other news I must share, because it makes me so angry that I literally shake. Regrettably, an incessant rash of ballot-stuffing has forced me to shut down all Visitor Voting. The blame for this must be placed entirely on the unethical scumbags who have ignored polite requests to vote only once. In an effort to skew the score towards their favorites, they have ruined it for everyone. Mere words cannot express the utter disgust and contempt I hold for these worthless sacks of excrement. Sorry if this dampens your spirits—imagine how I feel having to abandon something that not only provided a lot of enjoyment for fans everywhere, but also represented a lot of work on my part to create. I suppose it was too much to expect that something as innocent and fun as sharing the pleasure of an old TV show might avoid being sullied by an ignorant bunch of creeps. If you are one of the ballot-stuffers, then press your browser's Back button repeatedly until you are no longer in TheAvengers.TV domain, and do not return. You are not welcome here.

Birthday wishes. 5 February. The 6th marks Patrick Macnee's birthday. Best wishes to you, Patrick! In other considerably less pleasant news, Google continues to unearth more and more plagiarism. IMHO has been revised a bit to reflect the current state of affairs—most "amusing" is the case of the commercial site and their actor bios.

More facts. 4 February. Thanks to Bill McCutcheon's inquiring mind, it has come to light that poor old Rhonda Parker did not receive credit in "Requiem" after all, contrary to what appeared on that page. The error can be traced back in the earliest days of this site, when I relied heavily on Dave Rogers' The Complete Avengers to assemble the cast lists and other vital statistics (and Rhonda appears in the cast list for this episode in his book). My mistake was not returning to the newly-released DVDs and verifying the information. So... sorry, Rhonda. I tried. In other news, my latest IMHO is probably my rantiest rant to date, so proceed with the understanding that you have been warned.

More FAQs. 2 February. Are there any plans for more "mega" box sets? Are there any plans to VidFire the Cathy Gale episodes? Will Contender re-master and re-release the R2 color Emma Peel DVDs? When will the last of the Cathy Gale episodes be released by A&E? When are The New Avengers coming to America on DVD? With the Forum seeing these questions about DVD products with increasing frequency, it was time once again to expand the FAQs. In other news, Ed Brody has contributed a marvelous new essay, Ra-Boom-Di-Ay: Tara versus the Swinging 60s. Riccardo Brighi reports that Avengers reruns on LA7 in Italy have suddenly stopped; while he remarks that this is not unusual, it is still a little sad, so let's hope it reappears just as suddenly and mysteriously. Finally, TAF received more feedback than ever in January, likely due to the New Year's Day Mystery Channel marathon.