The Avengers Forever: AvengerNews Archive

	AvengerNews Archive: 2003 Page 5 of 9

28 December. Come January, Harkit Records (the company responsible for the recent Diana Rigg CD of her song from Tom Stoppard's play Jumpers) will be releasing a seven-track CD (HRKCD 8037) of all the known recordings by Linda Thorson that were licensed from TKO by Harkit. The CD will also feature never-before-seen photos of Linda at the recording studio. Check the news page at their website for details.

27 December. Season two of The New Avengers will be released on 24 February 2004. As with the first season, Deep Discount DVD initially has exclusive distribution—you can pre-order from them now. (With thanks to Mark Poppleton of Jacksonville, Florida for the heads-up.) By the way, with the completion of this set, A&E has just 13 Cathy Gale and a couple of David Keel episodes left to go, and they will have fulfilled their promise to release everything. There is a vague rumor this might happen sometime in 2004, but that's all it is, a rumor. It might help grease the works if fans contact A&E and voice their support!

5 June. Better late than never... So Young Park of A&E posted the following at alt.tv.avengers:

Wow—I haven't posted here in a while although I do try to check in from time to time. Anyway, I'm getting in on this thread late, but in case anyone still cares, it's true that A&E is offering The New Avengers Season 1 DVD through deepdiscountdvd.com exclusively for a short window of time. That window closes in July at which point it will be available in A&E's online store at store.aetv.com. After it is available from us direct, it will be available in various retail locations, as usual.

Coincidentally, the first season of The New Avengers is ready for pre-order from The Avengers eStore. Street date is set for 29 July. Amazon is (surprisingly and thankfully) quite flattering in their description of the series:

Sometimes dismissed as a pale descendant of a great original, The New Avengers deserves a second look and is perhaps best considered as a largely successful attempt to re-imagine its predecessor for 1970s audiences. Patrick Macnee was never the most convincing of action heroes, and the decision to make his John Steed the supervisor and mentor of two younger agents was a sensible one—Steed's virtues are style, wisdom, and fortitude rather than physical prowess. Gareth Hunt's Gambit has an unattractively smug side, but also has charm. Joanna Lumley's Purdey is one of the most attractive heroines of genre television, astonishingly leggy and beautiful. Those who only know her later incarnation as Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous will now understand why such a fuss is made over her. The script team overlaps heavily with that of the original series; the new show has the same quirkiness, only occasionally varying it with a rather darker Le Carré-esque complexity or sudden outbreaks of Hammer Horror. If it lacks some of the sheer style of the original, that is a reflection of its period—the 1970s were less visually imaginative than the '60s. Tightly plotted and imaginatively cast with interesting guest stars, it is only with The Avengers that The New Avengers suffers by comparison. —Roz Kaveney

31 May. The Avengers comes to the Netherlands on DVD, courtesy of A-Film Nederland. The first two-disc set of De Wrekers features these six color Emma Peel episodes:

Soundtrack is English with optional Dutch subtitles, and while this has not been confirmed, it would appear the DVDs are not sourced from Canal+ masters. A couple of sample menus from the disc are shown below. More here. With thanks to Eric for all of the images!

23 May. A&E may yet make it to the finish line: a Forum regular who apparently has "connections" reports that A&E is sticking to its promise to release the entire series, including—and remember, this is only rumor—the two and one-third surviving David Keel episodes. The only catch is that we must be patient, as release is not scheduled until 2004.

15 May. Bad news for fans in Australia, where word has it that Universal has yanked their first not-even-released-yet DVD box set. In other equally depressing news, it seems Contender's licensing agreement with Canal+ is about to expire, which means the "Definitive Dossier" will probably never be completed, and stocks of existing products will probably not be replenished (so if you haven't bought them yet, buy them now!). So, to date the score is 0 for 4, as in no complete set in any single market—North America, United Kingdom, France or Australia.

4 May. The Master Minds: The Seventeenth Avengers Dead Man's Treasure Hunt is now accepting registrations, and you can read all about it on the new Treasure Hunt page.

26 April. The Avengers arrive on DVD in Italy. More details and a peek at the packaging on The Avengers in Italy page.

21 March. Reading Between Designs: Visual Imagery and the Generation of Meaning in The Avengers, The Prisoner, and Doctor Who by Piers Britton and Simon Barker, available in hardcover or paperback, can be purchased from the University of Texas Press online bookstore.

22 February. Good news for fans down under: The Avengers are being released on DVD in Australia. First up is a complete set of the color Emma Peel episodes.

15 February. The New Avengers are on their way to North America, starting with a box set of the first season.