As I point out in the chapter I'm writing for our season 6 book, there's a scene where Steed gets very angry with a humorous character, Dr. Reece. There are moments in the two Charles Crichton directed episodes, False Witness and Interrogators where Steed manhandles those who innocent of their wrong doing (through drugs or being duped).
He does become the straight man in season 6 but he is t without the lighter moments. But Macnee carries it off very convincingly. I think we often undervalue how good he was. Take Over is a very powerful episode thanks to Macnee's intensity and Steed getting so beaten down in the quest for survival, no arched eyebrow raised to the danger in that one!
6.08 - My Wildest Dream
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Lhbizness
True - and on the one hand, I like the shift in character in some ways. He takes things more seriously and at times (like in Take Over) it suits the subject matter. If the plots were a little more serious, it probably wouldn't jar as much. But you've got people tainting milk bottles with hallucinogens and "aggresso-therapists" convincing men to murder their work colleagues. It's not even James Bond-level serious.Darren wrote:As I point out in the chapter I'm writing for our season 6 book, there's a scene where Steed gets very angry with a humorous character, Dr. Reece. There are moments in the two Charles Crichton directed episodes, False Witness and Interrogators where Steed manhandles those who innocent of their wrong doing (through drugs or being duped).
He does become the straight man in season 6 but he is t without the lighter moments. But Macnee carries it off very convincingly. I think we often undervalue how good he was. Take Over is a very powerful episode thanks to Macnee's intensity and Steed getting so beaten down in the quest for survival, no arched eyebrow raised to the danger in that one!
But it's rough that the comedic center of the series appears to have lost much of his humor, and even become more violent. Whatever you feel about Tara, she's rarely a funny or arch character, so the only proper comic relief comes from the situations, which are largely ludicrous. Part of what made The Avengers work so well was that cocked eyebrow - while the masterminds take things very seriously, the heroes think it's all kind of funny. That's not completely lost in Season 6, but much of the spark has gone out of Steed.
Don't know if this was an effect from America - it's not exactly like American shows/films of the same period didn't tend towards camp. Given that The Avengers folded partially because of disinterest from US audiences, it appears to have backfired.
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Frankymole
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Lhbizness
Naw, I'd say that Cathy found a lot of the villains kind of laughable, particularly in the third season. There was always that edge of humor and lack of belief. Again, though, it's not a hard and fast "this is always the way it is, forever and ever, all the time." I was thinking more in reference to Steed's character and the shift in Season 6.
But...didn't you just say that the series became more serious to appease American audiences? Which, given the success of the 4/5 seasons that did contain more of that archness and humor, at least on the part of our leading man, was probably a bad move (if true).
But...didn't you just say that the series became more serious to appease American audiences? Which, given the success of the 4/5 seasons that did contain more of that archness and humor, at least on the part of our leading man, was probably a bad move (if true).
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Frankymole
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Lhbizness
I'm sorry, but I'm sure that content - the change of a leading lady, which regardless of how good or bad it was, can still put people off who have become accustomed to a certain format - must have had something to do with it. There's no way to determine if that's a correct assessment, of course. But if, as you've claimed, the initially broadcast Tara episodes were not of the highest calibre due to production upheaval, I can imagine a number of viewers defecting simply because it no longer looked like a show they wanted to watch.
Anyways, it doesn't much matter to what we have now. I was just responding to the concept of going serious to appease the US, which if that was the intention still didn't do much. Regardless, they DID go serious, and in my opinion it sometimes jars with the otherwise outlandishness of the plots.
Anyways, it doesn't much matter to what we have now. I was just responding to the concept of going serious to appease the US, which if that was the intention still didn't do much. Regardless, they DID go serious, and in my opinion it sometimes jars with the otherwise outlandishness of the plots.
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Frankymole
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They weren't broadcast in production order, though. Stuff happened like "My Wildest Dream" being held back 9 months, and the order was generally juggled a fair bit - it's not TV practice to put "weaker" episodes out together. Emma Peel also benefitted from this practiceLhbizness wrote:I'm sorry, but I'm sure that content - the change of a leading lady, which regardless of how good or bad it was, can still put people off who have become accustomed to a certain format - must have had something to do with it. There's no way to determine if that's a correct assessment, of course. But if, as you've claimed, the initially broadcast Tara episodes were not of the highest calibre due to production upheaval, I can imagine a number of viewers defecting simply because it no longer looked like a show they wanted to watch.
Looking at the airdates, I see that as well as Brimstone being "banned", Honey for the Prince was also "not aired" in the 60s (at least in NYC which is where I have dates for). Presumably because Emma's "seven veils" costume broke the broadcast rules? Somehow her "Castle De'Ath" breach of the rules (navel showing) got through...
Last watched: "Mandrake"
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Lhbizness
I was really just basing it on what has been said before on this forum - that the initial Tara episodes (including the Forget-Me-Knot) were not the highest calibre of the Tara episodes, and they were broadcast first (regardless of production order, which certainly Tara suffered from in terms of her character development). So it isn't a stretch to guess - again, without any direct evidence of audience reception - that the combination of a new leading lady, an upheaval of sorts in the format, and placing The Avengers up against a popular series would result in a decline in American popularity. That's not a slur on Tara or Season 6; it's just an unfortunate combination of events.
