The Avengers

Series 3, 1963-4

Episode Guide

Clicking the randomly-selected images above takes you directly to the episodes pictured.

Episodes are listed in the order of production. You may resort the table by clicking on the headings.
Legend for this table - all dates are in dd/mm/yy format

Legend and cast lists

• The television channels are listed with their acronym or short name, hovering over them will give you the full name. On small screens, these are automatically expanded as the table is redrawn.
• The cast and crew lists are as complete as possible, and readers should note that they are often more informative than the originally broadcast credits; that is, I have included complete character names, if known, in place of a single name - the addition in italics - (e.g. “Esther Jones” instead of “Esther”); and uncredited characters are also listed. Some of these have been identified by a combination of script listings, call sheets, research and good luck; if you see a mistake or can identify someone, let us know.

Media and archive status

All episodes have been recovered from private collections and film libraries and are now available to the public on DVD or digital download.

Episodes are listed in the order of production (and, coincidentally, the order of the Contender and Optimum DVDs); it seems strange that some episodes were broadcast within a week of filming finishing, while others were in limbo for months. “Lobster Quadrille” apparently was broadcast the day after filming finished, while “Concerto” gathered dust on the shelf for 48 weeks.

The earlier A&E DVDs were released in broadcast order.

Many of the scripts and promotional photos for the episodes are available as extras on recent DVD sets.

Production dates are from Bowler Hats and Kinky Boots (Mike Richardson, Telos Publishing 2014, First paperback edition) and The Avengers Declassified; they are unverified by me, but all the sources seem to agree on them.

Broadcasting

• Teledu Cymru (WWN) only showed series 2 and series 3, having started broadcasting on 14 September 1962, and going out of business on 26 January 1964.
• In the North, ABC North ran weekends and Granada ran weekdays and in the Midlands there was the same arrangement between ABC Midlands and ATV Midlands.
• In London, this was inverted, with ATV doing weekends and Rediffusion running weekday schedules. Confused yet?
• The Medicine Men was not shown by Grampian, probably because of their switching the show from Sunday night to Saturdays, to come into line with other regions, around the end of November 1963.

The Avengers Down-under

In Sydney, Canberra, and Melbourne, 24 episodes of series 2 were screened, immediately followed by 11 out of the first 13 episodes of Series 3, making a first Australian “series” of 35 episodes (although initially announced as being 39 episodes, but the censors and worried programme controllers hadn’t seen the episodes yet then!)
The episodes from series 2 that were not broadcast were Warlock and Man in the Mirror while the episodes from the first half of series 3 that were not broadcast were Man with Two Shadows and Don’t Look Behind You.

When the remainder of series 3 was shown in Australia, it was promoted as a “second series” of twelve episodes in Sydney and Canberra (as The Little Wonders was not shown). Melbourne, being a year behind other regions, screened only seven of the last thirteen so that they could go straight into showing series 4 without a break. This resulted in a second series of thirty-two episodes in Melbourne as Too Many Christmas Trees was held back to be a Christmas special.

The Australian broadcast dates are all confirmed but there are four episodes that were not explicitly named in the listing in Canberra and Sydney. From my notes, I found this information in the Sydney Daily Telegraph but I do not currently have access to these listings to verify.

The Little Wonders appears to have never been broadcast in Australia. The television censorship board in Australia was remarkably harsh and would have been unlikely to approve a show which had criminals masquerading as clergymen.

No episodes of series 2 or series 3 were ever repeated in Australia.

European broadcasts

Series 2 & 3 had a limited release internationally - there was of course Australia above, as well as some other British Commonwealth countries, such as Malaysia and Canada. The only translated - or perhaps subtitled - episodes that have been unearthed were a very limited run of ten selected episodes from series 2 and 3 in Italy, broadcast intermittently in 1965 and 1966 under the series title “Agente speciale” on the public broadcaster RAI and variously shown on RAI 1 (Primo/Televisione 1) and RAI 2 (Secundo/Televisione 2). Initially scheduled weekly on Primo canale, it was quickly pre-empted by other programmes and moved to the more local, but still nationally organised, Secundo canale. It’s interesting that the episodes selected featured Venus Smith and Dr King as well as Cathy Gale.

Episode	Date	Time	Italian title	Channel
Death Of A Batman	12/08/1965	9:00 PM	Alta finanza	RAI 1
The Removal Men	26/08/19651	9:00 PM	Una donna in mare	RAI 1
Man in the Mirror	2/09/1965	9:00 PM	Un uomo nello specchio	RAI 1
The Nutshell	5/11/1965	9:15 PM	Segretissimo	RAI 2
Death on the Rocks	10/11/1965	9:15 PM	Operazione diamanti	RAI 2
The Undertakers	1/12/19652	9:15 PM	I filantropi	RAI 2
School for Traitors	17/12/1965	10:20 PM	Scuola di spie	RAI 2
Traitor in Zebra	7/01/1966	10:15 PM	La formula segreta	RAI 2
Death of a Great Dane	14/01/1966	10:15 PM	Il cane danese	RAI 2
Dead on Course	4/02/19663	10:15 PM	Sabotaggio	RAI 2

1. Originally scheduled for 19/8/1965 but pre-empted by a repeat of Carlo Goldoni’s “Burbero benefico”.
2. Originally scheduled for 26/8/1965 on RAI 1 but with the pre-emption above, “The Removal Men” took that slot and “The Undertakers” was rescheduled on 1^st December, 1965 on RAI 2
3. Originally scheduled for 21/1/1966 at 22:15 on RAI 2 but pre-empted by live coverage of the Simmenthal - Racing Malines basketball match for the European Cup.