The Avengers

Series 5, 1967-8

Episode Guide

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

Episodes are listed in the order of broadcast by ABC Midlands. You may resort the table by clicking on the headings.
Legend for this table - dates are in dd/mm/yy format except where only an approximate month is known

#	Episode	Produced	London	Midlands	North	Anglia	BTV	CTV	GTV	South	STV	TT	UTV	WTV	Wales	ABN2	ABV2	USA
01	From Venus With Love	Nov-66	13/01/67 8.00pm	14/01/67 9.10pm	14/01/67 9.10pm	13/01/67 8.00pm	15/01/67 8.10pm	13/01/67 8.00pm	22/11/67 8.00pm	9/01/67 8.00pm	14/01/67 9.10pm	14/01/67 9.10pm	30/11/67 7.30pm	13/01/67 8.00pm	11/01/67 8.00pm	18/04/67 8.00pm	17/04/67 8.00pm	20/01/67 10.00pm
02	The Fear Merchants	Oct-66	20/01/67 8.00pm	21/01/67 9.10pm	21/01/67 9.10pm	20/01/67 8.00pm	22/01/67 8.10pm	20/01/67 8.00pm	6/12/67 8.00pm	16/01/67 8.00pm	21/01/67 9.10pm	21/01/67 9.10pm	7/12/67 7.30pm	20/01/67 8.00pm	18/01/67 8.00pm	9/05/67 8.00pm	8/05/67 8.00pm	27/01/67 10.00pm
03	Escape in Time	Oct-66	27/01/67 8.00pm	28/01/67 9.10pm	28/01/67 9.10pm	27/01/67 8.00pm	29/01/67 8.10pm	27/01/67 8.00pm	13/12/67 8.00pm	23/01/67 8.00pm	28/01/67 9.10pm	28/01/67 9.10pm	14/12/67 7.30pm	27/01/67 8.00pm	25/01/67 8.00pm	11/04/67 8.00pm	10/04/67 8.00pm	10/02/67 10.00pm
04	The See-Through Man	Dec-66	3/02/67 8.00pm	4/02/67 9.10pm	4/02/67 9.10pm	3/02/67 8.00pm	5/02/67 8.10pm	3/02/67 8.00pm	20/12/67 8.00pm	30/01/67 8.00pm	4/02/67 9.10pm	1/02/67 8.00pm	21/12/67 7.30pm	3/02/67 8.00pm	1/02/67 8.00pm	2/05/67 8.00pm	1/05/67 8.00pm	3/02/67 10.00pm
05	The Bird Who Knew Too Much	Nov-66⁶	10/02/67 8.00pm	11/02/67 9.10pm	11/02/67 9.10pm	10/02/67 8.00pm	12/02/67 8.10pm	10/02/67 8.00pm	27/12/67 8.00pm	8/02/67 8.00pm	11/02/67 9.10pm	8/02/67 8.00pm	28/12/67 7.30pm	10/02/67 8.00pm	10/02/67 8.00pm	25/04/67 8.00pm	24/04/67 8.00pm	10/03/67 10.00pm
06	The Winged Avenger	Dec-66	17/02/67 8.00pm	18/02/67 9.10pm	18/02/67 9.10pm	17/02/67 8.00pm	19/02/67 8.10pm	17/02/67 8.00pm	6/03/68 8.00pm	15/02/67 8.00pm	18/02/67 9.10pm	15/02/67 8.00pm	4/01/68 9.00pm	17/02/67 8.00pm	17/02/67 8.00pm	14/04/1975 10.10pm⁵	14/04/1975 10.10pm⁵	17/02/67 10.00pm
07	The Living Dead	Jan-67	24/02/67 8.00pm	25/02/67 9.10pm	25/02/67 9.10pm	24/02/67 8.00pm	26/02/67 8.10pm	24/02/67 8.00pm	3/01/68 8.00pm	22/02/67 8.00pm	25/02/67 9.10pm	22/02/67 8.00pm	11/01/68 9.00pm	24/02/67 8.00pm	24/02/67 8.00pm	16/05/67 8.00pm	15/05/67 8.00pm	3/03/67 10.00pm
08	The Hidden Tiger	Jan-67	3/03/67 8.00pm	4/03/67 9.10pm	4/03/67 9.10pm	3/03/67 8.00pm	5/03/67 8.10pm	3/03/67 8.00pm	10/01/68 8.00pm	1/03/67 8.00pm	4/03/67 9.10pm	1/03/67 8.00pm	18/01/68 9.00pm	3/03/67 8.00pm	3/03/67 8.00pm¹	23/05/67 8.00pm	22/05/67 8.00pm	17/03/67 10.00pm
09	The Correct Way to Kill	Jan-67	10/03/67 8.00pm	11/03/67 9.10pm	11/03/67 9.10pm	10/03/67 8.00pm	12/03/67 8.10pm	10/03/67 8.00pm	17/01/68 8.00pm	8/03/67 8.00pm	11/03/67 9.10pm	8/03/67 8.00pm	25/01/68 9.00pm	10/03/67 8.00pm	10/03/67 8.00pm	30/05/67 8.00pm	29/05/67 8.00pm	24/03/67 10.00pm
10	Never, Never Say Die	14/02/67	17/03/67 8.00pm	18/03/67 9.10pm	18/03/67 9.10pm	17/03/67 8.00pm	19/03/67 8.10pm	15/03/67 8.00pm²	24/01/68 8.00pm	12/05/67 8.00pm	18/03/67 9.10pm	15/03/67 8.00pm	1/02/68 7.30pm	15/03/67 8.00pm	17/03/67 8.00pm	6/06/67 8.00pm	5/06/67 8.00pm	31/03/67 10.00pm
11	Epic	27/02/67	31/03/67 8.00pm	1/04/67 9.10pm	1/04/67 9.10pm	31/03/67 8.00pm	2/04/67 8.10pm	29/03/67 8.00pm	31/01/68 8.00pm	31/03/67 8.00pm	12/01/68 8.00pm	29/03/67 8.00pm	8/02/68 7.30pm	29/03/67 8.00pm	31/03/67 8.00pm	13/06/67 8.00pm	12/06/67 8.00pm	14/04/67 10.00pm
12	The Superlative Seven	13/03/67	7/04/67 8.00pm	8/04/67 9.10pm	8/04/67 9.10pm	7/04/67 8.00pm	4/02/68 8.10pm	5/04/67 8.00pm	7/02/68 8.00pm	7/04/67 8.00pm	8/12/67 8.00pm	5/04/67 8.00pm	15/02/68 7.30pm	5/04/67 8.00pm	7/04/67 8.00pm	20/06/67 8.00pm	19/06/67 8.00pm	21/04/67 10.00pm
13	A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station	22/03/67	14/04/67 8.00pm	15/04/67 9.10pm	15/04/67 9.10pm	14/04/67 8.00pm	11/02/68 7.25pm	12/04/67 8.00pm	2/04/68 10.30pm	14/04/67 8.00pm	15/12/67 8.00pm	12/04/67 8.00pm	22/02/68 7.30pm	12/04/67 8.00pm	26/05/68 7.25pm⁴	3/10/67 8.00pm	2/10/67 8.00pm	28/04/67 10.00pm
14	Something Nasty in the Nursery	3/04/67	21/04/67 8.00pm	22/04/67 9.10pm	22/04/67 9.10pm	21/04/67 8.00pm	18/02/68 7.25pm	10/07/68 8.00pm	21/02/68 8.00pm	21/04/67 8.00pm	22/12/67 8.00pm	19/04/67 8.00pm	29/02/68 7.30pm	10/07/68 8.00pm	2/06/68 7.25pm⁴	27/06/67 8.00pm	26/06/67 8.00pm	5/05/67 10.00pm
15	The Joker	11/04/67	28/04/67 8.00pm	29/04/67 9.10pm	29/04/67 9.10pm	28/04/67 8.00pm	25/02/68 7.25pm	17/07/68 8.00pm	28/02/68 8.00pm	28/04/67 8.00pm	29/12/67 8.00pm	26/04/67 8.00pm	7/03/68 7.30pm	17/07/68 8.00pm	9/06/68 7.25pm⁴	10/10/67 8.00pm	9/10/67 8.00pm	12/05/67 10.00pm
16	Who’s Who???	18/04/67	5/05/67 8.00pm	6/05/67 9.10pm	6/05/67 9.10pm	5/05/67 8.00pm	3/03/68 7.25pm	24/07/68 8.00pm	14/02/68 8.00pm	5/05/67 8.00pm	19/01/68 8.00pm	3/05/67 8.00pm	14/03/68 7.30pm	24/07/68 8.00pm	16/06/68 7.25pm⁴	17/10/67 8.00pm	16/10/67 8.00pm	19/05/67 10.00pm
17	Return of the Cybernauts	27/06/67	28/09/67 9.00pm	30/09/67 9.05pm	30/09/67 9.05pm	25/11/67 9.50pm	1/10/67 10.05pm	7/08/68 8.00pm	27/09/67 8.00pm	29/09/67 8.00pm	5/01/68 8.00pm	25/11/67 9.50pm	5/10/67 7.30pm	7/08/68 8.00pm	1/10/67 7.25pm	31/10/67 8.00pm	30/10/67 8.00pm	21/02/68 7.30pm
18	Death’s Door	7/06/67⁷	5/10/67 9.00pm	7/10/67 9.05pm	7/10/67 9.05pm	7/10/67 9.10pm	8/10/67 10.05pm	5/01/68 7.30pm	4/10/67 8.00pm	6/10/67 8.00pm	7/10/67 9.10pm	7/10/67 9.10pm	12/10/67 7.30pm	5/01/68 7.30pm	8/10/67 7.25pm	24/10/67 8.00pm	23/10/67 8.00pm	31/01/68 7.30pm
19	The £50,000 Breakfast	18/07/67	12/10/67 9.00pm	14/10/67 9.05pm	14/10/67 9.05pm	14/10/67 9.10pm	15/10/67 10.05pm	12/01/68 7.30pm	11/10/67 8.00pm	13/10/67 8.00pm	14/10/67 9.10pm	14/10/67 9.10pm	19/10/67 7.30pm	12/01/68 7.30pm	15/10/67 7.25pm	14/11/67 8.00pm	13/11/67 8.30pm	28/02/68 7.30pm
20	Dead Man’s Treasure	5/07/67⁸	19/10/67 8.00pm	21/10/67 9.10pm	21/10/67 9.10pm	21/10/67 9.10pm	22/10/67 10.05pm	19/01/68 7.30pm	18/10/67 8.00pm	20/10/67 8.00pm	21/10/67 9.10pm	21/10/67 9.10pm	26/10/67 7.30pm	19/01/68 7.30pm	22/10/67 7.25pm	7/11/67 8.10pm	6/11/67 8.10pm	13/03/68 7.30pm
21	You Have Just Been Murdered	2/08/67⁹	26/10/67 8.00pm	28/10/67 9.05pm	28/10/67 9.05pm	28/10/67 9.10pm	29/10/67 10.05pm	26/01/68 7.30pm	25/10/67 8.00pm	27/10/67 8.00pm	28/10/67 9.10pm	28/10/67 9.10pm	2/11/67 7.30pm	26/01/68 7.30pm	23/06/68 7.25pm⁴	21/11/67 8.00pm	20/11/67 8.00pm	24/01/68 7.30pm
22	The Positive Negative Man	18/08/67	3/11/67 8.00pm	4/11/67 9.05pm	4/11/67 9.05pm	4/11/67 9.10pm	10/03/68 7.25pm	2/02/68 7.30pm	1/11/67 8.00pm	3/11/67 8.00pm	4/11/67 9.10pm	4/11/67 9.10pm	9/11/67 7.30pm	2/02/68 7.30pm	30/06/68 7.25pm⁴	28/11/67 8.00pm	27/11/67 8.00pm	17/01/68 7.30pm
23	Murdersville	25/08/67	10/11/67 8.00pm	11/11/67 9.05pm	11/11/67 9.05pm	11/11/67 9.10pm	-	14/08/68 8.00pm	8/11/67 8.00pm	10/11/67 8.00pm	11/11/67 9.10pm	11/11/67 9.10pm	16/11/67 7.30pm	14/08/68 8.00pm	7/07/68 7.25pm⁴	5/12/67 8.00pm	4/12/67 8.00pm	7/02/68 7.30pm
24	Mission.... Highly Improbable	22/09/67	17/11/67 8.00pm	18/11/67 9.05pm	18/11/67 9.05pm	18/11/67 9.10pm	17/03/68 7.25pm	9/02/68 7.30pm	15/11/67 8.00pm	17/11/67 8.00pm	18/11/67 9.10pm	18/11/67 9.10pm	23/11/67 7.30pm	9/02/68 7.30pm	14/07/68 7.25pm⁴	12/12/67 8.00pm	11/12/67 8.00pm	10/01/68 7.30pm
25	The Forget-Me-Knot³	19/01/68	25/09/68 8.00pm	26/09/68 7.00pm	12/01/69 8.25pm	26/09/68 7.00pm	6/10/68 8.10pm	3/10/68 7.00pm	25/09/68 8.00pm	4/12/68 8.00pm	2/01/69 8.00pm	25/09/68 8.00pm	26/09/68 7.00pm	3/10/68 7.00pm	26/09/68 7.00pm⁴	15/11/68 8.00pm	5/11/68 8.40pm	20/03/68 7.30pm

TWW pre-empted The Hidden Tiger on 3 March 1967 with an episode of The Rat Catchers, it is unclear if it was ever screened in the first run.
Never, Never Say Die was scheduled for 15 March 1967 on Southern but not transmitted. It was shown at the end of the first block, on 12 May 1967 at 8pm instead.
The Forget-Me-Knot is officially part of series 6 but has long been broadcast as part of this series in rerun series as it’s a cross-over episode. Consequently, it was broadcast by different channels, marked in bold face. In London, it was broadcast by Thames Television, in the Midlands by ATV and in the North by Granada and Yorkshire Television. Yorkshire showed it at the same time as London and the neighbouring Tyne Tees region.
Episodes in bold in the Wales column were broadcast by Harlech Television.
The Winged Avenger was not shown in the first run in Australia and appears not to have been broadcast until the 1975 repeat series, although some guides on that date list it as a repeat.
The Avengers Declassified suggests filming wrapped in December.
Mike Richardson notes that the brake pedal insert was filmed on June 13 1967, a week after other filming had completed.
Major filming wrapped on July 5 but The tag scene was filmed on July 11, and a pick up shot of the treasure chest was filmed on August 2 1967.
Robert Asher finished filming on August 3, but Robert Day filmed some pick-up shots on August 16 and some more were filmed on August 22 1967.

See “Broadcasting and production”, below for more information.

Legend and cast lists

The television channels are listed with their acronym or short name, hovering over them will give you the full details. 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. (e.g. “Captain Gifford” instead of “Gifford”)); 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.
Neil Redding has turned my episode synopses into an Adobe PDF (89k), for ready reference when watch the DVDs.
The “Drinks” column? I thought it’d be a pointless facet of an episode guide to list the drinks consumed by the characters, and so I did. You may wish to reference it while playing The Avengers Drinking Game or mixing the cocktail recipe.

Media and archive status

All episodes were preserved in the ABC archives and various ITV station libraries and are now available to the public on DVD or digital download.

Episodes are listed in the order of broadcast in the ABC Midlands region, as this was used by Dave Rogers in his 1990 book on the series. Most regions followed this same order. Most DVD sets have used this order as well - and generally include The Forget-Me-Knot as well. The recent StudioCanal and Madman sets seem to be in production 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, many are approximate.

Broadcasting and production

Please note that while I have included the subtitles for every episode in the guide, only the first sixteen episodes of ‘Series Five’ had them on the broadcast masters.
Read the page for Who’s Who??? for more information.
‘Series Five’ is in fact two (and a bit) separate runs, both in production and transmission terms:
- 16 episodes, filmed between October 1966 and April 1967, broadcast between 14 January & 6 May 1967
- 8 episodes, filmed between June and September 1967, broadcast between 30 September 1967 & 18 November 1967
- 1 episode from the Tara King first run, filming finished on 19 January 1968 and it debuted on 20 March 1968 (see below).
The Forget-Me-Knot was, of course, part of series 6 but “became” part of series 5 with repeat screenings from the 1970s onwards, especially as the Emma Peel episodes were often the only ones repeated as the years went by. When Dave Rogers published The Avengers in 1990, the association was cemented. I list the episode under both series 5 and series 6 accordingly.

I prefer to call it one series, as all the original promotional material for the series announced 26 new full colour episodes (they only just managed 25 with the cross-over Tara King episode) - the individual episode pages refer to Series 5, 5B and 5C, but elsewhere I simply refer to ‘Series 5’.
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?
Most regions in the UK had a one week break for Easter and a break between May and September, due to production schedule above.
Border Television went a bit haywire, they showed all the episodes up to the Easter break, returned with Epic then screen repeats of Death at Bargain Prices and Castle De’ath before stopping until October when they started with Return of the Cybernauts (and even then, they seem to have not broadcast Murdersville). In February 1968, they showed the skipped episodes as a “new series” then immediately commenced a repeat run of series 4; it’s possible that Murdersville was somewhere in that run as most episodes were simply listed in schedules as “The Avengers” with no episode title.
Channel Television did a similar schedule change to Border, stopping after A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station, recommencing with Death’s Door in January 1968 and proceeding to the end of the last eight (again, leaving out Murdersville). In July 1968, they finally showed the five episodes they had skipped completely, ending with the missing Murdersville.
Scottish Television,too, stopped at the Easter break with Never, Never Say Die, restarting in October with Death’s Door and going to the end of the series. After a two week break, they showed the episodes they had skipped.
Wales went through more turmoil in its broadcasters in 1968, as Television Wales & West, which had also running Teledu Cymru schedules since that company collapsed in 1964, lost their licence from the Independent Television Authority as they were based in London rather than Wales. You wouldn’t know it from listings in The Guardian though, which continued to have a Teledu Cymru listing. This is because an emergency interim service was set up for March to May, run by ex-TWW staff.
- Television Wales & West / Teledu Cymru pre-empted The Hidden Tiger on 3 March 1967 with an episode of The Rat Catchers, it is unclear if it was ever screened in the first run.
- Harlech Television, the new Welsh broadcaster, started broadcasting on 20 May 1968 and six days later started a series of The Avengers, covering those episodes not previous screen in Wales, starting with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station.
Ulster Television didn’t join in networked broadcasts of series 5 until October, starting with Return of the Cybernauts on October 5, 1967. As soon as they had finished up to Mission.... Highly Improbable they immediately commenced to screen the missed episodes, ending the series with Who’s Who??? on March 14, 1968.
Changes were afoot in ITV in 1968 and ABC was merged with ATV in the Midlands and Granada in the North, starting on 29 July 1968. Rediffusion and ABC were merged into Thames Television in the London area, starting on July 30 1968 and ATV London was replaced by London Weekend Television on August 2 1968. Granada, which had been serving the North on weekdays since 1956, lost half of its broadcast area to the newly created Yorkshire Television.
Being a part of series 6, The Forget-Me-Knot was the only episode here that was broadcast by Yorkshire Television, on September 25 1968 at 8pm. Yorkshire Television started broadcasts on July 29 1968, to the Eastern half of areas previously covered by Granada Television and ABC North.
Despite having broadcast since 1956, The Forget-Me-Knot is also the first episode of The Avengers to be shown by Granada Television in a first run, as it had previously always been in a Saturday night slot so had been show in the North by ABC. Granada got off to a bad start though, being three months behind other areas. They originally scheduled The Forget-Me-Knot for December 27 1968 but then pre-empted it with Man in a Suitcase and it didn’t screen in the Granada region until January 12 1969 at 8.25pm.
ABC-TV Network times for the USA are for New York although other areas, such as Los Angeles, used the same timeslot. Chicago screened them an hour earlier (9pm for the first part of this series, 6.30pm for the rest) to take into account the timezone difference and keep them synchronised across the East and Midwest. ABC-TV showed every episode from this series. ABC-TV repeated the first part of the series except for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station and Who’s Who??? over May to September 1967. The second part (i.e. the last eight) were repeated over May to July 1968, following the broadcast of the first seven episodes of series 6. Approximately half the series was repeated again in 1969.
In the United States, a repeat run of episodes in mid 1968 saw the unfortunate scheduling of You Have Just Been Murdered for the evening following the shooting of Bobby Kennedy, on June 5 1968, and it was quickly replaced with Dead Man’s Treasure.

The Avengers Down-under

By 1967, broadcast of The Avengers had become nationwide in Australia, including far-flung regions such as the Pilbara. The majority of Australia followed the New South Wales broadcast schedule, with Victoria broadcasting a day earlier on Monday nights instead of Tuesday nights.

In Australia, the split was different - Something Nasty in the Nursery was the last episode of the first block and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station, The Joker and Who’s Who??? were held over to start the second “series”. The Winged Avenger is the only episode missing from the first run of these seasons - the first broadcast date that I can find of is 14 April 1975, but that is marked as a repeat in some listings.

The Australian broadcast dates are all confirmed from newspaper listings. Some dates were not explicitly named in The Sydney Morning Herald, but are confirmed by cross-reference to The Canberra Times, The Bananacoast Opinion or The Hammersley News. Victorian dates are exclusively from The Age but I am missing three that were previously confirmed when people were still allowed to enter libraries for research, in pre-COVID-19 times.

Thirteen episodes of series 4 were repeated across Australia from July to September 1967, filling the gap between the first half of this series 5 and the second half, which kicked off with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station. This meant The Avengers were shown for eight straight months of 1967 across Australia. It was so popular that the CEO of TCN9, a commercial station, complained in the press that the ABC was affecting his business and had no right to take popular shows, as the ABC was the government-run broadcaster. The repeated episodes are all from the first fifteen episodes, leaving out Castle De’ath and The Hour that Never Was.

Part of this series was repeated in August-November 1968 as a lead-in to the new Linda Thorson episodes of series 6, starting with The Forget-Me-Knot. Then again, under the label of Steed’s choice, another limited repeat series starting in late 1969, combined with some repeats of series 6. The entire series was rerun in 1975 including, for possibly the first time, The Winged Avenger. Dates for The Hidden Tiger and Murdersville are unconfirmed as two dates (14 July and 4 August, 1975) do not specify which episode was shown. Victoria this time followed the rest of the nation and showed episodes on the same date and time as elsewhere, at least for the initial seven episodes... Pilbara, in remote Western Australia, seems to have been 11 days behind the NSW schedule and concluded the run on 19 September.