Patrick Macnee once said, "The Avengers is a show about a man in a bowler hat and a woman who throws men over her shoulders." That sums the program up as well as anything, for The Avengers is a show that leaves much to the viewer's imagination. That capacity to "leave well enough alone" accounts for much of the program's continuing popularity over a period of more than 30 years. When The Avengers arrived on U.S. television, it was one of a tiny handful of programs that treated the viewer with intelligence. The program assumed that we had the ability to understand subtle jokes, to appreciate fast-paced and very stylish filming, and could identify with characters whose lives weren't lined out by thick magic markers making arrows and circles and diagrams for the viewing public.

The Avengers focuses on the adventures of secret agent John Steed and the succession of talented amateurs he recruits to help him solve a series of unique and off-kilter crimes and plots against the state. As the specially-filmed opening credits to introduce the U.S. run of the b&w Rigg series stated: "Extraordinary crimes against the people...and the state... must be avenged by agents extraordinary..." When the show was at its very best (which to me is the b&w Rigg season), the villains may have hatched plots that touched on the ludicrous, but they were always worthy foes for Steed, dangerous madmen who had to be taken seriously.

The Avengers began in 1960 when an almost vagabond, and then semi-employed, actor named Patrick Macnee was approached to take the role of John Steed, a mysterious figure who would be a secondary lead to the character of Dr. David Keel, played by Ian Hendry, on a new television adventure/thriller called The Avengers. No one knew exactly what "The Avengers" meant as a title, except that the first episode, Hot Snow, dealt with Dr. Keel's hunt to avenge the murder of his fiance. One year, 26 episodes and one writers strike later, Ian Hendry left the show to pursue other opportunities in television and movies. The ruffian character of Steed had, by that time, become more popular than that of the doctor, and Macnee was retained as the lead. A hunt began for a replacement partner. Honor Blackman was hired as Cathy Gale, and the series took off. The show ran for nine years (1960 to 1969) and included six seasons of episodes: Dr. David Keel (1 season, December 1960 through October 1961), Cathy Gale (2 seasons, September 1962 through March 1964), Emma Peel (2 seasons, early 1965 through September 1967**) and Tara King (1 season, November 1967 through March 1969).

We're never told exactly who John Steed is. Beyond the fact that he was educated at Eton and served in the Army, nothing is really explained about his background. In Requiem, Tara says, "Steed's childhood is simply littered with stately homes," but you never know if Steed's branch of the family owned a stately home, or if he was dragged by the hand from one home to another by a slightly impoverished and more than quirky set of parents who made extended visits to wealthy in laws. Certainly we're never told for whom Steed works. His duties encompass areas covered by both MI5 and the SIS, and Brian Clemens once joked that Steed was employed by "MI5 and a half." It doesn't matter who cuts John Steed's pay check. The Avengers creates a fantasy world where Steed and Partner can foil half a dozen villains, leaving them dead or incapacitated on the floor, and waltz out the door as if nothing else follows. They're never encumbered by police and paperwork, they seem never to answer to higher authority; when they've won the game, they walk out the door.... and straight into a new adventure.

Even more is left to the viewer's discretion in deciding whether or not there is a romantic relationship between John Steed and his beautiful partners. When Honor Blackman was on board as Cathy Gale, in the days before The Avengers was brought to the U.S., she and Patrick Macnee fought any suggestion from "upstairs" that they insinuate an obvious romantic element into the series. They called it the "keep Cathy pure" campaign. They understood, as their audience understood, that the enigmatic relationship between Cathy and Steed was essential to the show and tantalizing in its own right. The "are they or aren't they" relationship continued when Emma Peel replaced Cathy Gale and, to a lesser extent, when Tara King replaced Emma.

Even though Steed's partners were more thoroughly defined than he, The Avengers left room for the imagination. Why does Cathy Gale, a strict moralist, stick by the rough-edged, chauvinistic opportunist that Steed was during the Gale years? What role, if any, does the death of Emma Peel's test pilot husband play in Emma's willingness to risk life and limb helping Steed in his capers? My personal take on Cathy and Emma is that Cathy saw a great deal of injustice in the world, and Steed provided her a way to foil some of that evil, and that for Emma, working with Steed was a way to focus on something larger and more important than her grief over her husband's death. Tara's motives are obvious: unlike "talented amateurs" Cathy Gale and Emma Peel, Tara was a trained agent assigned to work with Steed. And, as the more obvious romantic element between Steed and Tara took some of the mystery away from that relationship, so also I think the program lost something when Steed's new partner was no longer a talented amateur who might have some personal agenda in choosing to work with John Steed.

There are, though, as many opinions about John Steed and his partners as there are loyal viewers who have followed the show for years, or discovered it during its early 90's run on the Arts & Entertainment Network, or more recently in Britain, on Channel 4. The beauty of The Avengers is that opinions can differ, and it doesn't matter. The Avengers was left open-ended, allowing us to insert our own opinions and views, each as relevant and important as the other. One thing I am absolutely certain of, though, is that in its goals and accomplishments, The Avengers has never been be equaled on television.