The Essential US/Canada Information: In the United States and Canada, The Avengers are available from A&E Home Video. The color Diana Rigg series has been released in four 3-volume sets under the title Avengers '67. Each set retails for $29.95 each, and you can order direct from A&E's Avengers website at Arts & Entertainment Network: The Original Avengers. These are digitally remastered tapes and the color and sound are splendid. If you're still relying on your old off-air A&E Avenger tapes from the early 90's (the network did not have access to remastered tapes at the time they aired the series) or the faded relics pawned off by Showcase Video and Hollywood Select in the late 80's, you're in for a treat.

Avengers 67, Set 1	Avengers 67, Set 3
From Venus With Love/ The Fear Merchants	A Funny Thing Happened (on the way to the Station)/ Something Nasty in the Nursery
Escape in Time/ The See-Through Man	The Joker/ Who's Who???
The Bird Who Knew Too Much/ The Winged Avenger	The Return of the Cybernauts/ Death's Door
Avengers 67, Set 2	Avengers 67, Set 4
The Living Dead/ The Hidden Tiger	The L50,000 Breakfast/ Dead Man's Treasure
The Correct Way to Kill/ Never Never Say Die	You Have Just Been Murdered/ The Positive Negative Man
Epic/ The Superlative Seven	Murdersville/Mission Highly Improbable/ The Forget-Me Knot

A&E to Release Rigg Season 4 in 1999: A&E Home Video plans release of the superlative b/w Diana Rigg Season 4, beginning with two sets to be released in April 1999, and concluding the b/w Rigg season in August 1999 with the final two sets. A&E's projected order of release is:

Avengers '65 Set 1: The Town of No Return/The Gravediggers; The Cybernauts/Death at Bargain Prices; Castle De'ath/The Master Minds

Avengers '65 Set 2: The Murder Market/A Surfeit of H2O; The Hour that Never Was/Dial a Deadly Number; Man-eater of Surrey Green/Two's a Crowd/Too Many Christmas Trees

Avengers '66 Set 3: Silent Dust/Room Without a View; Small Game for Big Hunters/The Girl from Auntie; The 13th Hole/Quick-Quick-Slow Death

Avengers '66 Set 4 The Danger Makers/A Touch of Brimstone What The Butler Saw/The House That Jack Built A Sense of History/How to Succeed At Murder/Honey for the Prince

DVD Release Planned?: A&E's Director of On-Line Marketing, So Young Park, has announced that A&E plans to release The Avengers on DVD. Details are not yet available, but knowing So Young, she'll keep in touch with us!

A Sense of History: Long-time fans of The Avengers in North America know what a long, checquered video history the series has in this part of the world. The copyright ownership has often been in dispute and fought in court since the late 1980's. Poor quality tapes of 26 episodes were available for several years from companies like Hollywood Select and Showcase Video. They were finally forced to cease production sometime around 1992 or 1993. Lumiere, a French firm, obtained the video rights to The Avengers from Weintraub Entertainment in the early 90's, and remastered both The Avengers and The New Avengers for sale in the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. However, Lumiere kept the series out of North America citing problems with copyright infringement by bootleggers.

So, while Europe enjoyed the crisp remastered tapes from Lumiere in the mid-90's, we despaired that we'd ever have anything to watch other than the tapes we made from A&E in the early 90's, or those crummy bootlegs we bought from Showcase, etc. Behind the scenes though, while we despaired (and believe me, I did despair!), A&E was copping a bright idea: Get the video rights to release the series in North America! So Young Park, A&E's director of On-Line Marketing, has kindly answere a few of my snoopy questions regarding the network's history with the series and its release on video:

Diabolical Masterminds: How long has A&E been working on The Avengers video project?

So Young Park: Several years, but we were only able to secure the exclusive U.S. home video rights in April 1998.

Diabolical Masterminds: Did the Avengers movie play a role in A&E's decision to market The Avengers on video?

So Young Park: No, but we knew it would make marketing the videos easier. We would've made the tapes available even if there had been no plans to do the movie.

Diabolical Masterminds: A&E aired the series in the early 90's. Does the company's desire to sell the tapes go back that far... or what events spurred A&E to get the distribution rights?

So Young Park: The home video rights to The Avengers were not available at the time we aired the series in the early '90s, and in fact there was not even a full-fledged A&E Home Video department back then. Basically, we heard that the rights would be available and we knew that there was a large enough market for the series for us to go after the home video rights seriously.

Diabolical Masterminds: Thanks for the answers, So Young. And, thanks for keeping Avengers fans so well-informed of A&E's efforts with The Avengers during the release of Avengers 67 and, now, the upcoming Avengers '65 and '66!

Videos in the U.K.: In the UK, The Avengers and The New Avengers are being distributed by Kult Video. Kult Video is releasing the episodes three to a tape, but not necessarily in order (mixing black and white and color episodes, etc.) Kind of an odd bag way of doing things, but I hear the color and sound are very good quality.

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