There's only one Avengers! Moving into color for season five, the production team brought in documentary and TV commercial director John Krish to set the style of the show through new opening and closing title sequences. He was offered a chance to direct every other episode, but found the production pace too fast- only 10 days to edit and cast each next episode. Agreeing to do the titles, which were apparently planned by Brian Clemens, Krish was forced to rush through the filming on a Sunday afternoon at Elstree and wrap by 5:30. Talking in a 2014 interview (below), he said, "All I had was the chair, the cyclorama, a bottle of champaign, the gun. Diana Rigg had flu. Neither of them wanted to be there on a Sunday. It was hard, but it's not revealed, which is the point." Kris went on to direct three episodes of The Avengers in 1967: "Escape in Time", "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station", and one of my all-time favorite Diana Rigg episodes, "The Living Dead". Past studies of Avengers production have also suggested possible involvement by directors Robert Day and Robert Asher at the time, so Krish's interview may finally clear up details regarding the filming of the title sequences. Stay tuned for upcoming Avengers interviews! Below: production stills of Diana Rigg as Mrs. Emma Peel taken during the Season 5 closing titles, excerpt from the 2014 interview with director John Krish, and the original Season 5 opening and closing titles. Enjoy! Related posts: Avengers Interview: Michael Richardson, Avengers Interview: Rodney Marshall I, Avengers Interview: Rodney Marshall II, Rare Avengers Scripts, Lost Avengers Released, Season 5 Blu-ray speed comparison,Shakespeare Spies: Diana Rigg, Diana Rigg at 76, Jean Varon Fashion, Mini-Killers, Mrs. Peel Audio Dramas. Learn More: Bowler Hats and Kinky Boots by Michael Richardson.
I wish I had a more positive report for my fellow fans of The Avengers. We've waited so long in the States for a quality transfer and the Season 5 Hi-def release promised so much. My copy of the new box set arrived today and I have to say the Blu-ray is unfortunately not an overall upgrade. I previewed a few episodes with a fellow audiophile/videophile and we found the visuals were sometimes washed out, suffered from odd contrast (especially in the credits), and some unnatural color boost. Other footage looked SUPER nice in terms of texture and clarity, but in general, the A&E DVD sometimes looked natural in comparison. I imagine this is due to the sources being varied in quality (yet the UK Optimums look good, right?) and that there are 8 hours of episodes compressed on each of the 3 discs. Now the bad news… The new Blu-ray suffers from PAL speed-up, giving the actors a helium quality (talking at a higher pitch!) and causing movements and pacing to appear unnatural. The difference is subtle, but Steed and Peel sound unlike themselves (to my ears). Hopefully we'll see this important series get its due someday, but in the meantime, I suggest sticking with your A&E DVDs. What does speed-up sound like? The Optimum DVD discs provided improved visuals, but also suffer from speed-up. See my comparison video below between A&E DVD and Optimum DVD. Some viewers don't mind (or notice) the change in pitch- I envy them. I've heard Optimum re-pressed the DVDs with corrected speed and I'll post more about that once I can confirm. **SEE updated review and pitch comparison video (A&E DVD, Blu-ray, Optimum DVD) here.
