Television series

The Avengers

Name: The Avengers
Genre: Comedy, Action, Crime
Released: 1961
Cast: Patrick Macnee, Diana Rigg, Honor Blackman, Linda Thorson, Ian Hendry

Other titles called The Avengers: the 1998 film, the 2012 film.

Before spy dramas went grim, this was Swinging London at its most deliriously stylish: bowler hats, umbrellas that double as weapons, and villains with absurd master plans involving killer robots and poisoned honey. The Emma Peel era (Diana Rigg opposite Patrick Macnee) is the gold standard — witty, flirtatious, gorgeously designed. It's spy fiction as comedy of manners, not thriller. Ideal for anyone who wants charm over grit.

TVMaze rating

4.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love espionage shows where the menace is delivered with a raised eyebrow, the plots are playful and absurd, and the pleasure lies in the crisp badinage between a dapper hero and a succession of sharp-witted partners.

Skip it if you want slow-burn realism or a single continuing story, since these are self-contained, sometimes wildly uneven episodes whose charm depends on a taste for old-fashioned, deliberately outlandish invention.

What it asks of you: Each hour arrives complete, so you can dip in anywhere, but the sheer volume of six seasons means you commit to an afternoon's worth of cheerful, unhurried stylish nonsense.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.1964

America's answer to the same mod-spy mood: sharp suits, absurd gadgets, and a partnership (Solo and Kuryakin) built on the same charming double-act chemistry that makes Steed and Peel work.

But Less British irony, more square-jawed action-adventure earnestness — the wit is thinner on the ground.

The Saint1962

Roger Moore at his most effortlessly suave, globe-trotting as a gentleman-thief-turned-do-gooder. Same sense of English style solving crime with a raised eyebrow rather than a fist.

But More conventional adventure-of-the-week structure — less of the Avengers' surreal, self-aware playfulness.

The Prisoner1967

Made by the same studio, with the same appetite for spy-fiction surrealism, but turned inward and paranoid. If you loved the Avengers' weirder episodes, this is that instinct pushed to its philosophical extreme.

But Genuinely strange and increasingly abstract — it trades charm for unease and doesn't offer easy answers.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Avengers

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Kingsman: The Secret Service2015

It takes Steed's tailored, umbrella-wielding English gentleman archetype and detonates it into contemporary blockbuster spectacle — same DNA, vastly higher volume.

A modern, ultraviolent explosion of the exact bowler-hat-gentleman-spy fantasy Steed embodies, played completely straight until it isn't. Colin Firth's Harry Hart is Steed reincarnated as an action hero with a body count.

But Wildly more violent and crude than anything the Avengers ever attempted — the wit survives, the restraint does not.

Danger Man1960

Patrick McGoohan plays it straighter and colder, proving the same era could produce proper espionage tension alongside the Avengers' comic-book flourishes. Good contrast if you want the serious cousin.

But Far less humour and gadgetry — this is procedural spycraft, not romp.

The Persuaders1971

Roger Moore and Tony Curtis bicker their way through crime-solving with the exact bantering, class-conscious chemistry that made Steed's partnerships so much fun to watch.

But Only one season exists, and the tone leans more buddy-comedy than mystery.

Department S1969

Flamboyant investigator Jason King (soon spun off into his own show) brings the exact dandyish excess and locked-room absurdity that Avengers fans came for.

But King's ego-driven charm can grate if you find him more insufferable than delightful.

Mission: Impossible1966

Trades English whimsy for meticulous gadget-heavy heists, but shares the pleasure of watching an elegant team outwit absurd criminal schemes week after week.

But Colder and more procedural — little of the Avengers' flirtation or humour.

Get Smart1965

If the campier Avengers episodes made you laugh, this all-out spy parody, gadgets and all, leans fully into the joke rather than balancing it with style.

But Broader, sillier comedy with none of the visual elegance that makes the Avengers so watchable.

Danger Mouse1981

British animation absorbed the Avengers' spy-gadget-and-eccentric-villain formula wholesale and shrank it down for children — same tropes, entirely different audience and format.

A children's cartoon mouse in an eyepatch, saving the world with gadgets and a bumbling sidekick — genuinely funny even now, and unmistakably drawing on the same spy-parody furniture as the Avengers.

But It's a five-minute-episode kids' show; expecting Avengers-level plotting or sophistication will disappoint.

The Lady Vanishes1938

Same essential recipe — witty English travelers stumbling into conspiracy, charm as armour against menace — proving the show's tone was inherited, not invented.

Hitchcock's train-set mystery-comedy proves the Avengers' blend of English charm, banter, and creeping menace didn't start in the sixties — it's a direct ancestor, decades earlier, in black and white.

But Slower, stagier, and entirely without the mod gadgetry and camp villainy that give the Avengers its flavour.