The Avengers Series 3 There were 26 episodes in the third series and they aired from September 28 1963 to March 21 1964. A 7 disc set from Studio Canal with a number of extras, including commentaries, making of videos, interviews, PDF scripts and other written material, still galleries and a couple of random bits and pieces. It's the last season for Honor Blackman, she leaves to play a Bond girl and Diana Rigg takes over as Steed's partner.
It was a decent bunch of stories, some a bit better than others, some much more imaginative than others. There's some talk about the move to more fantastic stories in the next series in the commentaries and the making of videos. This series has some way out ideas, lawyers that help their clients beat a murder rap with a graveyard, scientists being replaced by doppelgangers, another story is about insider trading, a rich guy is obsessed with ancient Rome, all that in the first 10 episodes.
There were more interesting guest stars in this series. I recognized John Laurie, Geoffrey Palmer, Patrick Magee, Warren Mitchell, Leonard Rossiter, Anneke Wills, Lois Maxwell, Peter Sallis, Barry Letts, John Le Mesurier, Fenella Fielding Vivian Pickles, Roy Kinnear, Burt Kwouk and Nigel Stock. Many more I did not know.
I have the A&E DVDs and the Studio Canal DVDs are a nice improvement. The left screen caps above are from the A&E set, the Studio Canal set on the right. You can see the picture is clearer and sharper. I was happy to see that as well as the single episode that was left off the A&E set. I won't keep the A&E DVDs, they still get decent money on eBay. After I get some other shows watched I'll join Emma and Steed for Series 4. I know I'm going to enjoy that even more.
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