Having to admit, albeit reluctantly, that Twilight Zone turned out to be a misfire because it focuses too much on wholesomeness rather than the nastiness I had hoped to see, I decided to continue with another previously unwatched box set: THE AVENGERS.
The first of series' 1 surviving episodes Girl On The Trapeze is actually pretty good, but episode 2 The Frighteners was unwatchable.
At this point I still had no idea who the "avengers" really were but perhaps they were properly introduced in one of the missing episodes.
The speech is very fast, further complicated by the bad sound quality. Adjusting the volume didn't help because loudly muffled still sounds muffled, and after 20 minutes I still had no idea what was going on, who was involved and why.
Never mind, let's try series 2.
That starts with Mission To Montreal which is an incredibly sluggish spy story about delivering some kind of secret film - to whom, why and what's on the film I have no idea. Nevertheless, the dramatic histrionics provided by the handsome Jon Rollason and Patricia English are very entertaining.
Episode Dead On Course starts with the surprisingly brutal killing of 30+ plane passengers but after that it's the same indecipherable conversations in boring sets and I started to zone out again.
I tried another Honor Blackman episode from series 3 but it didn't look as if things had improved. It seemed this was the second box set I had bought with too much optimism.
All right then, series 4, the Emma Peel years.
As soon as I heard Diana's voice even before she appeared on screen I started to smile, and the whole episode screams "revamp".
This is the "Batman for adults" I had expected to see: flashy and outlandish, and with just enough eeriness (courtesy of Brian Clemens) to make it suspenseful.
It remains to be seen if the series continues in this tone, but I'd be surprised if they would go back to the old-school Avengers.
