Dinner and an episode...
Apr. 25th, 2005 11:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpDinner was scrumptious, and as there was nobody around to share it with (except the cat, which got a portion), I took the meal into the bedroom and played a prerecorded episode (via BBC America) of The Avengers.
Few people are aware that The Avengers had been meant from the beginning as some kind of collossal joke, a bunch of stories that were being played for laughs. Instead, the show became immensely popular, and while a number of the plots were a little on the "far out" side, still, people took it as fairly serious storytelling, and the show survived for something like eight or nine seasons (and three female sidekicks to dapper John Wickham Gascone Berresford Steed, played by Patrick Macnee). Probably the most popular of these skilled, sexy, and subordinate ladies was Emma Peel (played by Diana Rigg), who succeeded a character that had departed the series because in real life, the actress (Honor Blackman) quit the show - as I understand it - to pursue bigger and better things as a Bond girl named, er, Pussy Galore in Goldfinger.
I only vaguely remember watching the program (as I was a young tad at the time), and only did so on the rare occasion when its telecast and my being in my grandmother's care at her apartment occurred at the same time.
Anyway, one of the things I've noticed these days while watching old BBC favorites such as The Prisoner, Secret Agent, and The Saint - not that I watch a lot of episodes - is the amazing job they did in those days of pulling off the "magic of moving pictures" on a really short shoestring. For example, in watching a couple of episodes of The Saint, one right after the other, I was struck by the fact that street scenes supposedly in different countries were shot on the same set (with some rearrangement, of course). The same kinds of low-budget tricks were pulled on Secret Agent as well.
Anyway, after dinner and the rest of an episode titled Death's Door (unlikely plot involving dart guns, hypnotism, and premonitions), I went back downstairs and struggled to within 30 pages of the end of the editing job. I should be able to finish that off tomorrow in good time.
Cheers...
Few people are aware that The Avengers had been meant from the beginning as some kind of collossal joke, a bunch of stories that were being played for laughs. Instead, the show became immensely popular, and while a number of the plots were a little on the "far out" side, still, people took it as fairly serious storytelling, and the show survived for something like eight or nine seasons (and three female sidekicks to dapper John Wickham Gascone Berresford Steed, played by Patrick Macnee). Probably the most popular of these skilled, sexy, and subordinate ladies was Emma Peel (played by Diana Rigg), who succeeded a character that had departed the series because in real life, the actress (Honor Blackman) quit the show - as I understand it - to pursue bigger and better things as a Bond girl named, er, Pussy Galore in Goldfinger.
I only vaguely remember watching the program (as I was a young tad at the time), and only did so on the rare occasion when its telecast and my being in my grandmother's care at her apartment occurred at the same time.
Anyway, one of the things I've noticed these days while watching old BBC favorites such as The Prisoner, Secret Agent, and The Saint - not that I watch a lot of episodes - is the amazing job they did in those days of pulling off the "magic of moving pictures" on a really short shoestring. For example, in watching a couple of episodes of The Saint, one right after the other, I was struck by the fact that street scenes supposedly in different countries were shot on the same set (with some rearrangement, of course). The same kinds of low-budget tricks were pulled on Secret Agent as well.
Anyway, after dinner and the rest of an episode titled Death's Door (unlikely plot involving dart guns, hypnotism, and premonitions), I went back downstairs and struggled to within 30 pages of the end of the editing job. I should be able to finish that off tomorrow in good time.
Cheers...
