The Avengers '66, Set 1 [VHS]
Get your kicks withThe Avengers '66. This three-volume boxed set uncorks six sought-after episodes from this cult classic series' fourth season. Patrick Macnee, the umbrella-toting gentleman spy John Steed, and Diana Rigg, the ravishing Mrs. Emma Peel, investigate further extraordinary goings-on in the most ordinary of places, including a swank hotel ("Room Without a View" on volume 1) and a golf course and dance school ("The 13th Hole" and "The Quick-Quick-Slow Death," both on volume 3). Suitable for framing is "The Girl from Auntie" on volume 2, in which an art dealer, who supplies his clients "anything for a price" (including theMona Lisa!), kidnaps Emma for auction to enemy agents. Perhaps members ofMonty Python's Flying Circusgot the inspiration for their "Hell's Grannies" sketch from this episode's quaint assassin, an elderly "lady" who does in her victims (including four chaps named John, Paul, George, and... Fred) with knitting needles.For new fans, the episodes found inThe Avengers '65sets are of a better vintage, andThe Avengers '67offerings give more of a campy, effervescent kick.  But '66 was still a very good year, andAvengersaficionados will, of course, want to own every episode from the Mrs. Peel era. "What's so special about Mrs. Peel?" a woman asks in "Auntie." "You'd think she was Madame Curie and a half-dozen others all rolled into one." She is, to borrow a phrase, all that.Each episode is in black and white. Volumes 1, 2, and 3 are also available for purchase separately. A secondAvengers '66boxed set is also available.--Donald Liebenson