Seven years after The Avengers began its final run on UK television, plans were drawn up for a new series which would once again pit British agent John Steed against various criminal masterminds.

It goes without saying that by this point Patrick Macnee wasn't as young as he once was, so the series was set up from the beginning with the idea of Steed being assisted by two people: the glamorous ex-ballet dancer Purdey, played by Joanna Lumley, and ex-army man Mike Gambit, portrayed by Gareth Hunt. Like Tara King in the original series, both characters worked for the same organisation as Steed.

Behind the scenes the writing credits were similar to before with Brian Clemens and Albert Fennell as producers — Clemens was again the principal writer and scripted (or co-scripted) eighteen of the twenty-six episodes that were to be produced, with television veteran Dennis Spooner accounting for most of the remainder.

Unsurprisingly, a number of Steed's ex-assistants were mentioned in passing and Mrs Peel even appeared in the two-part K Is For Kill via some old footage. The robotic Cybernauts also re-appeared for a third and final time in Last of the Cybernauts...??.

The co-production deal which was put together required a number of episodes in Season Two to be filmed abroad, meaning that the two-part K Is For Kill was based in France while the rather unsatisfactory final four episodes were all filmed in Canada.

Unfortunately The New Avengers rarely came close to matching the heights achieved by its parent series, but it's still a highly enjoyable way to spend fifty minutes, and compares very favourably with other UK series of a similar age. All twenty-six episodes of the series have been released on DVD in the UK.