I’ve decided I’m going to try to watch every surviving episode of The Avengers this year, and while doing so I aim to blog each one.

I don’t really need an excuse to watch The Avengers (it’s my favourite TV show, and source of the name of this blog) but the occasion for this quest is the release of brand new audio productions of the missing episodes from season 1. As with many TV shows, recordings of many episodes of The Avengers were not kept – after all they often went out live – and 24 episodes are missing for which scripts survive for 15. Of these, 12 are being remade as audio plays by Big Finish Productions with Anthony Howell and Julian Wadham as Keel and Steed.

There are 137 (and a bit) surviving episodes so I need to average around 2.6 episodes per week. So I’m already about 1.6 episodes behind schedule. My reviews will need to be short, so if an episode isn’t worth more than 50 words, I won’t write more! And I’ll be watching in broadcast (rather than production) sequence. I consider there to be 6 seasons (unlike Cornell, Topping and Day who make a good case that there are 7, but it looks a bit weak in an age when Doctor Who seasons can have gaps of many months in them). I’m not aiming to get through The New Avengers this year, but I will if I get time!

The most exciting part for me will be seasons 1 & 2 which (along with a couple of season 6 stories) I’ve never watched. Never watched my favourite show all the way through? Well, no, as someone who used to savour Easter Eggs until Christmas, I never wanted it to run out, to have no more new episodes to watch. But I think, with the release of the audio adventures expanding the Avengerage available, now is the time.

The first four Lost Story audios have just been released, and I’ll post reviews along with the two (and a bit) surviving season 1 episodes – though I won’t try to fit them in sequence as the audio releases are out of order, and anyway the next four won’t arrive until June! The final four will be released in January, by which time I should have watched all the way up to Bizarre. Along with season 1 I might also watch the surviving episode of Police Surgeon, the Ian Hendry vehicle that lead to The Avengers being created for him.

Right, time to head back to 1961…