The Avengers

I was of course very young when the Avengers first ended - not so young that I couldn't appreciate Steeds companions but still, pretty young. Anyway, I remember Ms Thorson got quite a lot of the blame for the decline of the series but watching it again (thanks ITV) this seems very unfair. She runs around in ridiculously mini minis and in her first full episode (1) gets her bum smacked by Steed and (2) makes a joke about wearing a gymslip for a professor – indignities that that would never have been inflicted on Mrs Peel. Basically she was not given a strong, womanly if sexy character in cat suits, more the kittenish ingénue which was cutely played but didn’t have the impact of her predecessors.