Of course it could be revived... Revived in a not-crappy way, well, that's more of a challenge.
One of the (many, many) reasons I love the original is the lack of soap opera. While that's simply part of television at the time-- there wasn't any romantic subplots in Dragnet-- modern TV is incapable of letting platonic relationships exist. Scully and Mulder had to eventually fall in love, same thing with Bones, Moonlighting, Fringe etc etc. These subplots are usually the beginning of the end for these shows. If The Avengers was revived, laying out a couple etched-in-stone rules at the beginning might keep it from being crap. "The leads flirt, but that's as far as it ever goes." Steed and Peel flirted like mad. But there wasn't any sense of boiling, tumultuous, repressed sexual urge. They were coworkers, partners, professionals. They trusted each other and respected each other, and that can be a much more interesting relationship to watch (and to write and develop) that the TV-standard "oh but when are they gonna 'do it?'"
The Steed & Peel combination was excellent, but I agree that the "Bond" codename idea isn't appropriate. A similar-but-different-approach? An older woman, a seasoned operative, working with a younger fella? And let's just skip the tired old "I don't think you can hack it but you may gradually earn my grudging respect" bit. John Steed knew Emma Peel could handle herself. She was a pro! The older agent respects the younger. Its not like they weren't vetted and trained. Look to the relationship between Inspector Lewis and his DS, Hathaway. Lewis may not get all of Hathaway's personal inclinations, but he knows he's good at his job, and lets him do it.
The Avengers were, in a more contemporary description, domestic anti-terrorist agents. They didn't fly to war zones, they defended Britain from internal threat. And a lot of those threats were goofy. The original series was exciting, thrilling, and fairly light at the same time. More serious than Batman, less gritty than 24. Here's hoping a reboot wouldn't involve unshaven pretty boys grimacing and threatening ambiguously ethnic thugs. Let them fight a spy network of sub sandwich delivery cyclists. Go up against a computer genius who's invented an app that makes smartphone users into cartoonishly extravagant 'Russians' (tall furry hats, thick accents.) I don't know, man, I'm just thinking about what would do justice to the original, and not devolve into just one more grumpy, muddy, dark antihero violent sex-fest. There is more than enough of that already.
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darryl-tahirali
11 years ago
One of the (many, many) reasons I love the original is the lack of soap opera. While that's simply part of television at the time-- there wasn't any romantic subplots in Dragnet-- modern TV is incapable of letting platonic relationships exist. Scully and Mulder had to eventually fall in love, same thing with Bones, Moonlighting, Fringe etc etc. These subplots are usually the beginning of the end for these shows. If The Avengers was revived, laying out a couple etched-in-stone rules at the beginning might keep it from being crap. "The leads flirt, but that's as far as it ever goes." Steed and Peel flirted like mad. But there wasn't any sense of boiling, tumultuous, repressed sexual urge. They were coworkers, partners, professionals. They trusted each other and respected each other, and that can be a much more interesting relationship to watch (and to write and develop) that the TV-standard "oh but when are they gonna 'do it?'" - infanttyrone-1
Excellent point about the platonic man-woman relationship not being possible in the hook-up obsession of our current era. That to me was the biggest sticking point with the
Doctor Who reboot in 2005--Doctor and companion overtly mooning over each other.
However, the Tara King era of
The Avengers saw the smudging of the line between platonic relationship/flirting and overt romance/sex, even if it didn't actually erase the line, as Tara did seem to moon over Steed, and he seemed a little smitten himself. Again, not enough to ruin the dynamic, but it looked to me more pronounced than the relationships Steed had with Cathy and Emma.
And I am afraid that a current version of
The Avengers would put sex in the mix. In its early years,
The X Files is a great example of refraining from this; the first movie had a moment--and only a moment--of weakness; but the second movie blasted past all that, even if that was only one of its many problems.
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"We hear very little, and we understand even less." - Refugee in Casablanca
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