The Avengers: Season 1

1961 · 26 episodes · ★ 5.8

What Season 1 of The Avengers

"Girl on the Trapeze," "The Frighteners," "Tunnel of Fear" and the first act of "Hot Snow" are the episodes known to exist of the first series.

26episodes

Jan 7, 1961premiered

Dec 30, 1961final episode

1.7 hrtotal runtime

Season 1 Episodes

1x01 Hot Snow
Jan 7, 1961
Following the death of his fiancee Peggy at the hands of heroin smugglers, Dr David Keel vows to track down the killers and avenge his lost love. He is aided in his quest by a mysterious stranger, John Steed.
Directing: Don Leaver · Writing: Ray Rigby, Patrick Brawn · Starring: Alister Williamson, Murray Melvin, Katherine Woodville, Ingrid Hafner
1x02 Brought to Book
Jan 14, 1961
Steed has infiltrated a gang, led by Mason, which is implicated in Peggy's murder. Steed asks Keel to establish contact with a rival gang, and the doctor discovers that Vance's hitman, Spicer, has been sent to kill Steed.
Directed by: Peter Hammond · Written by: Brian Clemens · Starring: Alister Williamson, Godfrey Quigley, Ingrid Hafner, Mark Burns
1x03 Square Root of Evil
Jan 21, 1961
Steed impersonates Riordan, a forger soon to be released from prison, and gains the trust of gang-leader Hooper. Things seem to be going well until Hooper's second-in-command, known as the Cardinal, announces that Riordan's girlfriend is outside waiting to see him.
Directed by: Don Leaver · Written by: Richard Harris · Starring: Delphi Lawrence, Alex Scott, Michael Robbins, George Murcell
1x04 Nightmare
Jan 28, 1961
Keel receives a 'phone call from one of his patients, and ends up assuming the identity of her missing husband, a scientist engaged in secret research. Shot in the chest, Keel needs a minor operation - but the anaesthetist has tampered with the oxygen.
Directed by: Peter Hammond · Written by: Terence Feely
1x05 Crescent Moon
Feb 4, 1961
A young girl, Carmelite Mendoza, has been kidnapped from a Caribbean island, but Steed suspects a political motive. His suspicions are confirmed when Vasco, the Mendoza family retainer, is observed killing the original kidnapper and abducting the girl himself.
Directing: John Knight · Writing: Geoffrey Bellman · Starring: George Roderick, Roger Delgado, Harold Kasket
1x06 Girl on the Trapeze
Feb 11, 1961 · 50 min
Keel, reviving a young woman who has jumped into the Thames, is led to the Radeck State Circus, where the trapeze girl is guarded, her face covered by bandages because of an accident. The 'trapeze girl'proves to be the daughter of a defecting scientist, who will be used to force her father to return home. When Keel discovers this, he and Carol are captured by Zibbo the Clown, who will shoot Carol if the police investigation is not called off.
Directing: Don Leaver · Writing: Dennis Spooner · Starring: Edwin Richfield, Howard Goorney, Kenny Baker, Julian Holloway
1x07 Diamond Cut Diamond
Feb 18, 1961
Steed, attempting to break a gang of international diamond smugglers, is living in a bungalow near Heathrow Airport which was once owned by a suicide whom One-Ten suspects of involvement. Steed awakens one morning somewhat the worse for drink, when a phone call advises him to check the morning paper; the police are tracking a hit-and-run driver. Steed checks his car. It is damaged, and the front is covered with dried blood.
Directed by: Peter Hammond · Written by: Max Marquis · Starring: Douglas Muir, Sandra Dorne, Joy Webster
1x08 The Radioactive Man
Feb 25, 1961
Dr Keel is asked to help in the search for a man who has picked up a radioactive isotope, not knowing that it will quickly kill him and harm anyone else he comes into contact with. But Marko, fearing that the police want to find him because of his forged passport, has already gone into hiding.
Directing: Robert Tronson · Writing: Patrick Brawn · Starring: George Pravda, Marie Devereux
1x09 Ashes of Roses
Mar 4, 1961
Steed, investigating a number of probable arson cases, is led to the hairdressing salon of Olive and Jacques Beronne. He asks Keel to let Carol investigate the salon, but after she enters, there is an explosion from within
Directed by: Don Leaver · Written by: Peter Ling · Starring: Ingrid Hafner, Mark Eden, Gordon Rollings
1x10 Hunt the Man Down
Mar 18, 1961
Frank Preston is released from prison and is intent on reclaiming the hidden proceeds of his robbery. So is Steed, who has been ordered to follow the man. So are a couple of thugs, who kidnap Carol. So is Preston's scheming wife, eager to get her hands on the one hundred thousand pounds hidden somewhere in the sewers.
Directed by: Peter Hammond · Written by: Richard Harris
1x11 Please Don't Feed the Animals
Apr 1, 1961
Steed trails a blackmailed civil servant to Brinkley House, a private zoo, only to observe the man throwing a package of money into the reptile pit. The package soon vanishes. The man is then ordered to steal a top secret file.
Directing: Dennis Vance · Writing: Dennis Spooner
1x12 Dance with Death
Apr 15, 1961
Dr. Keel resuscitates Elaine Bateman, the owner of a ballroom dancing school who has narrowly survived a murder attempt by gassing. When he returns to the school after dropping his scarf, he is arrested. His scarf has been used to strangle the woman.
Directed by: Don Leaver · Written by: Peter Ling · Starring: Diana King, Angela Douglas, Ewan Roberts
1x13 One for the Mortuary
Apr 29, 1961
When Keel attends a health conference in Geneva he is unaware that he is carrying, in microdot form, a vital new medical formula - unaware, that is, until he is arrested for murder.
Directed by: Peter Hammond · Written by: Brian Clemens · Starring: Toke Townley
1x14 The Springers
May 13, 1961
Steed is trying to track down the organisers of a group who offer to spring any convict - even the dangerous ones - from prison if they're paid the right money. Keel impersonates a prisoner, and the trail seems to lead to a girl's finishing school.
Directed by: Don Leaver · Written by: Geoffrey Bellman, John Whitney · Starring: Arthur Howard, Brian Murphy, Charles Farrell, Margo Andrew
1x15 The Frighteners
May 27, 1961 · 51 min
To stop his daughter seeing suspected conman Jeremy de Willoughby, Sir Thomas Waller has hired arch-criminal the Deacon to 'put the frighteners on'. Steed is on the trail of the Deacon and, with the aid of Dr. Keel, stops two thugs from seriously wounding de Willoughby. They set a trap for the Deacon and the lovers.
Directed by: Peter Hammond · Written by: Berkely Mather · Starring: Stratford Johns, Philip Gilbert, Doris Hare, David Andrews
1x16 The Yellow Needle
Jun 10, 1961
After an unsuccessful murder attempt against Sir Wilberforce Lungi, Steed asks Keel, an old friend of the pro-Western African leader, to investigate Lungi's secretary, Jacquetta Brown. Meanwhile, Steed flies to Africa to meet Lungi's tribalist rival, Shebro.
Directed by: Don Leaver · Written by: Reed De Rouen, Patrick Campbell · Starring: Margaret Whiting, Wolfe Morris
1x17 Death on the Slipway
Jun 24, 1961
An agent has been killed at the secret dockyard where submarines are built. Steed investigates, and finds that a foreign spy has been arranging 'accidents' for him.
Directed by: Peter Hammond · Written by: James Mitchell · Starring: Frank Thornton, Tom Adams, Gary Watson, Nyree Dawn Porter
1x18 Double Danger
Jul 8, 1961
Keel, called to deal with a man seriously injured by an accident, quickly discovers that the man is suffering from gunshot wounds, and that he may be implicated in a recent diamond robbery.
Directing: Roger Jenkins · Writing: John Lucarotti, Gerald Verner
1x19 Toy Trap
Jul 22, 1961
Keel is asked by the improbably named Bunty to help her find her missing friend. What is the connection between the department store where the women work and a call-girl racket?
Directed by: Don Leaver · Written by: Bill Strutton
1x20 Tunnel of Fear
Aug 5, 1961
Top-secret information is finding its way into the wrong hands, and the source seems to be a south coast fairground. Steed succeeds in getting hypnotised and winds up in the ghost-train tunnel. With frightening results, of course.
Directed by: Guy Verney · Written by: John Kruse · Starring: Anthony Bate, Nicky Henson, Julian Holloway, Morris Perry
1x21 The Far Distant Dead
Aug 19, 1961
Dr Keel, treating the victims of a cyclone struck Mexican village, uncovers a number of food-poisonings; emergency cooking oil is, in fact, hydraulic fluid.
Directed by: Peter Hammond · Written by: John Lucarotti · Starring: Tom Adams, Francis de Wolff, Michael Mellinger
1x22 Kill the King
Sep 2, 1961
A visit to London to sign an oil treaty from a monarch whose life is under threat brings Steed and Keel into the world of dissidents and assassinations.
Directing: Roger Jenkins · Writing: James Mitchell · Starring: Moira Redmond, Patrick Allen
1x23 Dead of Winter
Dec 9, 1961
The discovery of the body of Schneider, a wanted Nazi war criminal, deep-frozen in a consignment of meat at London docks brings Steed and Keel into the shadowy world of Phoenix, a new and terrifying Fascist party in Britain.
Directed by: Don Leaver · Written by: Eric Paice · Starring: Norman Chappell, David Hart
1x24 The Deadly Air
Dec 16, 1961
An experimental vaccine is stolen, and the subsequent test proves deadly. Steed and Keel, suspecting that the human 'guinea pig' did not die directly from the vaccine, volunteer to be the next subjects.
Directing: John Knight · Writing: Lester Powell · Starring: John Stratton, Allan Cuthbertson, Geoffrey Bayldon
1x25 A Change of Bait
Dec 23, 1961
An unusual and sprawling tale of heart disease, industrial unrest, and a consignment of rotten bananas.
Directing: Don Leaver · Writing: Lewis Davidson · Starring: Gillian McCutcheon, John Bailey
1x26 Dragonsfield Season Finale
Dec 30, 1961
How has a research centre developing radiation-proof material managed to irradiate one of its scientists? Once more, Steed submits himself to scientific testing.
Directing: Peter Hammond · Writing: Terence Feely · Starring: Michael Robbins, Ronald Leigh-Hunt, Keith Barron, Alfred Burke