{"id":14908,"date":"2016-05-21T00:01:10","date_gmt":"2016-05-21T06:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/?p=14908"},"modified":"2016-05-23T07:26:48","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T13:26:48","slug":"audio-drama-review-avengers-comic-strip-adaptations-volume-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/audio-drama-review-avengers-comic-strip-adaptations-volume-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Audio Drama Review: The Avengers: Steed and Mrs. Peel The Comic Strip Adaptations, Volume 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 120px; height: 240px;\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;OneJS=1&amp;Operation=GetAdHtml&amp;MarketPlace=US&amp;source=ss&amp;ref=as_ss_li_til&amp;ad_type=product_link&amp;tracking_id=adamsblog03-20&amp;marketplace=amazon&amp;region=US&amp;placement=1781786933&amp;asins=1781786933&amp;linkId=1996135331e98998f59024e8c670944d&amp;show_border=true&amp;link_opens_in_new_window=true\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Big Finish has so far adapted 20 of the 26 episodes from the lost season of the ITV hit\u00a0<em>The Avengers<\/em>. Still, when people think of that classic British program, they think of the period with John Steed and Mrs. Peel that allowed the show to cross the pond to American Television.<\/p>\n<p>In 1966 and \u201867, at\u00a0the height of their popularity, several comic strip stories were written featuring\u00a0the duo of Steed and Peel.\u00a0Big Finish brings them to life in a new range with Julian Wadham playing Steed and Olivia Poulet offering her take on the iconic role of Mrs. Peel. Volume 1 of the Series offers four hour long stories.<\/p>\n<p>Both the new actors are superb. I was familiar with Wadham from the more strait-laced \u201cLost Episodes,\u201d but he does a good job playing the Steed of the Peel era with aplumb. Poulet offers\u00a0a lively take on Mrs. Peel. Both succeed in making the rolls their own.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a breakdown of the episodes included in Volume 1 of the Comic Strip adaptations:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Return to Castle De\u2019ath:<\/strong> A follow up on a T.V. episode, finds Steed and Peel returning to Castle De\u2019ath to protect an insufferably arrogant prince who is key to British oil interests. This snappy script is\u00a0littered with witty one-liners and the\u00a0plot has outrageous twists. Only a few moments don\u2019t quite translate to audio. But overall, a very good beginning for the series.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Miser<\/strong>: A dangerous saboteur calling himself the Misers rocks Great Britain. Mrs. Peel and Steed go to work to find him\u00a0before the nation\u2019s leaders are forced to hand all of Great Britain\u2019s wealth to him. Overall, this is fun, with a grain field that doubles as a minefield, impersonation, a wax works, and a notable villain, though the plot\u2019s too predictable on the wind up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Golden Dresses<\/strong>: Several prominent officials have disappeared after their wives purchased fabulous dresses from a posh boutique. The story is well-told but a bit predictable. The villainess goes a bit too over the top even for <em>the Avengers<\/em> in the final minutes. Still, it\u2019s a decent episode.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Norse Code<\/strong>: Steed and Peel search for a missing colleague in Norfolk and find themselves having to thwart a Viking plot to destroy Great Britain. Overall, it\u2019s a perfectly outlandish tale that\u2019s clever and would have fit in with the 1960s show. There are many humorous parts, particularly the opening with Mrs. Peel learning conversational ancient Norse. (\u201dExcuse me, my warship\u00a0is on fire.\u201d)<\/p>\n<p>Overall, this set offers a fresh spin on two classic characters. While the adaptation from a strictly visual medium leads to a few uncertain moments, these are a few and far between. Fans of witty dramas will love this set.<\/p>\n<p>Rating: 4 out of 5.<\/p>\n<p><em>This post contains affiliate links, which means that items purchased from these links may result in a commission being paid to the author of this post at no extra cost to the purchaser..<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>If<\/em> you<em> enjoyed this post, you can have new posts about Detective stories and the golden age of radio and television delivered\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B004U8SET2\/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=adamsblog03-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B004U8SET2\">automatically to your Kindle<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Big Finish has so far adapted 20 of the 26 episodes from the lost season of the ITV hit\u00a0The Avengers. Still, when people think of that classic British program, they think of the period with John Steed and Mrs. Peel that allowed the show to cross the pond to American Television. In 1966 and \u201867,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[132,123],"tags":[359],"class_list":["post-14908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-drama-review","category-golden-age-article","tag-good-review"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pECdK-3Ss","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14908"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14929,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14908\/revisions\/14929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}