– Do I look like a burglar?
– No. You look rather ch— Don’t move, stay where you are, put your hands over your head and lean against the wall.
– Nor am I a contortionist.
This month, it’s a queasy mixture of the Swinging Sixties and the Punching-People-in-the-Face Seventies, as Steed, Purdey and Gambit try to discover who is encouraging so many sweaty government security personnel to discotheque themselves to death, and why. It’s The New Avengers in Angels of Death.
See the episode
No luck finding this one for free online, but the Region 2 version of the DVD box set is still available on Amazon. (Amazon US) (Amazon AU)
Then he’s blessed. I’m forever plucking stray hairs from my comb and brush. Positively demoralizing, but an inescapable part of the human condition. Hmm? Does any of this say anything to you Miss Holt? It does to me. It fairly shouts Remington Steele is an elaborate ruse. He does not exist. You invented him.
This week, we answer the eternal question, “Why the hell are we watching this?” with a resounding “Dunno”, as we plumb the depths of Reagan-Era film-noir-lite with the first episode of the TV show that gave the world Pierce Brosnan — Remington Steele.
We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on Apple Podcasts, we’ll give you five years of top-quality TV work, even though you struggle to do a posh English accent convincingly.
– Oh well, sir, in that case, some of the credit must go to Drake here. I mean the men in the field.
— Rubbish, the glamour boys always get all the credit. I hope you don’t mind my saying this, Drake.
– On the contrary Mr. Ambassador, it is the man behind the desk who does all the planning, all the real thinking. We just carry out orders.
This month, we’re off to Geneva to rescue the handsome Captain Munro from Spearhead from Space, who has been abducted and held captive in the Romanian Embassy by some people who are apparently doing the accent. It’s a jolly old heist, involving Patrick McGoohan, the lovely Jane Merrow, Mr Range from Frontios and, in the true spirit of the Kate O’Marathon, Kate O’Mara herself. For a few minutes.
We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on iTunes,
we’ll make you a lovely lunch — nothing fancy, just some smoked ham, sausage, cheese…
– You wouldn’t trust your mother, would you?
– Her least of all. She used to spy for the Egyptians.
This month, we resume last year’s abortive Kate O’Marathon with an episode of The Persuaders! from 1972, in which Tony Curtis and Roger Moore join forces to fail to recover a retired spy’s sensational memoirs, while Marla and Melania conceal a dark secret about their husband’s astonishing hairpiece.
See the episode
I couldn’t find The Persuaders! on streaming in Australia, but a beautifully remastered box set is available. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)
Of course, you can always just watch the episode on YouTube.
We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on Apple Podcasts, we’ll write such lovely things about you in our memoirs that you’ll be really disappointed when Roger Moore and Tony Curtis eat them.
Oh, I discovered then, nothing beats a good lashing. (Mind your head.) Take India. You can have a good ten inches overnight there. You know, one should never fear being wet.
This month, we commemorate the death of Sean Connery by revisiting the first nail in the coffin of his movie career, the 1998 film The Avengers, starring Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman as crude robot replicas of John Steed and Mrs Peel, who go up against the wet sporran of Connery’s single most villainous role, Sir August de Wynter — a man who selflessly tries to provide the population of Great Britain with something interesting to make small talk about.
See the episode
Despite all this, The Avengers is not a bad-looking film. You can almost certainly find it — or a completly different film of the same name — on one of your streaming services. And the DVD is sort of still available (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)
– I’ve come here to appeal to you, Mister Cartney.
– You certainly do that!
This month, we all don our flattest Regency trousers and head underground for an evening of wrestling, wassailing and wenching to support the admirable cause of bringing down the British Government. And Peter Wyngarde is here too, looking as devilishly handsome as ever. It’s Part 2 of our Diana Rigg marathon: the 1966 Avengers episode A Touch of Brimstone.
See the episode
Of course, Series 4 of The Avengers is also available in a lavish Blu-ray box set. Which is how we watched it. Again. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)
– You’re not feeling the part, Mrs Peel.
– I have a feeling I will be feeling it.
This month, we celebrate the life of the late Dame Diana Rigg, who left us earlier this month. And we do this by watching one of the most beloved — and one of the most disliked — episodes of The Avengers. It’s Epic, in which Mrs Peel is kidnapped by three washed-up actors playing two washed-up actors and a washed-up director, who are awful enough to believe that it’s fun to watch Mrs Peel being repeatedly threatened with certain death. And, turns out, it is.
See the episode
Of course, Series 5 of The Avengers is also available in a lavish Blu-ray box set. Which is how we watched it. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)
– You know the Chinese have a marvellous way of releasing tensions. Better than any tranquilliser.
– Hm.
– You just hold it, fondle it, stroke it. You’d be surprised how quickly the tensions drain away.
This month, our Kate O’Marathon continues with an episode from the final series of The Avengers, in which Steed gets repeatedly punched in the face, while some hot O’Mara-on-Tara action takes place in the next room.
See the episode
Delightfully, Series 6 of The Avengers is available in a lavish Blu-ray box set. Which is how we watched it. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)
– Well, it’s going to be a lovely day.
– Why not, it was a lousy night. Where were you? I left a message for you at midnight.
– Chasing a bag of peanuts.
This month, our Kate O’Marathon commences with a 1968 episode of The Champions, in which Miss O’Mara does some light shoplifting in the hope of scoring some deadly crack for the weekend, and the four of us team up to use our slightly racist superpowers to stop her.
We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on Apple Podcasts, we’ll use our psychic powers to help you escape from the hotel room they’ve got you locked up in so that you get the chance to score whatever stuff you need to get through the next agonising week.
– We shall be gone from here in a few hours. You back to your own country in triumph, me to the foothills of South America. They say there is gold there.
– It didn’t do Humphrey Bogart much good. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Most people think Walter Huston directed it. It was John.
This month, we head back to the gritty and hardbitten 1970s to check in on one of our favourite Bond girls, Joanna Lumley (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Bond Meets Black Emmanuelle), in the show that made her a household name, The New Avengers.
We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on iTunes, we’ll cook you an omelette with fines herbes so delicious that you’ll forget your lifelong obsession with gold and opt for a long, quiet and socially distanced life with your handsome French boyfriend.
