Having watched the first six Avengers stories co-starring Mrs Peel, from 1965, (and she is a co-star, not a side-kick), I found that the other DVDs I'd picked up were the last seven stories she ever did, from 1967. Only two years, and even now it's the role Diana Rigg is most famous for! So I was cheerfully watching The £50,000 Breakfast, which involved diamond smuggling and borzoi dogs, when Steed goes off to a cigar smoking evening with the man who went on to be the master of the house in Upstairs, Downstairs, but here was a posh but dodgy doctor. As he sniffs the cigar appreciatively, a couple of guys with steel drums are playing in the background. This was something quite new in 1967 - I remember a steel drum band being featured on Blue Peter not long after that, as something quite exotic and exciting. So I was just mentally congratulating the production team for finding a way to get some black faces into the show when Steed cheerfully greeted the dodgy doctor with "Why the jungle music?"
Oh, dear. Steed, I thought better of you than that.
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