Review of The New Avengers

I am old enough to have watched this when it was first shown. The original Avengers had great variation in quality of episodes and this is even more of an issue with the New Avengers. People will go on about how much they like the series but if you actually watch every episode half of them are not very good. Gareth Hunt is wooden as Gambit and Joanna Lumley is not much better as Purdey. Patrick Macnee is ok but seems older than he actually was when this was made. As for the plots/scripts there are few highlights. I was never a huge fan of this programme but rewatching it has not increased by appreciation. The second half of series 2 is awful,made in Canada with awful plots. Seems to me the making of the New Avengers was all about trying to regain past glories and past pay cheques but the series produced was poor. Of a similar vintage is The Professionals and while it is not perfect it was obviously mostly produced with more care than the New Avengers. There is too much fantasy and whimsy in the New Avengers. The same team made The Professionals more realistic.