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The Best Episodes of The Avengers Season 1

Every episode of The Avengers Season 1 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of The Avengers Season 1!

Binge this in 1h 41m•Peaking at 7.7/10

A quirky spy show of the adventures of eccentrically suave British Agent John Steed and his predominantly female partners. Jonathan Steed - an urbane, proper gentleman spy - teams with various assistants throughout the series'

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Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Fan Favorite
    The Avengers Season 1 Episode 1 - Hot Snow
    6.8/10(143 votes)

    #1 - Hot Snow

    S1:E1

    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.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 2 - Brought to Book
    7.3/10(39 votes)

    #2 - Brought to Book

    S1:E2

    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.

    Director:Peter Hammond
    Writer:Brian Clemens

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  3. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 3 - Square Root of Evil
    7.4/10(40 votes)

    #3 - Square Root of Evil

    S1:E3

    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.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Richard Harris

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  4. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 4 - Nightmare
    7.3/10(38 votes)

    #4 - Nightmare

    S1:E4

    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.

    Director:Peter Hammond
    Writer:Terence Feely

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  5. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 5 - Crescent Moon
    7.2/10(35 votes)

    #5 - Crescent Moon

    S1:E5

    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.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  6. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 6 - Girl on the Trapeze
    6.9/10(149 votes)

    #6 - Girl on the Trapeze

    S1:E6

    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.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Dennis Spooner

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  7. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 7 - Diamond Cut Diamond
    7.6/10(33 votes)

    #7 - Diamond Cut Diamond

    S1:E7

    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.

    Director:Peter Hammond
    Writer:Unknown

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  8. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 8 - The Radioactive Man
    7.4/10(36 votes)

    #8 - The Radioactive Man

    S1:E8

    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.

    Director:Robert Tronson
    Writer:Unknown

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  9. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 9 - Ashes of Roses
    7.7/10(33 votes)

    #9 - Ashes of Roses

    S1:E9

    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

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Peter Ling

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  10. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 10 - Hunt the Man Down
    7.4/10(32 votes)

    #10 - Hunt the Man Down

    S1:E10

    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.

    Director:Peter Hammond
    Writer:Richard Harris

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  11. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 11 - Please Don't Feed the Animals
    7.6/10(32 votes)

    #11 - Please Don't Feed the Animals

    S1:E11

    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.

    Director:Dennis Vance
    Writer:Dennis Spooner

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  12. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 12 - Dance with Death
    7.2/10(36 votes)

    #12 - Dance with Death

    S1:E12

    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.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Peter Ling

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  13. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 13 - One for the Mortuary
    7.1/10(39 votes)

    #13 - One for the Mortuary

    S1:E13

    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.

    Director:Peter Hammond
    Writer:Brian Clemens

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  14. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 14 - The Springers
    6.9/10(37 votes)

    #14 - The Springers

    S1:E14

    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.

    Director:Don Leaver
    Writer:Geoffrey Bellman

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  15. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 15 - The Frighteners
    6.9/10(147 votes)

    #15 - The Frighteners

    S1:E15

    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.

    Director:Peter Hammond
    Writer:Unknown

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  16. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 16 - The Yellow Needle
    7.1/10(36 votes)

    #16 - The Yellow Needle

    S1:E16

    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.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  17. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 17 - Death on the Slipway
    7.1/10(37 votes)

    #17 - Death on the Slipway

    S1:E17

    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.

    Director:Peter Hammond
    Writer:Unknown

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  18. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 18 - Double Danger
    7.0/10(39 votes)

    #18 - Double Danger

    S1:E18

    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.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  19. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 19 - Toy Trap
    7.4/10(38 votes)

    #19 - Toy Trap

    S1:E19

    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?

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Bill Strutton

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  20. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 20 - Tunnel of Fear
    7.7/10(86 votes)

    #20 - Tunnel of Fear

    S1:E20

    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.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  21. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 21 - The Far Distant Dead
    6.8/10(36 votes)

    #21 - The Far Distant Dead

    S1:E21

    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.

    Director:Peter Hammond
    Writer:John Lucarotti

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  22. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 22 - Kill the King
    7.3/10(38 votes)

    #22 - Kill the King

    S1:E22

    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.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  23. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 23 - Dead of Winter
    7.4/10(38 votes)

    #23 - Dead of Winter

    S1:E23

    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.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  24. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 24 - The Deadly Air
    7.5/10(36 votes)

    #24 - The Deadly Air

    S1:E24

    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.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  25. The Avengers Season 1 Episode 25 - A Change of Bait
    7.2/10(36 votes)

    #25 - A Change of Bait

    S1:E25

    An unusual and sprawling tale of heart disease, industrial unrest, and a consignment of rotten bananas.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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Season 1 Ratings Summary

"Hot Snow" is the best rated episode of "The Avengers" season 1. It scored 6.8/10 based on 143 votes. Directed by Unknown and written by Unknown, it aired on 1/7/1961. This episode is rated 0.5 points higher than the second-best, "Brought to Book".