Sunday, March 28, 2010

EMMA/KELLY: I SPY THE AVENGERS

In 1970, 'ITV Saturday Night Theatre' presented a play written by John Mortimer (the creator of 'Rumpole') entitled "Married Alive". Diana Rigg played a woman whose life is disrupted by the arrival of a man known only as "The Colonel". The Colonel inserts himself into her life claiming that he's her long-lost husband.

"Married Alive" was later shown on NBC. I'm hoping that a copy of the tele-play is available for viewing at the Paley Center for Media. If so, I'm going down this week to watch it. (Have to go anyway to renew my membership.)

I didn't bother looking for actual screen grabs from the production of "Married Alive", because that wouldn't have triggered my Tooby sense. On the other hand, this publicity photo did the trick: A picture from the actual production couldn't be used to inspire Toobworld fanfic, as it was already set in stone in the TV Universe as being of Liz Jardine and the Colonel. But a publicity picture is outside the realm of Earth Prime-Time, so it could be used to showcase two other characters played by Dame Diana Rigg and the late Robert Culp.

I think everybody knows where I'm going with this. I'm throwing this out there to anybody who writes 'I Spy' or 'The Avengers' fan fiction as being a picture of Mrs. Emma Peel and Kelly Robinson on some spy operation which we never saw depicted on our TV screens.

Hopefully, I haven't stoked the flames for slash-fic writers. An adventure involving the talented amateur and the intrepid tennis ace should be a classy one, very proper, but especially light-hearted. There should be nothing unseemly or squalid about the story - especially since Mrs. Peel knew in her heart that her husband Peter would one day return. (And eventually he did - after being lost in the Amazon jungle, Peter Peel was rescued and returned to England. He and Emma were reunited and she left the service of British intelligence.)

Had it been Tara King with Kelly Robinson, then all bets are off.

So have it, fanficcers! If you do write up a story teaming Emma Peel with Kelly Robinson, feel free to steal the picture. I did.

And make sure you let me know your work is out there so I can take a gander at it.... BCnU!

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