Wow! Heard about this show for decades!! I do not care how good or bad this series was. I'm interested in seeing Dame Diana post Avengers and James Bond. Just as beautiful in 1973!!! Aw, hell, she was beautiful right up to her passing!! The world truly lost an ICON in September 2020. " One of a kind"..... Thank-you for posting this!!
Diana herself has said that when she arrived in America to do the sitcom the studio sent a limo to meet her at the airport. Later on, when the show failed and was cancelled, they sent her back to the airport in a shabby old yellow cab!
Thanks for posting. I wish there were more episodes available to see again, even though it was, indeed, a poor attempt at a MTM clone--the producer's decision. Diana had wanted to do something more along the lines of a western if she was going to do a u.s. tv series! Imagine--long before Dr. Quinn. Always great to see Barbara Barrie in anything. This sitcom featured the very first gay regular character in a prime time series--Robert Moore, who also played Cloris Leachman's gay brother in an episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show and who directed the original Boys in the Band and the movie Murder By Death.
I'm going through a DVD of all the cartoons published in The New Yorker 1925-2006. Oct 8, 1973 there's a Charles Barsotti cartoon. Husband and wife on couch in front of TV. Husband saying: "You're right. I hate situation comedies. I never watch situation comedies, and I'm not watching this situation comedy. I'm watching Diana Rigg". I never knew she had her own show on US network TV at that time. That cartoon brought me here.
Yet . . . "The Tammy Grimes Show" (which only ran all of four episodes in 1966, on the same US network that aired "The Avengers" at the time) was considered even worse than this.
Exactly right. For one thing, it all seems very confused to me. There's so much going on, and yet it all seems somehow disconnected. There doesn't seem to be a real through-line. For me, there is a banality to the dialogue. The actors area all quite good, hitting their marks perfectly. However, I don't feel any real connection between the characters. They just seem to be talking AT one another. And honestly, while I think that Dianna Rigg is superb, I don't get any sense of who the character is, or why I should care ABOUT that character. (Ditto for the other characters, by the way). The characters don't exhibit any vulnerability. I think that the producers and director should have been aware of that. Also-I think that the actors, given a script with a lot of (well written) verbiage, but very little dramatic conflict or actual OBJECTIVES for their characters, were quite nervous. For those reasons, I think that the show had no flow. But again-I think that the actors were all superb.
In memory of Dame Diana Rigg, forever remembered as the gorgeous Emma Peel in The Avengers ( the British spy TV show, not the Marvel superheroes ) I forgot she had a TV sitcom from the 70s produced by Talent Associates, the company that produced Get Smart. We love her.
@@TralfazConstruction - Sorry, but even the beautiful and talented Ms. Rigg can't salvage this crap. How she let herself get involved in this show I will never know.
@@theolamp5312 I actually remember the show in the context of the era. Perhaps it wasn't the best vehicle for Diana Rigg but right now it's a poignant momento of the dear lady. I wish there were more episodes to enjoy.
@@TralfazConstruction - There are 51 episodes of The Avengers, they should give you enough to enjoy. Also, Theater Of Blood (just a great film), & In Her Majesty's Secret Service..
@@theolamp5312 I bought the Emma Peel episodes of The Avengers just about a year before Diana Rigg passed away. Upon hearing the news of her passing i did have a little retrospective of her work on that show. Thank you.
Thanks to the Hollywood Reporter’s obit that brought me here, to a show I didn’t know existed (and I was certainly watching plenty of TV back then). RIP, Ms. Rigg. Your talent and beauty -even in your old age - will remain forever timeless.
I once read an interview with her where she said that when she arrived to film the series, they sent a limo to pick her up from the airport. But when it became clear the show was a flop and the time came for her to return home, they sent a station wagon to take her to the airport. She laughed about it later, saying this was the network's way of telling her 'You've failed, and if you haven't got the message...'
Despite the disappointing show seen here, "hats off" to presenter St. Louis Flashback for this unedited, broadcast quality half hour. Looks and sounds great; DEFINITELY unedited. That's becoming rarer and rarer in the RU-vid universe. . . . . One observation on the half-hour's content: Had the producers spent as much money and time on equaling the appealing, lavish set design, art direction and wardrobe as they did on the lackluster, overall concept and writing, "Diana" would have at least survived the entire 1973 - 74 season, instead of being embarrassingly (ed. - for a program blessed with Diana Rigg's talent, appeal, charm and previous credits) yanked off the schedule mid-season.
Someone watched Mary Tyler Moore show and thought to themselves "lets copy that and get that sexy brit chick that use to wear leather in that weird British show". Job done.
Indeed. This magnificent actress blessed the stage with definitive portrayals of the great heroines of Euripides, Shakespeare, Racine, Moliere, Shaw, Ibsen, Strindberg and Albee, yet was forced to dumb down her immense gifts by appearing in crap like this just to make a living. It is as if Jascha Heifetz would have had to perform jingles on TV commercials just to survive. Horrible.
The two shows filmed on the same lot, CBS Studio Center. There might have been some silent glares from the Talent Associates/"Diana Rigg" people to the "Gunsmoke" crowd at the commissary during lunch.
Some years after her "Emma Peel" role on Britain's "THE AVENGERS",Diana Rigg starred in her first sitcom series for NBC in Fall 1973.the company who produced this rare series was Talent Associates,known for their TV hits like "GET SMART" (1965-70)'EAST SIDE,WEST SIDE" (1963) produced in association with United Artists,and "N.Y.P.D." (1967-69) and "HE & SHE" (1967) and an early CBS series called "PECK'S BAD GIRL" in 1959 with the "THE BAD SEED" star Patty McCormick. Talent Associates was formed by David Susskind,and their other list of TV shows also included "RUN,BUDDY,RUN!" (1966) "THE GOVERNOR AND JJ" (1970) and "THE GOOD GUYS" for CBS in Fall 1969
I saw one of her shows when it was filmed in Los Angles when I was in Navy. They tried ripping off the "The Mary Tyler Moore Show". It did't work. So sad.
Pity there's no more on here. I found it quite charming and well written. Diana Rigg herself could do/deserved better than sit-coms though. Still lighting up the screen in Game of Thrones :)
A great actress, Britain's hottest, wasted in an less than successful attempt to take on Mary Tyler Moore. But Diana Rigg is great in anything she's done from the Avengers to Games of Thrones. Rule Britannia!
I always was a big admirer of Diana Rigg and felt like she was a top notch actress. A true class act. Her talents were wasted on this show but this show had potential. With decent writers it might have been a hit.
Better than most sitcoms of the time. There were several lines that made me laugh out loud, and of course, it has the amazingly beautiful Diana Rigg. Interesting to see her doing this kind of show. Maybe not the best platform for her wonderful talents, but fun nonetheless.
I agree on this day of her death, September 10 2020. It was fun to see her doing something light hearted here and not too serious, although this show touched on some serious social issues of the time.
From what I read she stated that she did it for “practical financial reasons” basically she did it for the money. She was making $185 a week in National Theater in England, which she said was less than a US bus drivers salary. Doing this sitcom she was getting $7500 per episode for a what could be a 26 episode season. So it was a pretty comfortable non demanding acting job for her where she could bank serious cash
I wiped this from my memory, too. Now I recall watching a couple or three episodes and not liking it. Of course I liked Diana Rigg--In The Avengers. But this has the feel of something just thrown together. And it never got better.
Wow, I never thought I'd see this again. The miracle of RU-vid! I can attest to the fact that this show actually aired -- I remember seeing it during the original run, way back in 1973. I suspect I was one of the few who did. The show was so short-lived that it never was rerun. I didn't understand why the critics were so unimpressed. Of course, I was 11 at the time.
This show was a big flop despite her. She said when she arrived in America to make it they picked her up in a block-long limousine & when it was cancelled they dropped her off at the airport in the studio station-wagon!
It didn't have a chance. Scheduled Monday night after the new Dom Deluise sitcom-Lotsa Luck-it was a possible hit in search of either a better time slot or a different network
This show was pretty good. I think it was on NBC. First episode a riot. she was living in her brother's apartment he was giving his key to every guy he knew. Near the end she's in bed,there's a strange man in the bed next to her she looks at him she looks up at the camera then she goes back to sleep it was hysterical...
Thank you for posting this. Long time fan of Diana's. Wow, could this be more of a MTM rip-off? Diana deserved better, more original material than this. Pretty standard American sitcom of the early 1970s kinda stuff.
For sure. The allusion to the old Dick Van Dyke show by the maintenance man says it all. Unoriginal material from many sources. She retains her own clever style nonetheless.
YES ! OF COURSE SHE PULLED IT OFF , AND WITH FLYING COLORS , TO BOOT ! SHE IS A ' R E A L ' ACTRESS AND THERE AREN'T TOO MANY OF THOSE AROUND TODAY ANY MORE ! BASICALLY , SHE IS A ' CLASSIC ACTRESS AS IN ' SHAKESPEARE ' , BUT SO EXTREMELY VERSATILE , THAT SHE CAN PLAY JUST ABOUT ANY ROLE , AND PULL IT OFF COMPLETELY ! HER MAIN STAY IS HER EXTRAORDINARY ABILITY WITH HER FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AND GESTURES ALONE , LET HER AUDIENCE AWARE OF EXACTLY WHAT SHE'S FEELING AND THINKING , AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT , WITHOUT EVEN UTTERING A SINGLE WORD . NOW THAT'S A ' SUPERSTAR ' ! SHE WAS A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER THAN ' M.T.M ' COULD EVER BE , IN THIS SITCOM , THAT I DON'T EVER REMEMBER SEEING ON TV OR EVEN KNOWING ABOUT . I HAVE SEEN HER ON ' THE BROADWAY STAGE ' IN NEW YORK CITY BACK IN 1971 , IN A PLAY AT THE BROOKS ATKINSON THEATER IN ' ABELARD AND HELOISE ' . SHE WAS WONDERFUL , JUST AS SHE WAS IN THE ' AVENGERS ' OR JUST ABOUT EVERY THING ELSE SHE'S DONE .
Considering how many UK shows got remade into US shows over the years (like office space, skins, being human, etc.) the UK doing something similar to US shows isn't surprising.
When did Diana Rigg adopt her 'bang' hairstyle? The reason I ask is that my late-fiancée said that she preferred the look for herself. She was an upperclasswoman in high school when i was a lowly junior. I saw my future sweetheart one time at a T-intersection in the hallway at school. She passed about thirty feet away looking like Elizabeth Taylor's stylized version of Cleopatra (1963). It took thity-one years before we'd meet again after high school and she said (laughingly) that she wouldn't have given me a second look in '72.
Notice the writer(s) names are not shown on the opening credits. The producer (Whose name is fully displayed) must have thought they were not important enough to be included. P.S. Writers are everything. I hope they paid Diana well.
The show was up against Gunsmoke on CBS. By January 7, 1974, it ended on a cliffhanger, and the following week, it was replaced by Paramount's The Magician. Why?
For those curious and interested enough to take the time and effort to read the near 200 Comments/Replies, roughly 90% note/complain it's painfully obvious that Diana Rigg's charm and top-of-her-game talents were unforgivably completely compromised and wasted with SUB-PAR script, concept, direction, supporting cast -- regulars and guest stars. . . . . Resulting in low Nielsen Ratings, 1973. THAT is why NBC cancelled it. NBC's "Diana's" CONSISTENT timeslot predecessor THE PREVIOUS FIVE YEARS, "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In," held it's own against (commentators) "Duc Nguyen's" and "Lance2773's" cause-for-cancellation, CBS's "Gunsmoke" being invincible. While different as night-and-day, ""Laugh-In" and "Gunsmoke" had good writing, good concept, brilliant direction and editing, appealing performers -- all guaranteeing high-enough audience numbers to survive the "cancel-or-renew-dilemma" year after year. For five years, 1968 - 72. A commendable achievement. As we see in this posted episode "Diana" could have aired opposite legendary network flops "Run, Buddy, Run," "The Tammy Grimes Show" and "Me and the Chimp" -- and still come up short for a renewal. . . . . A final bit of trivia from a half century ago: Diana Rigg's successor on "The Avengers," Linda Thorson, and the spy adventure's consistent male lead, Patrick Macnee, went toe-to-toe against "Gunsmoke" in 1968 when ABC scheduled "The Avengers" opposite "Gunsmoke," Mondays 7:30 p.m (and NBC's stalwarts, "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" and "I Dream of Jeannie"). As in the U.K., this would be the last year (U.K. - "series;" USA - "season") for "The Avengers."
Diana Rigg wasn't at her best imitating Mary Tyler Moore. Even the music is similar. She was a great dramatic actress and her Mrs. Peel was out of this world. Also great in King of Thrones.
Tiina Rekkka, maailman ihanin nainen! Olen ollut sitä mieltä jo vuodesta 1970. Eli 44 v. I love you Diana! I always have, since -70, when I first saw You. 45 years have gone, but no one has not become even near. I love you Di!
Don't know if this is the pilot or a later episode, but it has many problems. But it did have Diana, who could raise the level of anything just a bit. Be at peace.
My absolute favourite film of Ms Rigg is called 'In This House of Brede' she plays a nun. I found it on here actually. Her daughter is the spitting image of her. She was my very first crush playing ' Emma Peel' is it any wonder I turned out gay.
Absolute torture seeing a magnificent actress like Miss Rigg being wasted on dreck like this. For an actress who gave us definitive portrayals of Racine's Phèdre, Euripides' Medea, Shakespeare's Regan and Albee's Martha to have her talents squandered on cold leftovers from the Mary Tyler Moore show is artistic vandalism of the worst sort.
@@claytonwalter8700 ----No-one is kidding here, Diana's acting ability is unquestioned by critics and the public. Although I thought the lighthearted show here was kinda fun.
Did you consider that she maybe liked it? - doing something else. - changing what people see, how people look at her. - - that she was versatile. - no small or bad parts or roles just bad or small actors and actresses.
