To understand why The Avengers movie so totally misses the mark, you have to understand why the original Patrick Macnee/Diana Rigg British TV series worked so well. This requires a bit of historical perspective. Britain in the early/mid-1960s was a culture in which long-accepted norms were threatened by powerful social forces. The youth movement was forever redefining attitudes toward authority and government, Britain was birthing a type of music that would soon sweep the world, and, particularly important to The Avengers, the women's rights movement saw many a woman demand more from her future than a lifetime of housewifedom.