The Avengers

Shown in Great Britain for more than five years (debuting in 1961) before it caught on in America, `The Avengers' is a secret-agent thriller that almost bests James Bond. Jonathan Steed - an urbane, proper gentleman spy - teams with various assistants throughout the series' run, including Dr. David Keel, Cathy Gale, Emma Peel and Tara King, to repeatedly save the world from diabolical schemes plotted by equally diabolical evil-doers (among them robots and man-eating monsters). Peel, in her leather boots and miniskirts, is now considered one of the most liberated women on 1960s television.