Revival Meeting – 1967
Associated British Studios, London, UK 1967
"Dear God, how did everything get this screwed up?" Bill Shaych glowered at the hapless figure sitting in front of him.
"Well, the network wanted things a bit more realistic and they wanted it to be more Americanized to appeal to the U.S. audience so......"
"The network wanted? Don't you realize its your job to tell the network to go pound sand? Let me tell you something, if Americans want to watch cheap detective shows, weve got plenty of our own to keep us happy. What sold this one was its essential Englishness and the fact it was one step removed from reality."
"But the funding......"
"Is not your problem, making a first-class product is. You are a producer, your job is to produce but you don't seem capable of doing that. You've managed to lose one of the two stars who made the whole thing work, you've appointed a replacement who is hopelessly unqualified to take her place and don't think I don't know why. You can't hack it, Mister Bryce, you're gone. The way out is behind you. Don't let the door hit you in the ass when you leave."
For a brief moment, Bill Shaych wished he had brought Naamah over with him instead of Igrat and Nell. The just-fired producer would have been a worthy recipient of one of Naamahs more interesting cups of tea. Ah well, that meeting had been the easy one. It was the next one that would be hard to pull off. He reached over and thumbed the button on the office intercom. "Are my next guests there yet Nell?"
"They've just arrived ducks. Send them in?"
"Right away please." Shaych kicked the hard wooden chair that the ex-producer had been sitting on into a corner and pushed three comfortable leather chairs into its place. He'd just finished when there was a tap on the closed door. He opened it and ushered the two women and a man in. He carefully seated both women before going to his own side of the desk.
"Thank all of you for coming in today, especially you Miss Rigg. I am aware that you have formally left the series so I am very grateful that you have accepted our invitation. Let me explain what has happened. I represent an American production company, one based in New York, that has purchased this studio and, especially, the television series you have all been working on. Frankly, we have been appalled at the insane way the production of your show has been run for the last two seasons and we want to put the whole operation back on a properly-constituted footing. Financially, personally and managerially. For that reason I can tell you now we are committed, contractually committed, to producing three additional seasons of The Avengers, each of 26 episodes."
Shaych looked across his desk, Patrick Macnee was nodding slightly, Linda Thorson seemed nervous, glancing surreptitiously at the other woman. Diana Riggs face was impassive. His guess was right, this was going to be the hard part.
"To pull this off, we're going to need to put our best foot forward. I don't think its any secret that you, Patrick, and you, Diana, are the backbone of the show and the reason for its success. That is why we are having this meeting today. I know you have formally left the show Diana, I hope to persuade you to change your mind."
"I am sorry, I already have made another commitment." The voice was cool, level, uninflected.
"That film, we know. However, we can work around that. With the revised production schedules, we will be able to cover for you while you are away shooting it, and the revised format of the show will also allow for other work of the same nature should it arise. May I explain what we have in mind, then we can see if there are ways we can make this happen?"
Macnee and Thorson nodded again. Rigg also, more reluctantly, but still a positive response. Shaych breathed a sigh of relief, at least she was prepared to listen.
"This is what we intend, provided you elect to return to the series after your film. Linda, I will be honest with you, your appointment to the cast of this show was a bad mistake. You lack the experience and the practical expertise to carry the part you have been assigned. The person who gave you the role did you no favors, it is unlikely your performance will be satisfactory and that will harm, if not destroy, your future career. However, in New York we have a saying, when handed lemons, make lemonade. So, we are going to make some lemonade here.
"Firstly I must advice all of you that the previous producer, John Bryce, was fired just a few minutes ago. His appointment also was a mistake and it has been rectified, a decision that was made before we took over. I just had the pleasure of telling him. The previous producers have been recalled to take over the show again. I will be having a come-to-Jesus meeting with both of them very shortly. There are quite a few practices on this show that they need to understand will not be tolerated any longer. One of the issues we will be discussing will be their treatment of the cast of this show. For the record, I regard actors and actresses as being professionals and believe that they should be treated with the respect due to professionals. I am quite insistent on that point." Macnees mouth twitched slightly, despite his English-gentlemen persona he was an American citizen and knew what a New Yorker meant by that phrase. "I expect a substantial improvement in your working conditions and practices as a result."
"We will be making a number of changes to the format of the show. We intend to revert to the approach used in the first Honor Blackman series where there was a larger number of primary players, making it an ensemble production, with a certain degree of rotation between them. Thus, while the majority of the episodes will center around Diana and Patrick, others will feature Linda and Patrick, some Linda and Diana while a few will feature all three of you. There are many reasons for that change but a primary one is to reduce the workload on each of you individually.
"We also propose to introduce multi-episode story arcs. I don't mean stories that are split over two or more episodes, but establishing a degree of continuity between individual episodes to allow for plot and character development. This change will be implemented immediately. We will be taking your last episode, Diana, and building from there. That episode is very good and your performance in it is little short of inspired. It's too good to lose. So what we plan to do is this, we will take Linda's character and retool it slightly, stressing that she is new to the security business, fresh out of training school and utterly inexperienced. This, Linda, is what I meant by turning lemons into lemonade. We are using your inexperience and exploiting it, you'll be playing a character that builds on your assets and ability and does not demand roles that you are not yet capable of performing. The audience will see your character slowly gaining confidence and capability because you will be gaining confidence and experience as you are mentored by highly-skilled colleagues. This will be good for you and good for your career.
"There will be a period of twelve episodes while Diana is away making her film. These will be all yours Linda with Patrick's character acting as your mentor and instructor. We will play up your inexperience in those episodes to establish the relationship between those two characters. While each episode will continue to be self-contained, there will be an on-going story arc that something bad is happening in the City stock markets. As an aside, we are dropping the character of Mother, instead Patrick Newell will be playing a senior banking figure who is concerned at these developments and is asking Patricks character to investigate.
"This is how we write you back in Diana. As Patrick's character starts to look at the reports, he realizes something very big and very unpleasant is going down. Even worse, from his point of view, it appears as if Diana's character is at the center of it. Has she gone bad, so to speak?
"Diana, you reappear in a two-part story in which Patrick and Linda's characters start to take the developing situation in the City apart. We intend to tidy up a few lose ends here, we are proposing that after Emma Knight saved her fathers company, it was merged with a much larger group in the same general line of business. Your character still holds a large block of stock in the merged company and the sale made you very wealthy indeed. It turns out that Peter Peel is a malevolent mastermind."
"Diabolical mastermind." Diana Riggs voice had an intonation of carefully-suppressed amusement and interest. Shaych mentally cheered, she was getting involved.
"Thank you, my mistake. A diabolical mastermind. One who intends to use his wifes wealth and stock holding to wreck the British electronics industry. Thats why he married Emma Knight, and his plan all along was to eliminate her, take over her holdings and execute the plan to demolish said industry. It was delayed by his accidental crash but is now back in play. Patrick and Linda investigate, realize what is happening, foil the plot and save Emma from being killed by her husband."
"The rest of the season will be clearing up the wreckage. The relationships of the characters will have changed. Emma is hurt that John thought she had gone bad despite all they'd been through together and humiliated that, despite her knowledge and expertise, she was thoroughly fooled. John is resentful at the fact she left him to go back to Peter Peel and is also slightly suspicious that a woman of her abilities was so easily fooled. Tara is very jealous and resentful of Emmas reappearance. However, the warmth and closeness of the Emma-John relationship eventually triumphs and by the end of the season, everything is back to normal. Happy ending to the season.
"Another thing, were getting rid of some of the scriptwriters and bringing in new ones. With much better rates of pay, we can get better scripts than weve had before. This is one of the new scripts weve commissioned, its for an episode after the two-parter I've just described." Shaych reached into his briefcase and handed out three files.
Diana Rigg started reading, then her eyes opened wide in shock. "This is good, put this into period language, we could play this at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Who wrote this?"
"Actually, I did." Shaych confessed.
"You're not descended from Shakespeare are you? The way the characters are developed, the interaction, its very Shakespearean."
"No, I'm not descended from him. Anyway, thats what we want to happen. Now, how to make it happen. Diana, I understand your primary causes of discontent were poor pay, a lack of professional respect and the over-long, working hours combined with the demands of the network for promotion activity etc." He looked across his desk at Rigg who was nodding. "Did I miss anything?" She shook her head.
"Pay, thats easy to deal with. As I started by saying, we regard you and Patrick as the centerpiece of the show. This is the outline terms we propose." He handed over two sheets of paper with contract terms written on them. Both actors eyebrows rose. "Your contracts are, of course, private so this is a request but would you two mind showing each other the terms we are offering?"
Macnee and Rigg nodded and exchanged papers. It was obvious the two sets of contractual terms were identical. Shaych grinned. "That's only a part of it of course, well be merchandising the series with much greater effort. For example, there'll be a John Steed range of men's clothing, especially suits, for American stores and an equivalent Emma Peel range for women's fashions. You'll get generous commissions. Linda, your contract will be pretty much unchanged although, like everybody else who's a team regular, youll be paid by the week, not by the episode. That deals with the money side of things.
"Now, professional respect. This is something I feel very strongly about, I've been in the theater business a long time and it's an area I've always wanted to address. I said before, you are skilled professionals and I will have you treated as such. Without you, none of the rest of us would be in business. If any of you are treated with a lack of respect, I wish to know about it and I will make sure the person responsible rues the day they were born. On a less fundamental level, we will be shooting two opening sequences, one of which has Patrick getting top billing, the other giving that position to Diana. We will alternate them. Also, a part of giving you professional respect is career development. If you have other roles in films or plays, we will work around them so you can combine your schedule for us with such commitments. You are professionals so we know you won't abuse that. In the off-season when we're not shooting, we'll work with your agents to introduce you to potential roles. Our philosophy is that the greater your exposure, the better it is for us in publicizing our show. Also, Patrick, before you joined the show, you were moving into direction and production. If you wish, you can direct and/or produce a couple of episodes in the first season. Make a go of it, you can do more. Same for you Diana, you want to try your hand, we'll provide that opportunity including helping out.
"Finally working hours. We're in a hard business, there's no doubt about that but there's no need to make it harder than it needs to be. By using the ensemble caste idea we can reduce the workload on each of you individually. Also, frankly, the working practices this side of the pond are archaic. We can cut down the time you are all on set by at least a third, simply by organizing shoots better. That's where I come in. So, your work time will be reduced there as well. Finally, any promotional and attendance activities will be fitted in between work and proper rest for you and will be compensated in addition to your standard salaries.
"Any questions?"
"One, if you don't mind." Patrick Macnee was speaking but Shaych got the strange feeling he was doing so in his John Steed persona. "You said you represented a production company. Who owns it?"
"Philip Stuyvesant."
Macnee did a double-take. "The Seer? The National Security Advisor? Why?"
"His family made their money in aviation, shipbuilding and electronics." Not to mention piracy, banditry, looting and stock fraud thought Shaych, briefly wondering if the Statue of Limitations covered the South Sea Bubble. He's a businessman to his fingertips, but he can't invest in those any more due to conflict of interest. The theater and show business is about all he can invest in now. Anyway, he loves the show.
Macnee nodded again. "I suppose we wont have problems getting access to modern American equipment then."
"I dont think so. So, are you all in?"
Macnee and Thorson nodded. Diana Rigg looked thoughtful. "Diana, its the best deal any actor was ever offered. This will pay the rent and won't get in the way of the rest of our careers. Chose our parts right and we wont even get typecast. It doesn't get much better than this."
Rigg flipped through the script she had been given, enjoying the way Shaych had written the dialog and text. "You convinced me. I'm in."
"That's great. Ask Igrat outside, she's the one with black hair, for your contracts and get your lawyers to read them. Once we've all signed up, we'll have dinner together."
"In New York?" Riggs voice was droll.
"Why not, we can use a Superstream to get across the Atlantic. When I said we had access to modern American equipment, I didn't just mean cameras."
Thirty minutes later, Shaych was relaxing behind his desk, glorying in a feel of a job well done. There was a knock on the door, Nell entering, followed by Igrat. The two women settled down in the leather seats.
"So it all went off well then ducks?" Nobody would have guessed it from the outside, but Nell Gwynne was in charge of this operation.
"Very well, we convinced her to come back. By the way, doesn't she remind you a bit of Naamah?"
"Looks a lot like her I think. Very different character. Anyway, the boss will be pleased. It looks like were running on this."
"To which, ladies, I must ask the obvious question. What's The Seer up to? Don't tell me we're throwing this much money at a problem just because he likes a television show."
"Honest answer is, I dont know. He's up to something."
"Isn't he always?" Igrat's voice was an interesting mix of cynicism and amusement. She was taking a few years off her regular courier duties to take part in this operation.
"Of course. What this is I don't know. I do know he's fascinated with the way television can be used to mold peoples opinions and outlook so I guess he's playing with that. Lillith, Naamah and Nefertiti probably know what he's up to but its all played very tight to the chest." Nell relaxed for a second. "By the way ducks, neither Loki's Orchestra nor The Piccadilly Circus know anything about this. When they find out, it'll be as a simple commercial investment. Which it might be of course."
"Right." Igrat sounded disbelieving.
"Ah well, I suppose we'll find out in due course. Let's go get some lunch. We'll tell the Seer the good news this afternoon."