Tara King: The Worst Of All?
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A brief, confusing, pretentious essay on the rise and fall of The Avengers, split up into two parts, an interval and an epilogue.

Steed reaches divinity
Tara is expelled from Paradise!

by Carlos Pagés (in first person)

Part One (inevitable)
A little bit of personal history by way of introduction

My first contact with The Avengers took place at the end of the 60s, when Channel 13 of Buenos Aires, began airing for the first time in Argentina, the episodes of season four (Emma Peel, B&W).

Aside from the aesthetic implications that surround the different film formats, the fact that the episodes were in black and white was beside the point, since Argentine television remained monochrome until 1980. As a result, Argentineans wouldn't see any Avengers episode in color until 1989, when, after many years, a late-night program— Kenya Sharp Club—on Channel 7, began sporadically re-running a few episodes of season five.

Anyway, I was very young at the time of those first Channel 13 showings. I remember becoming fascinated by Emma Peel—as sensual then as she is now—and the absurd, surreal sense of the series. But I was still sexually immature, and my personal interests steered towards another direction.

Years later, some time during 1974, Channel 9 of Buenos Aires showed The Avengers season 6 (Tara King) on weeknights, at 11:30 p.m. My definite falling-in-love with the series began right there. Just arrived home from school, while I gulped down the supper my old ma had left in the oven, I had quite a ball savoring the episodes one by one. Of course my libido was in action by now, and Tara King's soft eyes (remember it was monochrome television) quickly became one of my main interests.

I never knew why, nor discussed the matter with my psychoanalyst, but maybe due to this first impression, the episodes of The Avengers season 6 always seemed good to me. Likewise, I'm sure that the initial impression Tara King made on me has meant that I've never felt the aversion most Avengers fans have towards her. Nowadays, as a grown-up person who's able to appreciate the series in its totality, my tastes lean towards the Peel shows—specially that wonderful, monochrome season four, the first I got to enjoy in my life. However, leaving apart my possibilities of evaluation of The Avengers as a whole, and taking into account that my sexuality works through different hormonal levels now, my affection and consideration for our poor Tara, has always remained the same.

I always thought sexuality plays an outstanding role in the formation of aesthetic criteria in every person, but that's another story. This essay intends to speculate about the hypocrisy and deceit around Tara King-Linda Thorson, and how this mythology plotted around her, concealed those truly responsible for the failures that led to the show's downfall.