Few television series have transcended their original concept and evolved to actually help shape and define the era in which they flourished. But then of course, there’s precious few series quite like The Avengers.
Every weekend, long-suffering referee Mr. Armistead wades into the melee to try to teach two sets of testosterone-fuelled maniacs the value of restraint, justice and fair play.
Scandal taints the town of Barchester after the local church becomes the object of a scathing investigative report about the use of church funds.
An antiques dealer works in an informal capacity as an agent for British Diplomatic Intelligence.
Alfred Marks starring comedy vehicle produced by Yorkshire Television and set, as the title suggests, in the late 19th century when Queen Victoria and her consort Prince Albert were the figureheads on the British throne.
The instantly recognisable, deceptively benign visage of arguably the world's greatest director of cinematic suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, side-stepped deftly to the smaller screen of US television and welcomed viewers to a polished series of stories...
Running for two series in the early 1980s, Alfresco was the same quickfire combination of anarchic sketches and musical items that made Not the Nine O'Clock News, The Two Ronnies and Monty Python's Flying Circus so successful.
Animated children's series about a time traveller who inadvertently arrives in medieval England at the court of King Arthur
Relatively unknown until 2001, Jennifer Garner arrived on the TV scene with all the speed of a high velocity bullet in this explosive series
Unimpressed with Disney's 1951 animated version of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Jonathan Miller was keen to develop a new version which would bring to the fore undertones of the story that had been glossed over in the often 'traditional' presentation of this classic children's tale.
The earliest television version of Lewis Caroll's fantasy masterpiece was broadcast before most people in Britain had televisions...
British critics have called 'All In The Family' "a reworked, far less provocative version" of the show it was based on, BBC's 'Till Death Us Do Part'...
Amos N' Andy had the distinction of being one of the longest running (since 1929) and most popular US radio shows of all time before it came to TV screens in June of 1951. It also aired in the UK on the BBC between 1954 and 1957, making it the first US sitcom shown on British television.
Canadian husband and wife team Bernard Braden and Barbara Kelly in domestic bliss.
Almost a direct follow on from the BBC's hugely popular Not In Front Of The Children starring Wendy Craig who was in an almost constant state of domestic discord...
Based on Frederick Grice's 1969 novel, The Courage of Andy Robson, about a young boy who is uprooted from his life in the pit community of Easington, in 1910, when his father is killed in a mining accident.
Spinning-off from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel continued to follow the fortunes of a centuries-old vampire cursed with a conscience...
By the time the final story of the first series was broadcast, Armchair Thriller had built up quite a following, resulting in the first episode of 'The Limbo Connection', which starred James Bolam as a man in search of his missing wife, achieving an audience in excess of 17 million viewers.
"James Butler Hickok, mister" our hero would announce to all and sundry before his sidekick would elaborate, "That's Wild Bill Hickok, mister! The bravest, strongest, fightingest U.S. Marshal in the whole West!"
Conrad Phillips starred as the legendary hero from the Swiss settlement of Berglan in Uri, who became a folk hero very much in the Robin Hood mode.
Transmitted once a fortnight from 1952 in the Children's Television slot, The Appleyards is generally regarded as Britain's first television soap opera-even if it was made for kids.
Animated series of stories set round the ancient city of Baghdad which is under the rule of the evil Sultan Bakaar, who has usurped the throne from the rightful inheritance of the young Prince Turham
Hugely successful series from Granada TV that started in 1957 as a fortnightly live sitcom, which was moved to a weekly spot when it became so popular. The series followed the misfortunes of a mixed bag of army conscripts.
US sitcom about an Alien Life Form (ALF), who follows an amateur radio signal to Earth only to crash land on the roof of a garage owned by the Tanners, a middle class family living in the suburbs of Los Angeles...
Based quite loosely on the 1974 Oscar-winning film 'Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore', this situation comedy centered on Alice Hyatt, a widowed mother with a 12-year-old son who leave their New Jersey home to start a new life in Phoenix, Arizona
BBC hobby programme for children.
Ally McBeal was US television's mid-nineties love affair with the navel gazing, self-absorbed inner lives of 30 something professional baby-boomers given a slick, hallucinogenic make-over for the millennial MTV bred generation.
Robert Neilson (John Gordon-Sinclair) is an actor who dreams of being a star - alas, the best he has achieved so far is the face of Doberman Aftershave in a TV commercial...
Presented by the inimitable Johnny Morris, the man who not only spoke to the animals, but also for them, Animal Magic was a firm children's favourite on BBC television for no less than 21 years.
Anna Lee was a bold move by ITV in 1993 to show that not all detectives were male and in fact some were both young and female.