Sara Kingdom is often discussed as Doctor Who doing The Avengers, listed as an influence in The Discontinuity Guide (Paul Cornell, Martin Day, Keith Topping, bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/daleksmasterplan/detail.shtml: 'The Avengers (Sara Kingdom)') and by Jean Marsh herself (Jean Marsh, drwhointerviews.wordpress.com/category/jean-marsh: 'he asked me to play this ‘Avengers’-style space pilot or something'), but, as wikipedia points out, this is specifically about Cathy Gale (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathy_Gale: 'The influence of Cathy Gale could be felt in [...] the Doctor Who character Sara Kingdom'), which is fair enough considering the first episode of 'The Daleks' Master Plan' went out 13 November 1965 (epguides.com/DoctorWho) and the first Emma Peel Avengers was only broadcast 28 September 1965 (http://theavengers.tv/forever/peel1-1.htm).
Come 1978 and Romana's sudden appearance in the Tardis, Doctor Who finally does Emma Peel.
This is, of course, a bit disingenuous.
Cathy and Emma do have their differences, and Gale wouldn't offer up quite so easy a set of images to selectively line up against Mary Tamm's Romana costumes, but a more illuminating thing to look at is the actual similarities between Cathy Gale and Sara Kingdom, which basically boil down to a one-piece item of clothing, wearing long leather boots and being handy in a fight.
Romana, on the other hand, comes, as a Time Lord, from a high-status background, one she shares with the male lead of the show, and turns up in the Tardis to help the Doctor on a job he's been given. Admittedly, she's not good in a fight (with the exception of the precision karate kick she executes in Doctor Who and the Destiny of the Daleks), but then neither's the Doctor, unlike Steed. This, for the first time, is a partnership.
In that light, Romana is the first female lead in Who to be broadly inspired by The Avengers. Even when Lalla Ward's costumes echo Tara King more than Emma Peel, there's a sense of playful dress-up where Sarah, Jo and even Liz wore clothes that felt more youthful and following in the fashion of the moment.
I could be completely wrong about all this. It is a very long way from being something I know anything about. Maybe it's just that this is the first regular pairing to be considered by the production team a marriage of equals , or even that simply the first time Who has had its characters so arch and distanced from the action around them. Maybe that's enough to make it feel like The Avengers.
It is odd, however, how well so many of the costumes do seem to line up with each other. And, in fact, how difficult it was to find any picture of Purdey, on screens in 1976 and 1977, that mirrors how Romana dresses.
Mind you, neither Peel nor King ever spends a story dressed up as Steed as far as I can remember, so maybe this is actually a whole step beyond.
Anyway, onto surer ground with a look at Doctor Who and the Destiny of the Daleks.
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