Escapade

This was the pilot for an American version of the British series The Avengers. As far as I know, it was broadcast only once, to fill up an hour when few people were likely to be watching. I've read that it was subtitled Avengers U.S. but don't remember seeing that on screen. If one missed Brian Clemens's name in the credits, one would never have guessed this was intended as a home-front version of his earlier show, since it omitted all the things that had made that one compelling: wit, fantasy, bizarreness, mystery, derring-do, masquerade, kinkiness, ordinary interest.... This one was just standard-grade, or a bit below, and so were the leads, utterly inadequate as the intended Yank counterparts of Diana Rigg and Patrick Macnee. Trying to be cool, Morgan Fairchild as "Susie" just came off as snide, and Granville van Dusen as "Joshua Rand" played his part squarely and heavily (one can gather from the characters' names the blandness of the approach). What ever did the producers think they had?