Let's talk about Napoleon Solo, the suavest spy of them all. Let's talk about the first season of 'The Man From UNCLE', the best season, the monochrome year, the one overseen by the series creator Sam Rolfe before he wandered off and it all went a bit wonky.
'The Man From UNCLE' (UNCLE) was a revolutionary series, which built on a lot of the strengths of 'Maverick' and to a lesser extent the 'James Bond' movies. In fact, Ian Fleming helped set up the series in its earliest formative stages. There's a lot of early Bond in there. However, UNCLE really deviated from Bond in the introduction of an innocent character in each story, whose life intersects with the story of the episode in an unpredictable way, and in eventually having multiple lead characters. However, let's not get ahead of ourselves too much.
Dramas on television were for a long time exceptionally serious. The word 'grim' comes to mind. There was very little between dramas and situational comedies. You either had stone-faced dramatic hams gnawing away on tragedies (see 'The Fugitive', or other Quinn Martin or Irwin Allen productions, for example, or even 'Mission: Impossible') or clowns merrily plotting away ('The Phil Silvers Show' being a brilliantly funny example). 'Maverick' really bridged that gap by being able to do both, sometimes even at the same time. UNCLE plotted a far more precarious path, but in its best season it was definitely a show bent on mixing spy stories with the real world, and on not taking itself too seriously. Later, it would be a parody, but at this time it was well balanced. It also has the first appearance of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy in the same episode of anything in 'The Project Strigas Affair', even if they never exchange a word.
The titular man from UNCLE was Napoleon Solo, played by the extremely cool Robert Vaughn. He dominated the early episodes, twinkling as he navigated his way through the thriller and spy stories that dominated, and safeguarding the civilians caught up in the mayhem. Later in the season, David McCallum ascended to full lead character status as Solo's dispassionate Russian partner Ilya Kuryakin. In fact, Kuryakin was known as the Blonde Beatle for a time, so popular was he as a character, and can now be seen clearly as a Spock prototype. Ilya added something special to the show, but he also weakened Robert Vaughn's Napoleon Solo. It was a precarious balance.
The writing was smart and the acting and direction was excellent (Richard Donner, hurrah!). Yes, subsequent seasons wobbled over the place, but here it worked. The list of guest stars is stellar, with my own favourite being Barbara Feldon having a first spy story here, before appearing as Agent 99 on 'Get Smart'. In some ways, 'Get Smart' is a parody sequel to this series. 'The Man From UNCLE' was definitely a product of its times, but it was a wonderful show. It was probably a purer experience earlier on, when Napoleon Solo was king of the castle, being directed around by Leo G Carroll's Mr Waverley, but it didn't fail for a whole extended season*, and it did it with an inward grin.
O.
* Maybe 'The Shark Affair' breaks this. Maybe.
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