We return to UNCLE after missing 'The Secret Sceptre Affair' due to it being a bit dull. In the series's defence, it would be practically impossible to make twenty-nine episodes in a season and not have a few duller entries in the back half of the run. There are also some very good shows in that back half! Barbara Feldon will be appearing soon...
'The Mad Mad Tea Party Affair' has an interesting twist on the Involved Innocent conceit as well as a standard version, and is actually one of the cutest episodes of the season. 'Tea Party' begins with an ordinary looking man (Richard Haydn) launching a model plane in a park and watching it fly away, describing it as a 'sort of' suicide mission to some helping youths. The plane crashes into UNCLE headquarters, with the written message 'Boom! You're dead!' in the wreckage, and so the misadventures begin. Later on, there will be guppies. You have been warned.
Haydn's mischief maker is swiftly joined in the bystander stakes by a goofily deeply voiced Zohra Lampert as the woman he shoves through the secret UNCLE entrance at Del Floria's in order to occupy the agents' time while he probes their security at Mr Waverley's (who was trapped in a bathroom without his pipe, egads) request. The actual villainy of the episode is a plot by THRUSH (including the extremely beautiful Lee Meriwether briefly) to disrupt a vital diplomatic meeting at headquarters. How do the diplomats get in? Is there an official entrance somewhere? We never get the answers! An explosive conference table and a mole within UNCLE comprise the villainous scheme, but in an era of mass smoking, was it wise to make the detonators ash trays?
It's a great cast, Lampert's odd delivery not withstanding, and Waverley demonstrates his deep organising power yet again. Oh, and the cool factor is back again. We get all of this while almost never leaving the standing UNCLE sets, which makes this a very ambitious bottle episode. Bottle episodes are our friends, and always have been. There's something very powerful about winding up your actors, and letting them loose in a set with a well-written script.
We have a clear run to the end of the season now, people. Let's have fun with it!
O.
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