Television: 'The Man From UNCLE: The See-Paris-And-Die Affair' (1965) (Aired 1x22, Produced 1x24)

And we're back! There aren't that many episodes of UNCLE left, but we will continue to the end of the season as previously promised, having missed out 'The Bow-Wow Affair' and 'The Four-Steps Affair. This time, on 'The Man From UNCLE', Napoleon enlists/kidnaps a singer in order to convince her to use her old relationship with a rich bar owner who has stolen some diamonds (with his cousin) to their advantage. So, the innocent here is clear from the outset, and Napoleon is a bit of a creep throughout. He even drops Ilya into hot water at the end, presumably from some sense of glee and mild vengeance for a mistake earlier in the episode, and for having to spend a story in Paris.

Okay, so Napoleon is being a bit mean, and we have some of the guest stars of the time in the forms of Lloyd Bochner (universal deep-voiced sympathetic villain), Aldred Ryder (The Swiss army knife of antagonistic character actors) and Gerald Mohr ('Maverick'! 'Maverick'! And tonnes of radio!). We also have Kathryn Hays ('Star Trek: The Empath'), being abstractly beautiful and just about pulling off the singing, and having a lot of fun with some of the supporting characters later in the episode. This episode does have some fun with the supporting French characters in general, in a loving way. Oh, and there is also Kevin Hagen, who I always remember as a pink-clad invading alien in 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea'. Oh, and in another episode he died an Ahab inspired death. What a cast!

The story is quite slight, but they do a lot with it, and strongly invest in some helicopter action towards the end, where Ilya has to land the requisitioned chopper on top of the moving van that is carrying the valuable furniture, which really contains the jewels. They must have read 'The Twelve Chairs', the adaptation of which I watched for the first time yesterday. There is some nice, if rather ruthless, business where Ilya and Napoleon turn the criminal brothers who have taken the diamonds against each other, and a nice gag where THRUSH blow up Ilya's surveilance gear with a tuning fork. A definite streak of 'Mission Impossible' manipulation has made it into the show at this point, despite predating that other series.

All in all, a rather good episode of UNCLE, which doesn't quite break into the top echelons of the season. Still, Kevin Hagen does make a very good THRUSH agent. Very nice.

O.