U.N.C.L.E. a day is my obsessive-compulsive approach at working through The Complete Man for U.N.C.L.E., now available on DVD. One episode, one review a day (usually – occasional hiatuses may occur due to travel).
Mmmm, Marta Kristen…
Oh, sorry about that, I was just watching “The Neptune Affair” (she guest-stars in this episode) and was remembering how Marta Kristen as Judy Robinson on Lost In Space helped jump-start my puberty… ah, those salad days of youth…
Kristen is Felicia, the “Innocent-of-the-week” in a plot that involves poison fungus launched by missiles that destroys Russian wheat crops (which the Russians think that the Americans are launching).
Some really nice moments in this episode – Solo’s colloquial accent when he’s undercover (“real alfalfa type”), Solo’s unfortunate accident while baiting a hook, the elevator to the underwater base, the psychological ploy that Solo uses to get out of a death-trap… and the reaction of Marta’s character when she finds out her fiance and her daughter work for an evil organization intent on starting World War III…
There’s some great pacing in this episode (stuff happens pretty quick)… and it’s another Illya-lite episode (he does look dashing in his Russian military uniform in the first act, though).
Interestingly, Vaughn has a line that is “I work for U.N.C.L.E., an organization, you may have heard of it” and Marta’s character nods. Some secret spy organization, when it’s name is common knowledge…
Oh, and pay strict attention to the control room in the underwater base – on the back wall are left-over control panels from the classic SF movie Forbidden Planet… And for some reason they redub the name of the gas that is a central point of the episode…