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).
Welcome to the THIRD different opening of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. This is the same as the “standard” season one opening, with the shadowed gunman firing at Solo as he stands behind the bulletproof glass (all of this is footage from the pilot). Only this time, instead of the episode title appearing just after Solo is revealed and he raises his gun, Solo steps out from behind the glass and talks to the audience, telling them a little bit about U.N.C.L.E. and how he’ll be working to foil a THRUSH plot this episode – “Remember them?”
The thing is… as Napoleon breaks the fourth wall, you may recall that a guy was JUST SHOOTING AT HIM. What, did that bad guy think “Oh, I better stop, he’s providing helpful exposition to new viewers who may not have seen the show before…”
I don’t think this opening was reused (we’ll see in the days to come) and I think the point behind because the show had moved to another night and there WERE people who had never seen the show before – hence the new opening.
The plot involves having to smuggle a captured THRUSH agent Stryker to safety in Washington, DC, and after an attempt is made on his life a lookalike/decoy is employed.
This is another full Illya/Napoleon team-up episode, and a pretty good one at that. We get to see the lead THRUSH agent assigned to recapture or kills Stryker play a cat-and-mouse game with our heroes – and the fact that he’s also blind gives the episode some interesting moments. Complicating matters is the fact that they accidentally handcuff the THRUSH agent to a lovely young lady shopping for a dress on her lunch hour…
An U.N.C.L.E. first: Napoleon whips out his U.N.C.L.E. ID card… though you don’t get a good look at it. Ah, spies who have ID cards… how quaint.
On and this is the second episode in the “Napoleon and Illya meets
One amusing part of the episode is Waverly and the decoy/lookalike are given a police escort… and they leave U.N.C.L.E. HQ from the Del Floria’s entrance. So much for trying to keep the location of U.N.C.L.E. New York a secret…