"The Yukon Affair" (ep. 2/14)

The 1965 Christmas Eve episode is a series landmark:  It's the only time that a villain returned, played by the same actor.  (Thrush mistress of disguise Dr. Egret appeared twice in Season One, but was played by two different actresses.)  If they had recast the role, who could possibly have matched George Sanders as the urbane but deadly G. Emory Partridge?  Unfortunately we don't get Jeanette Nolan's daft, dangerous Edith in this one, but the entire story, while colorful, is daft enough without her.

I recall that CBN cut the teaser in the `80s, so it was new to me.  Nice touch, that scripter Marc Siegel gives us the pear tree "calling card" that Partridge sent to Waverly in "Gazebo in the Maze."  But why does Partridge attempt to kill Solo at all, let alone with the Quadrillenium X?  It was bound to bring the forces of the Command down on him.  Was that his plan -- to entrap Solo and Illya in order to earn a "premium" by handing them to Thrush?  (Yet he says seeing Solo in the igloo is a complete surprise!)  Solo, Illya, or Waverly should have speculated on this.  It's one thing for our heroes to be led into a trap; quite another for them to be trapped without any planning or forethought.

For a non-Thrush, Partridge has enormous resources.  How did he get away from the Command after the Eastsnout business?  And then, in just eight months (in our timeline), he has not only attempted to unseat a reigning sultan, but has set up the Q-X operation, no doubt with some Thrush help.  Remarkable -- especially since Solo says Partridge's sultan episode was "about a year ago"!

Interesting to see Solo and Illya as frogmen, being dropped off by sub.  Waverly must have called in some favors.  Problem: the location given by their computer lies in NE Alaska, not in Canada's Yukon Territory -- and about 100 miles inland from the Arctic Ocean!  A point near the ice-rimmed coast would have made more sense, and the story should have been titled "The Alaskan Affair."

Despite the illogicalities -- we see Partridge make an effort to lift a carving made of Q-X, and it's implied that Murphy's people carve the stuff!  How do children carve something fourteen times harder than diamond? With Q-X drills? --  the charm here lies with Solo and Illya.  Solo's enjoyment of Illya's discomfiture when he has disappointed Waverly; Illya's delight at the idea of dragging Solo along into the bitter conditions north of the Arctic Circle; and Illya's schoolmaster air about the aqualung/fuel device and the mission in general, are fun.  The most "U.N.C.L.E."-like moments, though, are Illya's neat escape from the local jail using his fuel cell, and Solo's swift concealment of his communicator and smoke bomb while alone in Partridge's sitting room.

I love Partridge's names, "Disraeli" and "Gladstone," for his team dogs.  One imagines he also has a "Stanley" and a "Dr. Livingstone."

Uh, Costume People, couldn't you have found something a little less silly to put on Solo's head than that thing with the flaps and straps?  A wool watch cap like the one he wore on the raft in "Shark" would have kept him from looking like Eb on "Green Acres."  Fortunately the Edwardian-style suit and cravat fit the Solo style much better.

Why is Partridge's jail guard wearing an RCMP uniform?  Has Emory a squad of rogue Mounties to enforce his dictatorship over the Eskimos?

Verdict:  The first truly silly story of Season Two, it could, like "Arabian," have been rewritten with some thought and research into a better adventure.

Memorable lines:
Solo (to Illya, as they sit captive in an igloo): "Well, the reception committee was Class A, but the accommodations leave much to  be desired."
Illya: "We'll complain to our travel agent."

Illya (to Murphy, about her father's harpoon skills): "A fine eye and a strong wrist.  I would sincerely appreciate being out of range of both."

Victoria (marveling): "How do you keep so fit, Mr. Solo?"
Solo: "I play games."
(Victoria with her Angelique-like style is much more Solo's type than is Miss Murphy, anyway)

Solo (holding the door to the general store for Illya): "Compasses, toys, formal evening wear, right this way in this department --"

Illya: "Life's too valuable to spend even a single minute of it in remorse!"

Partridge: "Children are so laxly reared nowadays. . . ."

"The Gazebo in the Maze Affair" (ep. 1/27)

This one displays the fine Hollywood hand of co-writer Dean Hargrove.  While the tongue-in-cheek humor makes it resemble a second-season episode, it never crosses the line into silliness, thanks to Hargrove's deft lines, and to George Sanders and Jeanette Nolan as a modern Thane of Cawdor and his Lady Macbeth who've survived to enjoy murder and mayhem in their golden years.

Folie a deux incarnate: Both Partridges, despite their upper-crust English manners, are truly nuttier than twin fruitcakes.  Edith is flirtatious and kittenish with Solo and Illya . . . but watch the schizophrenic sparkle in her eye when she levels and fires that shotgun, stretches Solo on the rack, and waves that red-hot poker in Peggy's face.  Emory seems rather squeamish at his wife's torture hobbies, and thus less dangerous -- until his paranoia/sexual obsession with Peggy shows its teeth ("And don't think I don't know what you've been trying to do to me"; "Flaunting yourself about the place, trying to catch my fancy").  One imagines Edith and Emory playing dice of a winter's evening, dice made from the knucklebones of someone who fell victim to the wolf out in the maze, and chuckling over the memories. ("Oh, Emory, didn't he scream when Lupus got him!"  "Poor breeding, my dear Edith.  It always tells.")

Solo's previous encounter with Partridge was in 1958?  Presumably Solo was not yet Chief Enforcement Agent, not at ca. 26.  Perhaps it was one of his first big assignments -- team leader, perhaps, explaining Partridge's vendetta against him specifically.  Since Illya does not recognize Partridge, perhaps he wasn't on that mission.  But how does Partridge know him? 

Also, Partridge scoops up Illya just outside Command HQ in New York, and sends his tiny-tree-and-bird message to Del Floria's.   Obviously he knows it's the agents' entrance.   Though I suppose that once Thrush knew, it would hardly be a secret in the criminal world any more.

Edith's references to "that awful rainforest business" make me think she was relatively sane until then, and whatever they went through in escaping drove her completely `round the bend.

The black-and-white photography adds immeasurably to the tone and atmosphere, doesn't it?  Color would make it seem much more cartoon-like.  (Somehow, though, it still reminds me of a '60s-era "Batman" comic, where the Penguin/Joker/Riddler has captured Robin to lure Batman into his revenge trap. . . .)

No, that's not Robert Shaw playing Jenkins, the wolfkeeper/darts champ -- though he does remind me of Captain Quint from "Jaws."

Solo points out that his overseas call to Waverly "has to bounce off the Telstar satellite."  (According to Wikipedia, due to high-altitude nuclear testing, Telstar I [launched in 1962] went out of service in
February of 1963 -- though more Telstars were in service by 1964.)  The problem with the scene is that you'd think Solo would insert a code phrase to warn Waverly that he is operating under enemy control.

Why do the chair's entrapping arms spring out when Solo knocks Jenkins into it -- yet earlier, Partridge had to press a button on the table to activate it?

Bill Koenig has mentioned that Illya's "Bon appetit" line was used in several James Bond movies after this.  So we have a case of the original property drawing inspiration from a property it inspired!

After being rescued by Solo, why does Illya leave Solo in the lurch to explain to Mr. Waverly?  I could see it if Solo had embarrassed him or stuck him with some unpleasant duty.  Or was Hargrove, in a bit of inside humor, playing off the scene in Fields's "See-Paris-and-Die" where Solo sticks Illya with the thankless legwork?

Verdict: A great romp.

Memorable lines:
Edith (re: Illya): "He was very sort of physical looking, in an unusual way."

Illya (examining the dungeon): "Every home should have a recreation room."

Jenkins (re: the snarling wolf inches from Illya): "Would you like for me to open the gate?"
Illya: "No, that's not necessary, thank you.  I'll consider myself captured."

Illya (to the chained skeleton next to him): "You expecting anyone?"

Illya (dryly, to Solo): "I see you've come to rescue me."
Solo (testing his chains): "Wait'll you hear my plan --"

Illya (re: the madness of the Partridges): "I believe they have March hares in the garden, too."
(Which suggests that Illya, as part of his English lessons, read and possibly even enjoyed Lewis Carroll.  One imagines his English teacher in the U.S.S.R. saying, "A capitalist fantasy, but entertaining. . . .")

Solo (to Waverly, about Partridge): "Now I think it's time to give him the bird."
(If that was the crude slang then that it is now, how did they get that past the censors???)

Solo (realizing he has neglected to tell Waverly to cancel his trip to Eastsnout): "I forgot to turn off the bath water. . . ."