THE INNOCENT: Katherine Crawford plays Jill Denison, an Iowa farm girl who dreams of seeing the world, and is therefore easily lured into the world of spies, albeit without knowing it. She dates a saboteur posing as an air force base sentry, and is attracted enough to Solo to ask him on a date if she ever goes to New York. Seems a bit young for him, honestly. Crawford had a fairly short career in television getting guest star gigs in the 60s and 70s, ending on a recurring role on Gemini Man, a short-lived 1976 series about an agent who could briefly turn invisible. Tall and lanky for Hollywood (at over 5'8"), she was most in demand during this period ('63 to '65), only slightly slowing down after her marriage to TV writer and executive Frank Price.
REVIEW: Richard Donner directed this episode?! One of four, apparently. Well, we're in good hands even this early in the game because the episode looks good, especially the fight in the tunnel where the camera is jostling in confined spaces along with the performers. I haven't really mentioned it, but in terms of production value, the hand-to-hand combat on the show is terrible. For TV purposes, they use a style that's not unlike the Kirk Fu Star Trek will popularize, but the hits often don't connect, or just look like people wetly slapping each other with no force. It's true here as well, but Donner hides it better than most with sheer dynamism. He also echoes Solo's first appearance in The Vulcan Affair, appearing as a still figure in a silent sequence before he guns down the enemy. Nicely done.
Of course, he didn't direct that pre-credit sequence (on half a dozen early episodes), which looks like an implant shot after they decided Illya should co-star. He doesn't in the story. So this opener, meant to catch viewers up on the show if they missed the first episode, has narration that reveals UNCLE means United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, and is indeed staffed with agents from many countries (so like Doctor Who's UNIT, which owes something to this show). Oddly, the characters turn to camera and explain who they are to the audience. It's not just breaking the fourth wall, it's also a little odd seeing as they present Illya, who then doesn't do anything in the episode, but we understand how TV works, or used to work.
The plot of the week involves a secret(ish) underground air force base in Iowa, which houses an experimental plan that can be fired like a missile, presumably going farther, faster than a normal one, to deliver its H-bomb payload more efficiently than a missile could. A terrorist group plans to use water wells to access the bunker, hijack the plane, and drop a bomb on a South American country so they can effect regime change. Uhm... maybe they don't realize what an H-bomb DOES? The effort is led by Slim Pickens (great guest star, in a rare non-western role) whose character has the similarly fantastical name of Clint Spinner. He's working for a mysterious "Latin Woman", which adds an extra wrinkle (the neat bit where Solo snaps a pic of her in the dark with a fancy spy camera), but is otherwise surplus to requirements. I suppose Pickens needed someone to talk to so we'd overhear the plan. The villainy plays against his aww-shucks demeanor, but then, we're introduced to the saboteur Solo feels forced to kill as a young man tenderly kissing a girl. The show is preying on our expectations, and I like it. Of course, the episode only unravels its mystery a bit at a time, and at first, seeing scuba men with guns in Iowa is just a big question mark over a dissonant image. (Now tell me how they dragged Solo and Jill down a well without any protection?)
Solo is very cold in that opener, and one wonders if that's the real him, and everything else is a "character" he's playing. Whether that's the charmer who knows biographical details on the new Channel D girl Heather (I miss Margaret Oberon already, this new chick flirts, but doesn't seem to have as much history with him), or the "Karen" he puts on with the police when posing as his victim's brother (or really, that of the man whose identity he stole), or even his romantic manipulation of Jill. The real Solo is the guy who refuses to explain or untie her because "there's no time". Once again, he's surrounded by possible enemy agents (just not THRUSH), including a housekeeper whose hearing aid hides her coms set-up, and who booby-traps his shower head (but what was the Gideon Bible all about? Was it bugged?). A lovely bit of McGyverism to get out of the bathroom with an exploding can of shaving cream, and his patter with Jill when she notes the door off its hinges is quite fun. Before the end, Solo will be quick to figure out a car ambush, hide in a grain silo (an Iowa classic!), and make air quotes (how modern!).
I suppose my one complaint is the Jill character, or rather, Crawford's performance of that character. It's just so neurotic. In attempting to give it hesitations and such so it sounds more like real speech as opposed to scripted words, it only manages to feel affected and theatrical. She's cute enough, but putting on an innocence that feels fake to me. And because it makes her seem very wet behind the ears (ha!) and still lives with her mother, there's a sense that she's younger than she means to be. So that she'd ask Solo out is one thing, but that he'd accept and lean in for a kiss, is a little icky (though = quite normal for 60s audiences). You know it's at least a little wrong because the mom walks in, and he instead kisses her nose (but the mom is all for her daughter getting more bang for her buck in New York - laf!). The most risqué this gets is when Jill goes to his hotel room and gets flummoxed about his robe hanging open. He probably barely shows a bit of chest, but the implication is that it was more than that. Personally, I want to see how far the show can push these double entendres past the censors. Just an extra thrill for the audience.
HEARD ON CHANNEL D: "It was a matter of his life or mine. I chose his." (Solo)
"Incidents in Shower Stall And Forest" (Act 2 title)
BONDED: The script is by Harold Jack Bloom, who would get an "additional story material" credit for "You Only Live Twice" for his early draft before being replaced by Roald Dahl. Richard Donner doesn't have a direct link to Bond, but was in the running to direct the non-Broccoli Never Say Never Again.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium: Early days, but I'm going to call this a median episode. Neat mystery, some cool villain stuff, but the female guest star is over-acting her heart out.
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