THE INNOCENT: Jill Ireland plays Marion Raven (great name, you can definitely see how the character was conceived to be a regular, though they didn't go through with it). Marion's father becomes a victim of the bad guys in opening sequence, leading her to accept an assignment with UNCLE to get justice. Only she has the contacts in Yugoslavia to get the heroes on the ground. She's quite a physical character (except in fights), very cool in her short bob and slinky black uniform. In a way, she's a combination of the first two innocents - recruited like episode 1's, but personally involved like episode 2's. Jill Ireland's connection to the show (meriting more appearances, as Marion and not) is deeper than that. She was David McCallum's wife at the time, and had moved to the States with him so he could work on UNCLE (they had met on Hell Drivers, which also starred William Hartnell) and immediately got steady television work (most memorably as Spock's love interest in "This Side of Paradise"). They would separate a year after this episode, but it didn't stop her from guesting on the show, and would later marry Charles Bronson, starring in a number of his films through the 70s.
REVIEW: Richard Donner's second UNCLE episode, it's got some good photography (Illya and Marion back to back on a mountain is a highlight), and keeps things fairly exciting. I'm glad for some international action at last, it just feels more like the spy genre when you're not just traipsing through rural America, you know? Yugoslavia is just Southern California, of course, but mountains and rope bridges sell the location pretty well. Not as enamoured with the action set pieces, this time around, however. The rescue on the boat has Solo cold-bloodedly shooting guards before announcing he's just put them to sleep (for TV censors' benefit, or lying for Marion's? - I kind of want it to be the latter), the doing a lot of pointing and not a lot of shooting. The secret lab escape ends with a mining explosion stock shot, but it's otherwise a little too long. No, what works here is the ensemble cast.
The title refers to four conspirators, two of which get axed, while the other two are left as dangling story threads (see you in episode 7). Among the former, Col. Adam Pattner, an extremist from America's own military; among the latter, Anne Francis as half of a rich evil couple (she has a French name - Gervaise Ravel - but not a French accent). They're all pretty basic, but things are better on the good guys' side. First off, Illya is finally made full partner, turning this into MEN from UNCLE, and right off the bat, he's given a romance instead of Solo. Of course, Marion Raven is played by his real-life wife, so it won't be awkward on set. I guess Jill Ireland is always going to go for the second banana (Spock being the other example). Solo throws a flirty line or two in her direction, but she's more obviously interested in the Russian agent, and he's the one who's in charge of keeping her safe. Through this relationship, we find out who he is in contrast to his American counterpart. He keeps telling her to ignore him, to consider him as she would furniture, or rocks, or trees, or walls, so he's more self-effacing than Solo, who openly looks at girls' butts. He puts the "secret" in "secret agent", while Solo is more of a public-facing "superspy". I like him for it. In a way, they represent two traditions. Solo is the big action star, while Illya is the LeCarré character, more interested in research and spycraft - consider, for example, all his paranoid precautions in handling the chocolates delivery.
Marion Raven is a cool participant who could easily have joined UNCLE, I think, but my favorite guest star here is Roger C. Carmel. I've made no secret of my basic dislike for Star Trek's Harry Mudd. I just think he's annoying and therefore overrated. Here, as mountain bandit Milan Horth, he's incredibly cool. He's funny and witty - this is a man who keeps goats inside his safe house - but also extremely cool - the way he and the agents react to the ambush inside that safe house is my favorite moment of the whole episode. When he died, I shouted at the television. What a waste! Kind of like sending a robot bomber to its doom just so your agents can fly under the radar in a helicopter, but instead of taxpayer money, it's character potential. As for the people back at UNCLE (to complete the set), Waverly can't seem to get a rise out of me. I think the boss man is boring, slurs his dialog and takes too many pauses. Heather of Channel D is back with us for a bit of flirting, but then they have a computer voice give exposition. I'd rather they give these bits to human beings LIKE Heather, if not Waverly, or heck, there's a scientist standing right there who could have done it.
HEARD ON CHANNEL D: "If you like the feline type." "Well, they purr so nicely." (Heather and Solo)
"I see the big bird go phfft. And I see the little bird land on the nest and lay three eggs. So I go down to see what the eggs hatched." (Horth)
BONDED: Anne Francis would become part of the IMF team on Mission: Impossible, as Cinnamon's replacement in Season 4's "The Double Circle", but closer to Bond, she appears in 1982's "The Double 0 Kid", a Corey Haim vehicle in which he plays a boy who wants to be a secret agent. Richard Anderson would, of course, become famous for playing Oscar Goldman (Col. Adam Pattner) in the Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman shows, running his own secret agents.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium: The show's basics are coming together well enough, but the guest stars are stronger than the (half) story.
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