The Man From Uncle

One of the best shows ever! Season 3 did get silly and annoying (trying to compete with Batman) but that doesn't change the fact that it is a great show.


WE GOT MOVIE SIIIIIGN!

I've been watching it on Sunday nights in my market -- NYC - It's better now than what I remember as a 10 year old. ;-)

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There's no place like home.

I watched it a few times.

I saw the first episode recently, I think on Amazon. I was hoping it might be good and considered buying the DVD of the first season, remembering it fondly from 50 years ago. I'm glad I checked it out first. The Vulcan Affair The always lovely Pat Crowley was the eye candy here, but the show was incredibly lame. I believe later episodes showcase Illya a lot more; he's barely in this one. Certainly a show of its era, it is a poor rip off of Bond. I suppose for nostalgia sake it's fun, but production values and the acting (Vaughn) are atrocious.

I was watching some of the shows too on decades TV and haven't seen the shows since the 60's also. Show is not as good as I thought I remembered it.

"50, count 'em 50, ambassadors will definitely appear at the peace conference."

U.N.C.L.E. was my favorite TV show. I was real big on Bond then and so all the TV spy spinoffs. The first two seasons of U.N.C.L.E. were great, the writing and production were great, the characters were fun, the classic spy scenarios were believable. I feel that I was fortunate to have been the age I was when certain TV shows were on every week.

Even though I was a fan of the show during its initial run, I was surprised later to learn that “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” only went for 4 seasons and, although still very well-remembered today, it never got all that great of ratings during its tenure, reaching the Top Twenty for its week only once, in the second season. It was scheduled in a different day and time for each season. So, a show doesn’t have to have a long run of a seven to ten years to be an ultimate success 50 years down the road.

FUN FACT #1: When the first season was in development, NBC brought in Ian Fleming, James Bond’s creator, as a consultant. Fleming was only around long enough to give permission that the show could use a character name from Fleming’s novel, “Goldfinger.” A gangster in the book was named Napoleon Solo. If you remember the film, Solo was the guy who was shot by Oddjob and left in the back seat of a car that went through a metal crusher. After doing this service, Fleming promptly died (August 12, 1964) without contributing anything else.

FUN FACT #2: The real winner of the series was David McCallum. In the first two episodes, McCallum only appears in a brief scene at the start and then disappears. He doesn’t have a substantial part to play until the third week. As the first season continued, McCallum’s appearances grew in proportion to the flood of calls and letters from female fans who demanded more of Ilya.

FUN FACT #3: The first season of UNCLE was shot and broadcast in black and white – something I had forgotten until reading up on it later.

mf

Trust me. I’m The Doctor.

"...The first season of UNCLE was shot and broadcast in black and white..."

I remember clearly. The first season was a superior TV show. It was very well written, played, and directed. It accounts for most of the show's popularity. When they went to color it seemed the producers decided to get cheaper help and the writing wasn't nearly as good from that point forward. The same exact thing happened with The Wild Wild West.