The pilot episode (complete with a feeling of “huh?” - most likely due to the re-shooting and re-editing of some scenes from the original pilot to form this episode).  Napoleon Solo is sent in to stop Thrush agent Andrew Vulcan (Fritz Weaver) from assassinating Western Natumba leader Ashumen (Blacula himself, William Marshall).  Since Illya stays behind at the tailor shop, Solo has to enlist Vulcan’s former sweetheart-turned-housewife (Pat Crowley).  Look quick for Richard “Jaws” Kiel as one of Vulcan’s thugs.

Luigi’s Useless Information: As to how you can make a pilot episode without really utilizing your other characters (Illya and Mr. Waverly) is beyond me (they weren’t intended to be major characters at first).  Fortunately, the appearance of both Blacula and Eegah make up for it.

Say it five times fast: the quadripartite affair, the quadripartite affair…aw, forget it.  Not only did the writers finally decide to actually write David McCallum’s second-billed character in this time, but they also make up for it by exposing him to a nerve gas…which they make up for by giving him a little lovin’ at the end (off camera, of course…this was 60s TV after all!) with Jill Ireland (his real-life wife at the time).  Anne Francis plays one of the baddies (who gets away in the end).

The great Robert Culp is Captain Shark: the courteous commander of a modern-day pirate ship and whose behavior is extremely irrelevant.  The U.N.C.L.E. boys are confused as to why Shark steals items like shoelaces and aspirin amid kidnapping random people (“Are there any amongst you who can tune a piano?”), but when they manage to sneak on-board his ship, they learn of one man’s noble-yet-somewhat-demented promise to keep the human race alive.  “Star Trek” regular James Doohan shows up briefly in the beginning.

An old SS officer turns up dead (bit player Felix Locher) and the ex-Nazi scientist (Alexander Scourby) he was assigned to watch disappears.  Thrush agent Angelique (Janine Gray) also joins the picture. 

Archie Bunker is a bad, bad man.  Carroll O’Connor plays Thrush agent Walter Brach, a wheelchair-bound, number obsessed, Dr. Strangelove impersonator who enjoys feeding sharks and cheetahs in his spare time.  Napoleon infiltrates his troupe as a nerdy accountant and winds up being chosen for a brainwashing experiment!

Anne Francis and Jill Ireland return from “The Quadripartite Affair” (as does John Van Dreelen).  When villains Gervaise Ravel and Harold Buffer ton (Francis and Van Dreelen) eliminate an U.N.C.L.E. agent (most undoubtedly due to his acting abilities), Illya has to persuade Marion Raven back into the picture as bait (which doesn’t go over well).

 Those bastards at Thrush are at it again…only this time they have a double for Napoleon whom they send in to U.N.C.L.E. headquarters.  Sexy Senta Berger plays the Thrush agent and Playboy Playmate Donna Michelle shows up as well (she was in the May 1964 issue…a beloved issue if there ever was one!).

Just when you thought a show like this couldn’t get any better, you see a familiar face in the opening credits and a title announcing the special guest star’s name: William Shatner.  Then, as the episode plays out, you see another famous profile…Leonard Nimoy!  Throw is Narda Onyx (from Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter) and you’ve got a classic episode on your hand…who cares what it’s about!  But, if you must know, Napoleon and Illya convince Michael Donfield (the Shat) to pretend to be an American agent to get some Russians to bite.  Napoleon also asks The Shat if he can pretend to be a womanizer and an alcoholic!

No wonder Snake Plissken was such a bad-ass…he once fought along side of Napoleon Solo!  A loveable little Kurt Russell guest stars as a young lad who tags along with Napoleon to Norway as he investigates the mystery behind a small Scottish island whose residents all died from rapid aging.  The villains in this one are Japanese (even though most of the actors playing them aren’t).

 Illya is furious over a series of missile attacks on Mother Russia that are destroying grain fields.  Napoleon ventures to Southern California to find out what’s going on and finds “Lost In Space” beauty Marta Kristen in the process (score, Solo).  Henry Jones and Jeremy Slate play the bad guys.

Not being content with charming Marta Kristen in the previous episode, Napoleon gets involved in a plot twist with “Lost In Space” mother June Lockhart.  Napoleon races head-to-head with master-spy/general Satine (the great Ricardo Montalban) for a dove-shaped broche that belonged to the nation’s recently-deceased leader before those ne’er-do-wells at Thrush get a hold of it.

Jan Merlin, the world’s least intimidating-sounding bad guy knives down a power-plant official whose conversation is being recorded by Solo and Kuryakin.  Acting on a hunch, our heroes travel to Rome to figure get their scripts so they can find out what the hell is going on in this episode.  Martin Landau-clone Paul Stevens guest stars.

Luigi’s Useless Information: While Paul Stevens was an accomplished actor playing various bits in many television shows until his untimely demise in 1986, he will always be remembered by us cult film fanatics as the psychiatrist who finds out the deadly dangers of The Mask (1961).  If sexy Italian U.N.C.L.E. agent Gemma Lusso looks familiar, it‘s because she is played by Arlene Martel.  Arlene portrayed both Spock’s wife T’Pring (one of the few Vulcans whose name didn’t start with the letter ‘s’) in the original “Star Trek” episode “Amok Time” and Constance, the poor woman who would get caught up in Robert Culp’s war with stocking-capped aliens from the future in “The Outer Limits” episode “Demon With A Glass Hand” (a personal favorite).

Clara Valdar, an old girlfriend of Napoleon, urges Solo to help her escort gypsy leader Emil out of Terbuf.  What Clara (Madlyn Rhue) doesn’t know is that her own husband is in cahoots with the enemy and plans to double-cross her.  Former amateur boxer/Roger Corman actor and future voice-over artist Michael Forest plays one of the bad guys.

The capture of Thrush agent Egon Stryker (Robert Taeger) prompts Solo and Kuryakin to escort the wisecracking Stryker to Washington while Mr. Waverly takes a double via an alternate route.  Needless to say, things don’t go as planned and Stryker winds up handcuffed to a blonde in a fur coat (Joanna Moore).  At one point in this episode, Robert Vaughn’s character says “Damn it!”

Luigi’s Useless Information: This episode introduces an alternate opening segment with Robert Vaughn stepping out from behind the cracked, bullet-ridden glass from the previous opening segments and welcoming the audience to tonight’s episode (which he gives a brief rundown of, too).  This particular opening never appeared again.

Or, the Ocean’s Eleven affair: Thrush’s treasury is concealed in a high-tech vault beneath a casino front run by Anton Korbel: cigar smoker and future champagne magnate (Ken Murray with a bad crew cut).  In order to accomplish this, Solo will have to woo his way into the heart of naïve Minneapolis girl Susan Callaway (Marlyn Mason) while Illya has to recruit safecracker Marcel Rudolph (Dan O’Herlihy).

Luigi’s Useless Information: You gotta love the casino’s office safe: one button, two lights and a conveyor belt.  I don’t think even Wal-Mart would sell something as low-grade as that!  No, wait…yes they would…sorry, I must have been thinking of another conglomerateevil there for a minute.  Yes, Wal-Mart would most assuredly sell you something that cheap…but only after they had some slave laborers work an entire week to make it (for $1.26 in wages, nonetheless).  Then, they’d make a substantial profit off of the poor craftsmanship by selling it to you, the average consumer.  A week later, the whole thing would break.  I hate Wal-Mart…the damn Nazi bastards…may Sam Walton burn in every hell ever imagined…right alongside Adolf Hitler, Walt Disney and Jerry Falwell!

Scottish U.N.C.L.E. agent Macalister (Willard Sage) is murdered by a revived Thugee cult in India while transporting a top-secret Thrush device.  Solo and Thrush agent Tom Simpson (Linden Chiles) both arrive to figure the whole mess out.  Indian beauty Kamala Devi guest stars.

Mr. Hemingway (Richard Haydn) is an enigmatic individual who delights in playing strange pranks on the staff of the U.N.C.L.E. headquarters: sending a toy plane to disable the rooftop laser, messing with the alarm system, placing guppies in the water supply and sending in a poor, hapless citizen (Zohra Lampert).  Meanwhile, Thrush agent Dr. Egret (Lee Merriwether) sends her secret minion, U.N.C.L.E. technician Riley (Peter Haskell).  Almost the entire episode takes place in the U.N.C.L.E. headquarters.  Mary Mitchel (Spider Baby) plays the radar girl.

Luigi’s Useless Information: Vaughn and McCallum exchange some dialogue about playing ‘Good Cop, Bad Cop’ to which McCallum remarks “The penalty of playing my part successfully.  Now I’m typecast?”  This would later prove to be true for both actors.

Illya joins Solo on a personal mission in the Middle East to aid his old commanding officer, Col. Morgan (Gene Raymond).  Morgan plans to steal a scepter from Premier Karim (Jack Donner) with the help of his shapely assistant Zia (Ziva Rodann)…but when Illya is captured and Karim swears that he is not the villain…Napoleon begins to wonder what’s really going on.

Luigi’s Useless Information: Ziva Rodann held her own against several other well known beauties of the ‘60s in College Confidential (with Mamie Van Doran) and 3 Nuts In Search Of A Bolt (with Jayne Mansfield) and would later play Nefertiti to Victor Buono’s King Tut on two episodes of “Batman” (1966).

Mr. Waverly’s cousin, Lester Baldwin (also played by Carroll) receives a threat from Andre Delgrovia (Paul Lambert, dressed like a vampire) to sell some shares at a reduced cost, so Waverly asks Solo and Illya to help out.  Since Solo is recovering from a sprained knee (he tripped over the office cat), Illya has to go most of this episode alone (‘bout time) and gets to flirt with the ladies for a change (including Susan Oliver and Antoinette Bower).  Dogs attacking their owners and Pat Harrington, Jr. as an Italian dog expert add to the fun.

Thunderball villainess (and star of The Green Slime!) Luciana Paluzzi lends her oh-so-sexy Italian accent and figure to this episode as a Thrush agent who is part of a plan to assassinate 10-year-old Shantian leader Miki (Michel Petit).  Donald Harron lends a hand as U.N.C.L.E. agent Kitt Kittridge and the familiar face of Malachi Throne shows up as well as Miki‘s guardian.

Luigi’s Useless Information: Oh, to be in Vaughn’s shoes during the scene in which he frisks Paluzzi…  Anybody else ever notice that the music in “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” sounds like Sammy Davis’ E-O-11 tune from Oceans Eleven (1960)?

If the casting director put one more fabulous guest star into this episode, the results could have been dire.  Dutch cousins Max und Josef Van Schreeten (Lloyd Bochner and Gerald Mohr, respectively) managed to take steal a cool half-billion from a diamond syndicate and have successfully blackmailed them out of a million dollars (the first of what is to be many payments) to prevent them from flooding the market (depreciating the economy in the process…which is exactly what eBay has done with everything!).  Thrush is just as interested in this whole affair as much as U.N.C.L.E. and they’ve sent in two agents (Kevin Hagen and Alfred Ryder).  Naturally, things would not be complete without a woman: so how about a stunning female vocalist (Kathryn Hays) that both cousins (and Solo) are crazy for?

Luigi’s Useless Information: Veteran character actors Bochner and Ryder would play in just about every television show imaginable.  Despite his on-screen appearances, Gerald Mohr is better known to some fans as an off-screen talent: he voiced The Scorpion is Republic’s immortal serial, The Adventures Of Captain Marvel, performed in over 500 radio plays (he played Philip Marlowe in nearly 120) from the 30s to the 50s, narrated both the radio and television series of “The Lone Ranger” as well as providing the voices of Reed Richards (aka Mr. Fantastic) and Hal Jordan (aka The Green Lantern) in several late-60s animated superhero series.

Another fun episode.  Elsa Lanchester (The Bride Of Frankenstein) plays the diabolical Dr. Dubree, an agent for Thrush who has developed an ingenious method of mental assassination to destroy the good guys and her target is Mr. Waverly.  While Waverly is held hostage by the brain butchering physician, Mr. Samoy from India steps in to help out (Abraham Sofaer).  The lovely Yvonne Craig plays the heroine in this one.  Liam Sullivan, Rosey Greer (his first acting job) and Nancy Kovack also guest star.

 A rare schilling becomes a sought-after item of a criminal organization that sells top-secret government information to the highest bidder (and whose boss is known as ‘Apricot’).  An innocent passer-by (Glenn Corbett) gets caught up in the whole mess and begins to develop a fixation for Heavenly Cortelle (Karen Sharpe): a beautiful operative whose speech pattern does not implicate the use of contractions.  Richard Kiel plays Merry, one of Apricot’s henchmen.

Luigi’s Useless Information: Unlike his two-second cameo in the pilot episode, Richard Kiel gets a lot of screen time and dialogue in this episode (and has a lot of fun, too).  Gavin MacLeod plays a bad guy.  Yes, you read that right: the Captain of the frigging “The Love Boat” plays a bad guy!  Come on everybody, sing along with me: “Love, exciting and new.  Come aboard, we’re expecting you…”

Cesar Romero plays the world’s most loveable and charismatic villain ever (he’s a Frenchman, naturally…not Romero, but his character).  Barbara Feldon plays an U.N.C.L.E. translator who longs for the same action-filled world Mr. Solo lives in. When Solo finally gives in and sends her on a dummy mission to fill Mr. Waverly’s humidor with his favorite kind of tobacco, she winds up with more than she bargained for when she is kidnapped by Victor Gervais (Romero) who is after a list of French U.N.C.L.E. operatives.

Luigi’s Useless Information: Aside from the wonderful acting talents of both Feldon and Romero, this episode features a marvelous shoot-out in a movie theater that almost foreshadows Peter Bogdanovich’s unforgettable classic Targets (which came out three years after this episode aired).

What is it about evangelists that people find so fascinating?  Napoleon investigates religious leader Brother Love (the Man from “Green Acres”) and his fellow cult members (including Roger Corman-graduate Antony Carbone) who dress a lot like druids and go around saying “All you need is Love!” (or something to that effect).  Is Love just another cover for Thrush?  Maggie Pierce plays the Love interest (pun intended).

Luigi’s Useless Information: It’s so nice to see that filmmakers in the 60s didn’t think of evangelists any higher than they do today (you think people would get wise to this sort of stuff!).

G. Emory Partridge (George Sanders) seeks revenge on Solo and U.N.C.L.E. for having spoiled his fun a seven years back in South America: he kidnaps Illya and holds him hostage in a gazebo dungeon (!) located in the middle of a giant labyrinth in his garden (this guy has a great backyard, I must say).  Jeanette Nolan plays Sanders’ sweet-natured sadist of a wife (wow, she’s amazing!).

Luigi’s Useless Information: Russian Illya is knocked out with an umbrella dispensing some sort of sedative (operated by an Englishman).  Thirteen years later, in London, England, a Bulgarian journalist Georgi Markov would be assassinated by an umbrella that injected him with a pellet filled with poison.  It is believed that the murder was arranged by the KGB.  Coincidence?  I think not!

Napoleon and Illya search for a missing doctor in the French Riviera and discover a bevy of lethal motor racing Thrush beauties led by Madame Streigau (Marian McCargo) and Lucia Nazarone (Danica D’Hondt) and a formula that advances the ability to heal.  Kipp Hamilton, the singer from The War Of The Gargantuas, plays the good girl.  Steigau turns out to be Dr. Egret (see episode 1.13).

Luigi’s Useless Information:  The former Mrs. Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate, shows up as one of the bad girls…four years after she made her debut in films and four years before her death at the hands of the Manson Family.

When an infamous assassin that Illya is shadowing takes his life on an airplane, Mr. Waverly asks Albert Sully, a retired OSS operative to shed some light on the mysterious dead man so that Solo can take his place at an International meeting of terrorists.  Sully (the magnificent Martin Balsam) refuses to give any information and instead insists on playing the part himself.  Upon entering London, Sully gives Napoleon and Illya the slip, taking the opportunity to find an old flame (British Horror Queen Barbara Shelley) to help him out (he, as it turns out, knows nothing!).

Luigi’s Useless Information: You gotta love Martin Balsam…no two ways about it.  This episode would be the last of the first season (and the last in black and white).