MFU 30-Day Meme: Day 3
Jun. 23rd, 2011 11:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carabeleDay 03 – Favorite episode: THE FIDDLESTICKS AFFAIR (Season 1) and THE MAZE AFFAIR (Season 4)
This one is a toss-up for me, so I just listed both eps that I consider my favorites. Of course there are so many MFU episodes I like, that picking a favorite can often change from day-to-day, but most consistently I return to these two.
FIDDLESTICKS for me is just a fast-paced, well-written, feel-good type of adventure. We get to see the guys at their agent best with the way they set up the scenario for getting into the Thrush vault. And Susan is a truly likeable innocent with a zest for her part in what is going on that is both honestly refreshing and undeniably sweet. We also get a lot of that characteristic witty banter between Napoleon and Illya. Yet we get to see as well the depth of their caring for one another in the scenes where Napoleon is locked out of the vault room before he can disarm the explosive setup and thus believes Illya is walking right into his death, and then when the oxygen is leeched from the vault room Napoleon is in and Illya walks in on his friend unconscious.
MAZE I like for its plot within a plot scenario. It also shows Thrush as more intellectually adept then they tended to come off in most stories. [chuckle] The idea of so carefully staging a scenario just to get one of U.N.C.L.E.'s own agents to transport a bomb into HQ is intriguing. MAZE does have faults: Illya asking to handle the question about whether it is really Solo sending that communique about the bomb is kind of rushed through. One minute he is leaving to check on the situation and the gun-secret-bomb is still in the lab and Waverly is asking the scientists to continue with the dismantling. And the next minute Illya is running through the hall and the gun-secret-bomb is being dropped in the detonation tank. But we never find out exactly what made Illya decide it was really Solo on the communique and thus willing to believe the gun was a bomb, or why the scientists who were continuing the dismantling didn't wind up triggering the thing before Illya said: "Stop! It really is a bomb!"
Also I have to admit I was very disappointed in MAZE by Illya's reaction -- or rather lack of reaction -- to Napoleon's "death". He really was just too stoic. The viewer got nothing from him. I realized his reaction would be understated because of the nature of the character, but honestly that reaction just doesn't exist at all. There was certainly a point (when Del Floria makes that comment about having heard about Mr. Solo) when we could have seen something -- some hint of his feelings -- in his facial expression or bodily posture. But there honestly was just nothing. The only reaction comes at the very end when Solo is pinning that "award" on the innocent and Illya looks at him and gives that little exhale of seeming relief. But frankly that wasn't enough. Still, I really do like this ep as a whole.
This one is a toss-up for me, so I just listed both eps that I consider my favorites. Of course there are so many MFU episodes I like, that picking a favorite can often change from day-to-day, but most consistently I return to these two.
FIDDLESTICKS for me is just a fast-paced, well-written, feel-good type of adventure. We get to see the guys at their agent best with the way they set up the scenario for getting into the Thrush vault. And Susan is a truly likeable innocent with a zest for her part in what is going on that is both honestly refreshing and undeniably sweet. We also get a lot of that characteristic witty banter between Napoleon and Illya. Yet we get to see as well the depth of their caring for one another in the scenes where Napoleon is locked out of the vault room before he can disarm the explosive setup and thus believes Illya is walking right into his death, and then when the oxygen is leeched from the vault room Napoleon is in and Illya walks in on his friend unconscious.
MAZE I like for its plot within a plot scenario. It also shows Thrush as more intellectually adept then they tended to come off in most stories. [chuckle] The idea of so carefully staging a scenario just to get one of U.N.C.L.E.'s own agents to transport a bomb into HQ is intriguing. MAZE does have faults: Illya asking to handle the question about whether it is really Solo sending that communique about the bomb is kind of rushed through. One minute he is leaving to check on the situation and the gun-secret-bomb is still in the lab and Waverly is asking the scientists to continue with the dismantling. And the next minute Illya is running through the hall and the gun-secret-bomb is being dropped in the detonation tank. But we never find out exactly what made Illya decide it was really Solo on the communique and thus willing to believe the gun was a bomb, or why the scientists who were continuing the dismantling didn't wind up triggering the thing before Illya said: "Stop! It really is a bomb!"
Also I have to admit I was very disappointed in MAZE by Illya's reaction -- or rather lack of reaction -- to Napoleon's "death". He really was just too stoic. The viewer got nothing from him. I realized his reaction would be understated because of the nature of the character, but honestly that reaction just doesn't exist at all. There was certainly a point (when Del Floria makes that comment about having heard about Mr. Solo) when we could have seen something -- some hint of his feelings -- in his facial expression or bodily posture. But there honestly was just nothing. The only reaction comes at the very end when Solo is pinning that "award" on the innocent and Illya looks at him and gives that little exhale of seeming relief. But frankly that wasn't enough. Still, I really do like this ep as a whole.
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Date: 2011-06-23 08:56 pm (UTC)I really like the idea of Maze, and there are some great scenes in it, but the script is awful. The actors have very little to work with considering how fraught the situation is. I read Illya's reaction a bit differently from you--I think he shuts down, otherwise he couldn't continue. But DMC and the director had to pull this out of thin air, the script gave them nothing. You can see by the way they shot the scene in the phone booth, with IK's eyes hidden by the hat and the flat tone of his voice that they were trying. I think the fact that he doesn't react to delFloria is very meaningful. But that ain't a lot to work with. And the tag with the completely non-essential innocent and the safety pin is just... I don't know what. It has such possibilities--I wish they'd taken more advantage of them.