50th Anniversary Viewing
_______
Mission: Impossible
"The Slave: Part II"
Originally aired October 15, 1967
Xfinity said:
Jim Phelps becomes a partner in slave trade when he offers Cinnamon for an upcoming auction.
The voice in the recording said:
The same thing as last week. We start with a complete recap of that scene.
The end for this was really horrible. One senses that perhaps studio meddling was at work...not wanting the IMF to come off as too unlikable, so they break with their usual MO and spill the beans to the couple who were the primary focus of their scheme at the end, and that couple is very unrealistically perfectly fine with it. Why even let the prince and his wife in on what they did? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the elaborate ruse? She'd gladly go through it again? Really?
Minor side note--It was hard to take Jim's character seriously when they kept calling him Mr. Rogers.
_______
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
"The Master's Touch Affair"
Originally aired October 16, 1967
Xfinity said:
Illya, Solo and a blonde (Leslie Parrish) become pawns in a struggle between a THRUSH defector (Jack Lord) and his protege.
Open Channel Danno Ain't Around to Book 'em. Now Jack Lord's the one doing an M:I-quality accent. His character and Nehemiah Persoff's are deadly rivals, apparently in competition to see who can be the most annoying THRUSH leader, with Persoff's character winning by always yelling things in a microphone in his control room, and making us drink every time he says the name of Lord's character, Mandor. Persoff's Annoyingcave includes a THRUSH computer doing what sounds like a male version of the Enterprise computer voice.
Leslie Parrish's character seemed completely superfluous. There was something about her being Mandor's weakness, for whatever that was worth, which didn't seem to amount to much other than being an excuse to have a pretty girl in the story. We get teased with Lisa Rogers being assigned to babysit her, but don't see anything of it.
Illya spends a lot of time in captivity and acting dopey from brainwashing. Kind of like I get from watching too many episodes like this.
_______
The Rat Patrol
"The Darkest Raid"
Originally aired October 16, 1967
H&I said:
Troy infiltrates enemy headquarters by posing as a wounded German captain in order to heist a cache of confiscated diamonds that are destined for Berlin.
Troy makes a most unconvincing Nazi...he speaks English with only the vaguest hint of attempting an accent...basically adopting a more stilted speech pattern while talking in his normal American accent. I make fun of the accents on M:I, but at least those guys are trying! Col. Gerschon (Alfred Ryder) nevertheless praises his performance as "excellent" after he sniffs Troy out.
The title refers to the fact that the Patrol is creating a blackout for their raid, so Troy pretends to be blinded to scope the place out sans eyesight. The Patrol uses flashlights for signaling, but apparently the Germans only have candles.
We get another coda that looks like it was shot on a stage rather than outdoors.
_______
Batman
"The Unkindest Tut of All"
Originally aired October 19, 1967
H&I said:
After being hit on the head, Nabob of the Nile [?] returns as King Tut, under the guise as a public crime predictor and secret crime perpetrator. When he discovers the Batcave is under Wayne Manor, he threatens to unveil Batman's secret identity.
It proves a little too easy to bug the Batmobile. Where's that Penguin bug-detection tech? Tut retains him memory in the final scene and he and his henchpeople know the location of the Batcave...it seems like they let themselves be convinced by the dummy gag a little too easily. And are Batman and Bruce Wayne really so opposite on the show as the episode tries to tell us?
I may have already said this, but there sure are a lot of crimes at the library this season....Perhaps the best humor moment is Batman pontificating to Robin about how important it is to save a human life after telling the Boy Wonder that the obviously suffering tied-up librarian won't last a minute. Also, this line...
King Tut said:
I'll be a son of a Byzantine king!
Next week: Flower Power comes to Gotham!
_______
Ironside
"An Inside Job"
Originally aired October 19, 1967
Xfinity said:
Two killers (John Saxon, Don Stroud) using Whitfield as a hostage want Ironside to help them escape from police headquarters.
Whitfield would be Eve, Barbara Anderson's character.
Wait a minute...so Ironside's office/apartment is on the top floor of police HQ? Are the taxpayers footing the bill for that nice loft spread he's got?
Ironside plays it cool as a cucumber even after Eve walks into the situation. He uses being coerced to devise an escape plan for the criminals as cover for enacting his own plan. Of course, he uses the old trick of communicating that something's wrong by conveying false information (via Eve, to Team Ironside member Ed Brown on the phone). By the time he has the escapees walking out disguised as TV repairmen with him and Eve in tow, everyone in the lobby (including Norman Fell's police captain) is in on the situation and ready to move. Ironside's secret weapon was set up in an early scene...the residual electric charge in the picture tube of the TV that one of the crooks is carrying as part of his Ironside-devised cover.
This episode was definitely a refreshing change of pace from the murder mystery of the week.
Sign o' the times: Mark can't check out a library book that Ironside wants, so Ironside orders him to transcribe an entire chapter! Mark's solution of having the chapter photocopied is treated as something novel enough to be unanticipated by the Chief, who's doing it to keep Mark busy so that he doesn't come back and walk into the hostage situation.
_______
"The Philadelphia Story"
Originally aired October 19, 1967
Wiki said:
Unable to tolerate life without Ann, Donald goes to Philadelphia to write a review of Ann's play.
This week we get a parallel collage of Ann & Donald seeing the touristy sites in Philly. Makes sense, they no doubt did the shooting as part of the same East Coast trip.
The basic situation of the episode is that the play proves to be lousy and Donald has to write a bad review of it, which Ann only sees after she's already disheartened by all of the other bad reviews.
"Oh, Donald" count: 8
"Oh, Daddy" count: 2 (Ann goes straight back to Brewster for comfort rather than New York.)
_______
Tarzan
"Muguma Curse"
Originally aired October 20, 1967
H&I said:
Tarzan battles a treacherous engineer to save a young woman from a death curse.
The episode opens with tribal dance footage that I'm pretty sure was used in another episode.
Tarzan not only takes the tribal juju seriously, but I guess the audience is supposed to as well, since we see a glowing tree.
Barbara Luna guests as the young woman, Frankie. Also guesting is Simon Oakland in his second role on the show, scheming to take the diamond mine that he thinks she's sitting on. It turns out in the end that she had a mercury deposit instead.
Tarzan escapes from another cave via an underwater passage. We get some pretty underwater footage, but still no giant clam.
Tarzan challenges Oakland's character to a Test of Truth. I think the last time we got a tribal challenge story, it was one of the giant clam episodes! Let's see...snakes...tarantulas...a pit of fire....Some say Simon Oakland will end in fire...some say in a giant clam. It's fire.
Even if it doesn't factor into the plot, you'd think they could at least give us a clameo.
Cheeta was briefly in the episode, but Jai wasn't. He was probably off playing with his pal the giant clam.
_______
Star Trek
"The Doomsday Machine"
Originally aired October 20, 1967
Stardate 4202.9
MeTV said:
The Enterprise must stop an ancient doomsday weapon that is capable of destroying entire worlds, and has already totaled one Constellation-class cruiser.
See my post here.
_______
The Prisoner
"Free for All"
Originally aired October 20, 1967 (UK)
Wiki said:
Presented with the opportunity, Number Six runs for election to the post of Number Two.
No. 2 has a flash mob!
Echoing one of my thoughts, 6 raises the question of who are really prisoners and who are in on the Village scheme.
Ooh, No. 6 has to undergo a truth test...will there be a giant clam?
We finally get an episode that feels a little padded and disappointing to me. It started with the promise of being a send-up of elections, but I wasn't sure what was supposed to be going on in the middle. It seemed like 6 had temporarily succumbed to some brainwashing as part of his interrogation, but then snapped out of it and started ranting and trying to escape. There was potential here to have 6 threatening to become One of Them in the process of trying to get elected, which would have been more intriguing than finding an excuse for an obligatory Rover chase.
And it's becoming a predictable device that any female guest star turns out to be on the inside. I don't suppose we'll be seeing the female No. 2 in her own episode? That would be interesting.
_______
The Avengers
"Dead Man's Treasure"
Originally aired October 21, 1967 (UK)
Wiki said:
A missing briefcase full of secrets propels Steed and Emma into a treasure hunt by car.
This episode turned out to be more entertaining than other recent installments thanks to its colorful premise. A contact of Steed's has left secret information in a treasure chest that's the prize in a car race / scavenger hunt, so Steed and Peel join the competition to get to the chest first. Things are complicated by the fact that not only are the enemy agents who killed Steed's contact also in the race, but another party who's willing to use deadly means to win the monetary prize.
Steed gets paired with a pretty girl who has a lot of dead fiances in her past (though that angle doesn't go anywhere), and proves to be a distraction to his driving...
John Steed said:
It's a short skirt...I mean a short cut.
And I've never been much of a car guy, but the enemy agents are driving a distractingly pretty Jaguar XK-E convertible.
Another well-delivered Steedism...
John Steed said:
They told me this windscreen was bulletproof.
Mrs. Peel is tortured for the final clue via a racing simulator that delivers electric shocks for making mistakes. It turns out that she was practically sitting on the treasure, as it was hidden in the simulator.
The coda features a really ridiculous gag about Steed's shaver being used in "reverse" to put a mustache on Emma.
Guests include Ivor Dean (Inspector Teal from
The Saint) as the butler of the eccentric millionaire who's running the contest.
_______
Get Smart
"Maxwell Smart, Private Eye"
Originally Aired October 21, 1967
Xfinity said:
Max opens his own spy agency to help make ends meet when there's a cutback at CONTROL.
Sources seem to differ as to whether the title is "Private Eye" or "Private Spy". The former makes more sense, as Max actually opens a private eye office, not a spy agency. According to the Wiki entry, this episode won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series.
This episode spoofs private eye tropes that I primarily know from other spoofs and homages. It kind of sticks out in this situation that Max doesn't use (or know yet?) 99's real name. Max finds himself in a conflict of interest situation, selling his clients information that he only knows from his CONTROL mission. If we were taking things half-seriously, he'd be tried for treason for that sort of thing.
The Chief is back, but the Cone of Silence is gone due to the budget cut, so they use the Closet of Silence.
Some good gags:
- A passenger gets out of a cab as it passes his stop in the middle of a high-speed chase.
- Max's first client, a beautiful woman, downs both drinks that Max pours.
- Max walks through his glass office door in the dark.
- The Chief turns out to be moonlighting as a janitor in the building that Max's office is in.
Maxwell Smart said:
The old "Wilbur in the drape" trick.
What's with 99's gun being partly red? It looks like a squirt gun.
_______
Yes, that's the reaction I was expecting! Never heard this one in my life before discovering it here. Back! Back to the crypt, foul beast!
