Technical Difficulties

TIME: 48 min.
DISTANCE: 5.1 mi.
TOTAL DISTANCE: 174.1 mi.
DISTRACTION: "The Terbuf Affair"
NOTES: Illya's atrocious hat is only redeemed by the fact that he keeps his incindiary charges in it.
SHIRE RECKONING: We have entered the Midgewater Marshes. Pippin remembers now that he left the bug spray at the Prancing Pony.

The damn thing reset itself in the middle again, so let's call it 20 minutes and 2 miles.

TOTAL DISTANCE: 167.4 mi.
DISTRACTION: 2nd half of "King of Knaves"
NOTES: Virtupitude was mightier than DO NOT WANT, but only barely.
SHIRE RECKONING: Between the Chetwood and the Midgewater Marshes. Yay?

TIME: 50 min.
DISTANCE: 6 mi.
TOTAL DISTANCE: 162.4 mi.
DISTRACTION: "The Neptune Affair."
NOTES: Not in the mood for eight-year-old Kurt Russell tonight.
SHIRE RECKONING: In another 0.6 mi we will camp in the eastern Chetwood, and three miles after that we will get out of the forest. About damn time says I.

TIME: 50 min.
DISTANCE: 6 mi.
TOTAL DISTANCE: 150.4 mi.
DISTRACTION: "The Double Affair"
NOTES: Illya menaced by toy robots! FTW!
SHIRE RECKONING: Still in the Chetwood. If Pippin sings one more round of "Eleventy-one bottles of beer on the wall," I'm going to stuff him in a sack.

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The kindest thing one can say about the plot is that at least the TSTL is evenly divided between UNCLE and THRUSH. And the '60s As You Know Bob Handwavium has a kind of kitschy retro charm. (Apparently the gamma rays understand that it's not fair to aim for the head. Or the hands. You wear your goggles (Because if you look at them, they hypnotize you, like a cobra. Or a dragon.) and your cute white coverall, and you're fine!)

On the other hand, I really do admire Robert Vaughn's acting. You never have any difficulty telling the real Napoleon from the fake; it's partly body language and Napoleon's INCREDIBLY LIMP WRISTS (which he also totally uses to make the guards underestimate him), and it's partly that the fake Napoleon never smiles. He shares not one particle of Napoleon's joie de vivre. And I especially love the very subtle bit at the end, where the real Napoleon is trying to fake out his airline stewardess by pretending, just for a moment, to be the fake Napoleon, and he can't maintain it because he can't keep his dimples down.

[ETA: Also, the fake Napoleon doesn't kiss back.]

And, in our continuing series, BDSM Subtext in MfU Rapidly Becoming Text: only Napoleon Solo would EVER be chained face down on a cot by his captors so that a strapping Valkyrie could GIVE HIM A MASSAGE.

TIME: 25 min.
DISTANCE: 3 mi.
TOTAL DISTANCE: 141.4 mi.
DISTRACTION: 1st half of "The Giuoco Piano Affair" (which I am probably misspelling.
NOTES: Still want to drown Jill Ireland in a bucket, check.
SHIRE RECKONING: Somewhere in Chetwood.

TIME: 50 min.
DISTANCE: 6.0 mi.
TOTAL DISTANCE: 132.4 mi.
DISTRACTION: "The Green Opal Affair"
NOTES: I love how Illya apparently waited three nanoseconds after Mr. Waverly left the office to set up his samurai spinny-thing in the briefing-room-cum-agents'-lounge.
SHIRE-RECKONING: Tom has left us and Strider is hiding from us. What, is our breath bad?

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What I love most about this episode is the way it savages the hell out of Chris Brinel's "I'm just a housewife" defense. No, sweetie, you can't hide behind that. THRUSH sees right through you.

TIME: 37+ min.
DISTANCE 4.5+ mi.
TOTAL DISTANCE: 120.6 mi.
NOTES: The technology betrayed me by resetting itself, so I don't know exactly how long or how far I rowed.
SHIRE-RECKONING: We're heading for the Road, tra la.

TIME: 50 min.
DISTANCE: 6 mi.
TOTAL DISTANCE: 109.9 mi.
DISTRACTION: "The Quadripartite Affair" (MfU 1.3)
NOTES: Is it just me, or does everyone want to drown Jill Ireland in a bucket?
SHIRE-RECKONING: still lost in the Barrow-downs

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A question for those familiar with the history and geography of New York: in 1964, when the Man from U.N.C.L.E. intro says that the tailor shop entrance to HQS is in the east Forties, what is that signaling, if anything, about the neighborhood?

TIME: 50 min.
DISTANCE: 5.5 mi.
TOTAL DISTANCE: 100.9 mi. (w00t!)
DISTRACTION: "The Iowa-Scuba Affair" (MfU 1.2)
NOTES: I covet Napoleon's bathrobe.
SHIRE-RECKONING: Heading from Tom Bombadil's house toward the Barrow-downs.

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Although it suffers from a sad dearth of Illya, this episode does have one of my very favorite exchanges between Waverly and Napoleon:

WAVERLY: And definitely dead.
NAPOLEON: Oh, very dead. It was a matter of his life or mine, and I chose his.
WAVERLY: Unfortunate. . . . Unfortunate and incredible that he should recognize you. I always thought you had a very common face.

TIME: 46 min.
DISTANCE: 5 mi.
TOTAL DISTANCE: 89.9 mi.
DISTRACTION: "Spy vs. Spy" (Due South 3.8)
SHIRE-RECKONING: We've left the path (which in Tolkien is pretty much the signal to KYAG) and are getting lost.

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Have finished with Rabkin; mirrorthaw, being a Hero of the Revolution, has rearranged the room so I can watch the TV without getting a crick in my neck.