The Round Table discussion

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

I'm stepping in for Glennagirl today.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. television series had enumerable stars and starlets guesting on the show as innocents as well as the villains. There were very few baddies who repeated their role, G. Emory Partridge for one, and perhaps Gervais Ravel.  My mind is going blank, but were there any other repeat villains? Some stars returned to play the innocents after having been the bad guy, and of course Jill Ireland but lets not go there with her...

Would it have made for more drama if Napoleon and Illya had a regular arch nemesis?(other than the organization of THRUSH)

Who was your favorite villain or villainess and why?  

Comments

[insaneladybug.livejournal.com]

An interesting question! I'm not sure what my preference is. I liked having THRUSH as a whole as the arch-nemesis. It could have been interesting to have someone be the Really Big Bad who popped up now and then, but every time I try to think of it I keep coming up with Dr. Loveless from The Wild Wild West and then I am promptly amused and can't concentrate on thinking of an appropriate one for U.N.C.L.E.

I do love it when characters, both good and bad, recur on U.N.C.L.E. It shows continuity, something lacking in most classic TV shows.

As for ones who didn't recur that one might like to see do so, that is a tough question. Sometimes, as a fanfic writer, I prefer for characters to only appear once. I've been disappointed sometimes when a beloved oneshot character has recurred in canon and they don't seem the same as they did the first time. (That happened on The Rockford Files more than once, sigh.) However, U.N.C.L.E. seemed to have a pretty good track record with keeping personalities the same when characters recurred, so maybe they would have done justice to any oneshot character.

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

There were very few recurring characters, mainly Partridge, not so sure about Ravel. I think the continuity with Partridge was simply because the character was played by the great George Sanders both times.

Dr Egret was portrayed by 2 different actors so there was little continuity other than the character's name per se.

They had some great baddies who just never reappeared...shame.

[insaneladybug.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that could be, but I think scripts play a part too. One of the Rockford characters I mentioned was played by a very talented actor, but the scripts he was given to work with for the character's second and third appearances were very lackluster and only showed the character's bad side, instead of the more well-rounded character we saw the first time.

Yes, Egret could have been played by almost anyone, given her penchant for disguise.

Oh, I thought of one I wanted to see return! Victor Buono's character!

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

Since there were really no recurring characters, except the ones mentioned, it's a moot point about the script. In the case of G. Emory Partridge, it was pure George Sanders coming through, regardless of the scripts. The Yukon Affair wasn't that good, so no accounting for the script... but Partridge was still consistent. Shame they didn't bring back his wife Edith. Now there was a well played character by Jeanette Nolan in 'The Gazebo in the Maze Affair.'