With trying to timeline anything in MFU, you have to just go with what little was given and then create a timeline that works for your own MFU fiction universe.
The series' writers were freelance and paid little attention to logical continuance of what other writers had previously done. (And that PhD given Illya in Season 3 was really ridiculous anyway considering not only timeline, but the fact that in Season 2 in VIRTUE he was shown as not even knowing how to talk to scientists in a "scientific" way. And then again in Season 4, in MAZE he makes a comment about it being valuable to have a physicist as a fellow captive with regard to Fabray. So obviously he didn't consider himelf such.) So honestly go with what works for you. As long as there are no glaring time-goofs, it's really hard to question whether this or that is a year or so off to one side or the other.
Also remember, in GAZEBO IN THE MAZE, though Illya is mentioned by Solo as having been part of the original Partridge mission, Illya himself does not recognize Partridge during that initial bus setup at the start of the episode. So, as I've mentioned before, it is quite possible Illya played a very minor role in that mission, perhaps in some sort of technical capacity. And more than likely he was working under Beldon, not Waverly, at that time. If the mission was big enough, no reason agents from several different U.N.C.L.E. offices might not have been working in tandem on it. Thus, though Solo was working out of New York, Illya didn't have to be in order to be involved in the same mission. (And Partridge was a Brit, so the initial investigation regarding him and his antics in South America could very well have been initiated in U.N.C.L.E.'s London office.)
And sorry, just have to say this, the RETURN movie to me is no more canon than the silly ACE novels. It, like the novels, was done strictly with commercialism in mind. There was no real effort to make either conform to the setup of the original series. With the movie, CBS (not even the same network as the original series) was trying to capture "lightning in a bottle" for a second time. It didn't work (basically because they didn't get it even halfway right), so they moved on and the movie has blessedly been mostly forgotten.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-04-03 06:24 am (UTC)The series' writers were freelance and paid little attention to logical continuance of what other writers had previously done. (And that PhD given Illya in Season 3 was really ridiculous anyway considering not only timeline, but the fact that in Season 2 in VIRTUE he was shown as not even knowing how to talk to scientists in a "scientific" way. And then again in Season 4, in MAZE he makes a comment about it being valuable to have a physicist as a fellow captive with regard to Fabray. So obviously he didn't consider himelf such.) So honestly go with what works for you. As long as there are no glaring time-goofs, it's really hard to question whether this or that is a year or so off to one side or the other.
Also remember, in GAZEBO IN THE MAZE, though Illya is mentioned by Solo as having been part of the original Partridge mission, Illya himself does not recognize Partridge during that initial bus setup at the start of the episode. So, as I've mentioned before, it is quite possible Illya played a very minor role in that mission, perhaps in some sort of technical capacity. And more than likely he was working under Beldon, not Waverly, at that time. If the mission was big enough, no reason agents from several different U.N.C.L.E. offices might not have been working in tandem on it. Thus, though Solo was working out of New York, Illya didn't have to be in order to be involved in the same mission. (And Partridge was a Brit, so the initial investigation regarding him and his antics in South America could very well have been initiated in U.N.C.L.E.'s London office.)
And sorry, just have to say this, the RETURN movie to me is no more canon than the silly ACE novels. It, like the novels, was done strictly with commercialism in mind. There was no real effort to make either conform to the setup of the original series. With the movie, CBS (not even the same network as the original series) was trying to capture "lightning in a bottle" for a second time. It didn't work (basically because they didn't get it even halfway right), so they moved on and the movie has blessedly been mostly forgotten.