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I just received my U.N.C.L.E. set yesterday and have to agree with Duncan's assessment that the presentation leaves much to be desired. Checking against some old tapes I recorded some 20 years ago off local TV, I see the same dirt and scratches on the prints as on the current DVDs. The DVD contrast and color are sharp, but also enhance the existing print damage. It seems little effort was made in the way of restoration. That said, quality varies from episode to episode. A couple of my favorite 4th season shows have problems. 'The Deadly Quest Affair' (with Darren McGavin AND Timothy Carey!) looks pretty beat and 'The Maze Affair' has some strange barring. But the 2nd season 'Nowhere Affair' looks fairly pristine. In any event, none of the shows I've watched so far even approaches the gob-stopping sheen on the WILD WILD WEST sets. Pity.

But it's still U.N.C.L.E., and I'm glad to have it. The featurettes, featuring interviews with cast and crew, are informative, and have a nice chummy atmosphere. But you really don't want to watch them all at once - they're so stylistically similar that it tends to grind after a while. Resist the temptation to wolf them all down at once and you'll get more out of them. Me, I'm a glutton, and I'm feeling a little stuffed. The 'Cloak and Swagger' featurette, detailing the creation and launch of the show, is especially good. But David McCallum's home movies are the hands down highlight.

I'm practicing extreme control in holding back on 'The Alexander thte Greater Affair' two-parter for a day or so, to allow one of my Superspy buddies to come view it with me. These episodes were pulled right after they were turned into ONE SPY TOO MANY, and feature added scenes and alternate editing/music. I don't believe I've ever seen them in this format. One of the featurettes included a brief clip not in the film and I got so excited I almost buckled. But discipline remains intact.

So - it's wonderful to finally have the series commercially available, the extras are great, the packaging is creative, but I wish the same level of care had gone into the presentation of the episodes themselves.

Finally, as much as people rightfully complain about the comedic excesses of season 3, it's actually sort of nice to be reminded that season 2 had a few duffers, (notably 'The Roundtable Affair' and 'The Indian Affairs Affair'), while season 3 included the genuinely weird 'The Sort-Of-Do-It-Yourself-Dreadful Affair' and the nostaglic and colorful 'The Concrete Overcoat Affair'.

As I'm digging deeper into the set, I'm finding more episodes that look generally fine - still a few scrtaches and blemishes, but sharp image and fine color. Particularly good looking are the unaired color pilot, SOLO, and the 2 part ALEXANDER THE GREATER AFFAIR (with some especially lovely lighting effects) - perhaps due to the fact they were never in syndication. ALEXANDER looks practically right out of the vault. Among the scenes from the episode trimmed for the moive, we find out that the ruthless criminal genius with dreams of world conquest is the son of appliance dealers from Dayton, Ohio. Dayton: breeding ground for tyrants...

Interesting...I'm going from the information in the Jon Heitland U.N.C.L.E. book and my own experience taping the show - sans 'Alexander' but otherwise complete. Both the book and my tapes are exactly 20 years old, so clearly my info is out of date. I do recall reading somewhere around that time that then-recent syndication relaunch marked a return of Harlan Ellison's 'Pieces of Fate', which had been the target of a lawsuit. Which cable channel did 'Alexander' pop up on?