3x14 The My Friend the Gorilla Affair

I'm rewatching every episode of the Man from UNCLE series. The My Friend the Gorilla Affair was, presumably, a story that was made up as the were shooting it. The first 20 minutes is Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin wandering, separately and aimlessly, around an African jungle. The plot, such as it is, kicks in eventually, but there's so little plot to work with that there's infamously a scene in which Napoleon Solo dances with a man in a gorilla suit (Robert Vaughn unsurprisingly cites that scene as a memorable low point of the series.)

In search of test subjects

The Professor (played by Arthur Malet) has been banned from practising medicine because he's developing a plan to create a race of superhumans, and he's been caught experimenting on unwilling human subjects. He's run off to Africa, and had allied himself with a warlord there to bully President Khufu (played by Percy Rodriguez) into giving up his own people for experimentation.

On principle, this guy's obviously a proper villain, but his actual role in the episode doesn't back that up. Sure, he's not a nice guy, but all he ever does is stand around and ask Khufu, then Kuryakin, and then Solo to please help him abduct people for his experiments. Most UNCLE villains are more bark than bite, but The Professor seems especially ineffectual because he doesn't seem to be doing anything in the mean time. His plan doesn't progress, and I'm pretty sure that if UNCLE hadn't shown up at all he'd still be there today, impolitely asking everyone he meets for human test subjects.

Gender-swapped Tarzan and the 200 pound gorilla

I'm an honest fan of Tarzan. I first discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs (and Frank Frazetta) through a stash of Tarzan (and Conan, and John Carter, Gor, and Ray Bradbury, and many more) paperbacks that my grandfather owned. I love pulp fantasy and scifi, but I don't love it in my pulp spy fiction.

Girl (played by Vitina Marcus) is a gender-swapped Tarzan, the long-lost sister of Marsha Woodhugh (played by Joyce Jillson), who has a call that summons nearby animals, and a gorilla called Baby (played by George Barrows). This is obviously the B-plottiest of B-plots. There's no connection to the A-plot, it's just a parallel story crammed into the same episode, and it's also not interesting. Both Girl and Marsha only exist to give the UNCLE agents something to do while the A-plot doesn't need them (which is most of the episode.)

George Barrows was sort of the Andy Serkis of his time. He built his gorilla suit, and then got a lot of work in Hollywood just playing that gorilla. If you've seen a gorilla in a 1950s or 1960s TV show or movie, there's a good chance it was George Barrows in his suit. That includes the Addams Family, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Incredible Hulk, Hillbillys in a Haunted House, The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, The Black Zoo, Buruuba, The Adventures of Captain Africa, Gorilla at Large, The Abbott and Costello Show, Tarzan and His Mate, and Robot Monster. I honestly wonder whether this episode was entirely the result of someone musing aloud "We should get George and his gorilla suit to do a show."

Bad episode

There's not to say about the episode because nothing happens. Solo gets captured by Girl and Baby. Illya and Marsha get captured by a big game hunter. Everybody gets captured by The Professor. Girl calls to elephants for help, and the episode ends.

It's not a good episode, and there's no way it was going to be good. Unlike the previous episode, The Abominable Snowman Affair, this one has no plot at its core. It's got an idea of a plot (a genetic scientist goes rogue) but not an idea for a plot (a genetic scientist goes rogue, and is doing something evil, and the UNCLE agents have to stop him.) It spends most of its screen time on inconsequential scenes that don't advance the plot, and aren't even charming or alluring. There's just nothing to this episode.