The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - The Complete Series | Robert Vaughn, David McCallum

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - The Complete Series | Robert Vaughn, David McCallum | My favorite TV show ever - finally on DVD!

DVDs:

The Man from U.N.C...

	The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - The Complete Series Robert Vaughn, David McCallum Warner Home Video, 2008 average customer review:based on 96 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Pricey, but well worth the wait for UNCLE fans....

No doubt "The Man from UNCLE" was a trendsetting series that became a milestone in the spy genre on commercial television. A Golden Globe award winner in 1965 for "Best TV Series," the show was was clearly one of the most popular spy dramas on television and paved the way for many to follow. Lead characters, Napoleon Solo(Robert Vaughn) and Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) are the intrepid agents from UNCLE or, better known as the United Network Command for Law Enforcement, whose nemesis is THRUSH, an organization out to thwart UNCLE in its bid for world domination. The tounge-in-cheek style of the series along with the numerous gadgets (as seen in the Bond films of the day and the highly popular "Secret Agent" with Patrick McGoohan) was clearly in step with the times and accounted for the series strong appeal with younger audiences--especially college students.

This set, beautifully packaged in a sturdy cardboard "briefcase" with the UNCLE logo and latches to keep it closed tight is a textbook example of superb packaging and marketing. Paramount should have followed Warner Brothers lead from this when they repackaged the High Definition remastered and "retouched" (read: new special effects and CGI added!) Star Trek original series this year, but inside this magnificent UNCLE set you will find all four seasons (Season One was in black and white) and the color pilot episode "Solo." Also included is the UNCLE theatrical feature, 'One Spy Too Many." But there's more for fans to savor....

With over 10 hours of added features, Warner Brothers has included not only nine featurettes that explore the series' impact on TV as well as a focus on the UNCLE phenomenon, but extensive interviews with McCallum and Vaughn and many of Hollywood's A-list at the time who were guest stars on the series. With design and photo galleries galore, plus the Tom and Jerry cartoon feature, "The Mouse From HUNGER," what more could "The Man From UNCLE" fan possibly want?

Overall, the remastered quality of the transfers is excellent for all 105 episodes on 41 DVDs and presented in Standard Format. Additionally, there are booklets for each of the seasons with details about the episodes, guest stars, shooting schedules, and other useful trivia vintage television fans want. I was fortunate enough to pre-order the set several months ago to take advantage of the special introductory price of $139.99. All in all, with over 5000 minutes of vintage spy TV in this set, and a very entertaining show to boot, fans will find it worth every penny.

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My favorite TV show ever - finally on DVD!

I've been waiting literally decades for a release of the complete series of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." on video. For many years, the adventures of Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin were difficult to find on syndication, until the Christian Broadcasting Network (of all stations!) brought the series back in the mid-1980's. (I still have old VHS tapes of episodes that I recorded off CBN back then.) Later on, Turner Network Television picked up the show and ran it off and on for years - in fact, they ran all eight of the U.N.C.L.E. movies in an all-day marathon in November 2007 - and about forty of the episodes were released on VHS in the 1990's. Finally, Time-Life released the entire series in 2007 (the package identical to what you see here) and it was THE event of the decade among U.N.C.L.E. fans.

Basically, what we have here is, in my somewhat prejudiced opinion, one of the best DVD collections I've ever seen. Let me get my one quibble out of the way first; the briefcase the set comes in is not as sturdy as it could be, in fact, as a lot of people reported last year, it's actually pretty flimsy. Also, the "booklets" the DVD's come in aren't as sturdy as they should be. Some people recommend that for best protection and long-term storage, you should get a good-quality CD/DVD wallet and put the discs in them.

OK, that's the negative stuff out of the way. Now the positive:

1) EVERY episode of the show is present, digitally remastered from the best available copies. This was, in fact, a major reason why DVD release was delayed - the producers were trying to track down good-quality copies of many episodes, particularly from the first season. One especial jewel in this collection is the famous "lost" episode, "The Pieces of Fate Affair" (written by Harlan Ellison), which was withheld from syndication for many years because of fears of potential legal complications due to all the real-life people lampooned in the script. The quality of the discs is uniformly good and every episode has been closed-captioned for the hearing-impaired.

2) The extras. All four seasonal collections have extras (the first three seasons have a disc devoted entirely to bonus items), including such goodies as the original "Solo" pilot, the feature film "One Of Our Spies Is Missing" (collated from the two-parter "Alexander the Greater Affair", one of the series' finest episodes), etc. In addition, there are two bonus discs separate from the main packages crammed full of minifeatures on every aspect of the show.

3) The series itself. "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." justly deserves its reputation as one of the great classic shows of American television. As with every episodic TV show, the quality of the episodes varies from installment to installment; the first season is almost universally held to be the best one by hardcore fans, but the much-maligned third season actually has, among all the "Batman"-style silliness, a number of excellent episodes (the aforementioned "Pieces of Fate Affair", for example, and also "The Concrete Overshoes Affair", another two-part episode converted into a feature movie). The overarching themes of the show still hold up surprisingly well today, and the interaction among the show's stars - Robert Vaughn, David McCallum and Leo G. Carroll - is a pure joy to watch. (See Vaughn's new autobiography, also available through Amazon, for his own reminiscences of the U.N.C.L.E. days!)

Unqualified recommmendation. It may look pricey, but it's worth every single penny. Buy it today!!

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It's unanimous this full DVD set is Great!

Excellent quality digital transfers.
Lots of great extras and bonus material.
You'll need a lot of time to watch all these - but it's great being able to buy the whole kit in the cardboard briefcase and not having to wait for each season or half season to come out separately.
It also I find for the price is a very good value - and may perhaps become a collectable.
This set represents what DVD's should be - superb picture quality - and a vast improvement over VHS tapes.
If you enjoyed the show this complete set is a real treat!

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Waited for 40 years for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. on DVD

This was my favorite tv show back in the 60's. I had reel-to-reel tape of some of the episodes. Then they released some of the episodes on VHS (2 episodes per tape at $20 no less). Now the box set on DVD, Long wait but worth it. My favorite of the 2 actors is David McCallum.

GREAT SERIES. GREAT PACKAGING, BUT

I received the complete series, from Amazon.com, at a very good price, in a nice cardboard case. Of course, I am a fan, having seen only the series in color, and dubbed, plus the movies length couplings in english, and some episodes in english VHS.
Only one thing is missing from the Warner case: I feeel that, as fans, we should have received a blank U.N.C.L.E. card.
The packaging is very nice, not cumbersome, but the discs, on one side are very difficult to extract, which is not very nice.

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