Another of my old manips. This one shows Illya and Napoleon passing the time between the end of a mission and the flight home.

October, 2016

Of course this is the result of the varying level of seriousness with which both shows take themselves. Man From UNCLE, especially as the series progresses, is tongue-in-cheek, it's camp, it's unserious, so while the characters experience more violence and danger, it's cartoon violence and the danger doesn't register as concerning to the audience because of how silly the conditions of it are. Mission: Impossible is grounded, so the dangers feel real, and since the characters are often depicted as having most, if not all, control in a situation, when that control slips even slightly; you feel like they might actually die in a way you don't when watching MFU

So their approaches to missions make sense for the narratives they're in. Like, I think Illya and Napoleon trying to do their job under Mission: Impossible logic wouldn't make it two days before they're dead in a ditch somewhere, but! equally I think the IMF would react to the chaos of the MFU world like a person sitting passenger in a vehicle driven by a maniac who's about to veer off the road, gripping the car handle for dear life