Ah, differing from the majority, as usual.

I love Arte, I really do. And in real-life, I'm more partial to Ross Martin than Robert Conrad. But I have to admit, when it comes to the characters, I like Jim the best. He's more the type I gravitate to: silent and aloof with a dry wit and sarcasm, but still obviously, deeply affected when something happens to Arte. Arte, I love him, but his more humorous outlook and brand of womanizing I usually don't go for in a character. I love his techie interests, though.

It's pretty lonely sometimes, to prefer Jim in the Wild Wild West fandom. Almost everyone I run into likes Arte the best. I think I only know of a couple of people who like Jim best.

Of course, I love them both, and I just absolutely adore their friendship. Squeee. But I wish I could find where the Jim fans are hiding.

LOL, on this WWW message board I'm on, someone speculated that Jim fans are lesser seen because they're quiet and secure, like Jim himself, and don't often feel the need to speak up.

I also started thinking about Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. I haven't seen too much of that show yet, granted, but I'm having a harder time getting into the idea of those characters having a close friendship. They care about each other and don't want anything horrible to happen to each other, of course, and yet I definitely don't sense the same sort of friendship between them as between Jim and Arte. It seems like most of what I see is cracking jokes over injuries and rivalries over women, the typical, tired sorts of things I see on shows a lot.

It makes me realize how unique Jim and Arte's friendship really is. They crack some jokes here and there, but there really isn't any rivalry over women to speak of, and it's so much more obvious how much they care about each other, especially once we get into the latter part of season 1 and on into the color seasons.

I keep hoping to find some friendship squee between Napoleon and Illya, but I wonder if much really exists. I do love the episode with Darren McGavin, though, and how determined Napoleon is to find Illya and save him from the madman. It could be interpreted more as him looking out for his fellow agent rather than thinking of Illya as a friend, but it is the closest thing to squee I've found so far, and I prefer to think of it as proof of a real friendship there.

It does look like there's some GIFs on Tumblr of more friendshippy scenes, so maybe hopefully my impressions are still mostly wrong and they are very close.

In any case, the U.N.C.L.E. show itself is pretty much The Wild Wild West in the modern day. It makes me toy with the idea of a crossover between the shows sometime.

Speaking of Darren McGavin, too, I had kind of thought he had dropped back to my second tier of celebrities. Ever since I realized how little Kolchak appreciated Tony in the second movie, I just haven't been able to feel the same about him, and I realized that Kolchak was a large part of my crush on Darren. I feel bad that I can't seem to get past that block now, as I really want to and wish that I could find a way.

But when I saw Darren on U.N.C.L.E., even though he was the bad guy, I felt a little thrill when he took off his sunglasses and I saw the classic Darren smile. It made me happy that the crush is still there, regardless of my wrestle over what I think about Kolchak.

I guess once someone makes it to my top tier, they stay there.