Well, that's two hours I'll never get back. I woulda/shoulda bowed out after the first hour if I weren't such an OCD-addled completist. Gotta watch 'em all, right?
Mind Stealers was a dreadful two-parter that like so many double-length episodes could easily and efficiently been done in one. That would have at least spared us the padding, the puffing, and the palaver by the Space Council. If you thought our government had problems, this rogues' gallery is running the universe? A man with lipstick and a woman with a nose hoop who sneer and derisively chuckle at primitive earthlings but seriously consider committing intellectual genocide by allowing the whole planet to go insane just so they can eliminate their nagging problem with the Skrill.
On that note, as a comic book fan, I heard "Skrill" and immediately thought of those green-faced, shape-shifting impersonators from the fifth quadrant of the Andromeda galaxy, the Skrulls.
While nobody missed the tributes to STAR WARS with the poor man's Darth Vader and those Artooesque bleeps and bloops, many were unaware of Stephen Kandel's successfully sneaking in an alien race drawn from Fantastic Four #2 (and many issues thereafter). Kandel perhaps presumed only DC Comics readers would be watching Wonder Woman.
Believing one good swipe deserves another, Marvel Comics a couple years later in '79 published a series called "Rom: Spaceknight" that bore striking similarities to the plot of Mind Stealers. Just sub in the alien avenger Rom for Andros and the Dire Wraiths for the Skrill. Rom would travel around uncovering aliens in human form much like Andros did that phony general.
(And David Vincent was doing the same on THE INVADERS a decade earlier, and a decade before that saw INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, a remake of which came out in 1978, just a year after these episodes aired.)
Two-parters are notoriously larded with filler. So many scenes in this one needed trimming, like the initial victims welcoming the aliens with upraised hands, aping the naked couple on the Pioneer Plaque (thankfully, this pair kept their pants on!). And would somebody please throw that teacher from a train? Did we need that extended field trip scene with Johnny and Debbie going so ga-ga for flora they ignored their teacher's nails on a chalkboard caterwauling their names again and again? No.
In addition to all the scenes with the Space Council and the New Agey meditation method for of contacting them, other meaningless moments that could have been trimmed and left on the cutting room floor include the knockoff Doublemint Twins persuading the landlady to let them into Diana's apartment with some ruse about a birthday surprise. And on that note, yikes, did the producers even try to find wigs for the stuntpeople that matched the actresses' blonde tresses? No, they just plucked two gray, curly ones out of Phyllis Diller's trashcan.
So what was good about the show? Very little. One highlight was Dack Rambo. I've been a fan of his since THE GUNS OF WILL SONNETT, and here he again played a son in the shadow of his father, the original Andros, Tim O'Connor. I suspected O'Connor was passed over in favor of the younger, dashing Dack in order to foment a star-crossed romance with Diana. That subplot was never really developed, and frankly, I'm grateful.
Vince Van Patten (Johnny) and Kristin Larkin (Debbie) were also very good, though they wore out their welcome with way too much screen time. Larkin's EXORCIST moment was very effectively played (and thankfully sans the pea soup!), though the sleepy-eyed and shaggy-headed hippie doctor was a casting dud. Regis Cordic made the most of his one scene as the grumpy college prof who detested being disturbed when he's eating, though was game for sticking half a hard-boiled egg on his noggin in the name of science!
STAR WARS was the blockbuster movie of 1977, but a runner up was SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, and I enjoyed the homage paid to that film with the exasperated police captain, speeding cop car crashes, and C. B. lingo. This movie-length exercise in audience endurance needed some levity, and Captain Pirelli and his Keystone Kops provided it.
But the derivative and dully executed story is secondary to my greatest grievance: Lynda Carter, who has begun playing this fun and fanciful role with a sharp edge. Watch how she rushes past Steve to be first out the door, how she's brusque with Steve when he phones, and is put out the one time Steve is actually calling for Andros. Steve's role has already been diminished, to the show's peril, but why add insult to injury? Whether this was the actress' prerogative or the director's dictate, the result is the same. The affable charm Carter displayed in earlier episodes has fast eroded. This series is supposed to fun, frothy, escapist fare. Why so serious?
First they took away the animated comic book opening, then the catchy lyrics to the theme song, and now even the closing freeze-frame smile is gone!
Mind Stealers was a dreadful two-parter that like so many double-length episodes could easily and efficiently been done in one. That would have at least spared us the padding, the puffing, and the palaver by the Space Council. If you thought our government had problems, this rogues' gallery is running the universe? A man with lipstick and a woman with a nose hoop who sneer and derisively chuckle at primitive earthlings but seriously consider committing intellectual genocide by allowing the whole planet to go insane just so they can eliminate their nagging problem with the Skrill.
On that note, as a comic book fan, I heard "Skrill" and immediately thought of those green-faced, shape-shifting impersonators from the fifth quadrant of the Andromeda galaxy, the Skrulls.
While nobody missed the tributes to STAR WARS with the poor man's Darth Vader and those Artooesque bleeps and bloops, many were unaware of Stephen Kandel's successfully sneaking in an alien race drawn from Fantastic Four #2 (and many issues thereafter). Kandel perhaps presumed only DC Comics readers would be watching Wonder Woman.
Believing one good swipe deserves another, Marvel Comics a couple years later in '79 published a series called "Rom: Spaceknight" that bore striking similarities to the plot of Mind Stealers. Just sub in the alien avenger Rom for Andros and the Dire Wraiths for the Skrill. Rom would travel around uncovering aliens in human form much like Andros did that phony general.
(And David Vincent was doing the same on THE INVADERS a decade earlier, and a decade before that saw INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, a remake of which came out in 1978, just a year after these episodes aired.)
Two-parters are notoriously larded with filler. So many scenes in this one needed trimming, like the initial victims welcoming the aliens with upraised hands, aping the naked couple on the Pioneer Plaque (thankfully, this pair kept their pants on!). And would somebody please throw that teacher from a train? Did we need that extended field trip scene with Johnny and Debbie going so ga-ga for flora they ignored their teacher's nails on a chalkboard caterwauling their names again and again? No.
In addition to all the scenes with the Space Council and the New Agey meditation method for of contacting them, other meaningless moments that could have been trimmed and left on the cutting room floor include the knockoff Doublemint Twins persuading the landlady to let them into Diana's apartment with some ruse about a birthday surprise. And on that note, yikes, did the producers even try to find wigs for the stuntpeople that matched the actresses' blonde tresses? No, they just plucked two gray, curly ones out of Phyllis Diller's trashcan.
So what was good about the show? Very little. One highlight was Dack Rambo. I've been a fan of his since THE GUNS OF WILL SONNETT, and here he again played a son in the shadow of his father, the original Andros, Tim O'Connor. I suspected O'Connor was passed over in favor of the younger, dashing Dack in order to foment a star-crossed romance with Diana. That subplot was never really developed, and frankly, I'm grateful.
Vince Van Patten (Johnny) and Kristin Larkin (Debbie) were also very good, though they wore out their welcome with way too much screen time. Larkin's EXORCIST moment was very effectively played (and thankfully sans the pea soup!), though the sleepy-eyed and shaggy-headed hippie doctor was a casting dud. Regis Cordic made the most of his one scene as the grumpy college prof who detested being disturbed when he's eating, though was game for sticking half a hard-boiled egg on his noggin in the name of science!
STAR WARS was the blockbuster movie of 1977, but a runner up was SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, and I enjoyed the homage paid to that film with the exasperated police captain, speeding cop car crashes, and C. B. lingo. This movie-length exercise in audience endurance needed some levity, and Captain Pirelli and his Keystone Kops provided it.
But the derivative and dully executed story is secondary to my greatest grievance: Lynda Carter, who has begun playing this fun and fanciful role with a sharp edge. Watch how she rushes past Steve to be first out the door, how she's brusque with Steve when he phones, and is put out the one time Steve is actually calling for Andros. Steve's role has already been diminished, to the show's peril, but why add insult to injury? Whether this was the actress' prerogative or the director's dictate, the result is the same. The affable charm Carter displayed in earlier episodes has fast eroded. This series is supposed to fun, frothy, escapist fare. Why so serious?
First they took away the animated comic book opening, then the catchy lyrics to the theme song, and now even the closing freeze-frame smile is gone!