episode #17 - The Pal-Mir Escort

episode #4 of 2nd season / Air Date: 10/4/74    written by Margaret & Paul Schneider    Directed by Lawrence Dobkin

A road-trip-type episode, in which Austin plays bodyguard to a visiting prime minister (Anne Revere); she's elderly now but used to be some kind of freedom fighter (she speaks of the old days, sleeping next to a big rock with a rifle in her lap). She's also ill and Dr. Rudy Wells wants to perform the 1st bionic heart transplant on her. To convince her, they show her footage of Austin in action - so she's another one who gets to know all about Austin's powers.
Of course, being a highly-ranked political figure, she has enemies... and they (led by Denny Miller) try their best to bushwack the small group, who are traveling in a special van to get to the facility. I at first thought that the prime minister's continual desire to make pitstops (placing them all in danger) was silly but we find out at the end that there were special reasons for this. Not bad - road trips always have some interesting moments. BoG's Score: 6 out of 10
Bionic Trivia:
at one point, the travelers stop to help a young couple move their van out of the sand (Austin does it surreptitiously by his lonesome); the young man meditating in a field (see still above) is played by future director John Landis.