episode #34 - Outrage in Balinderry

episode #21 of 2nd season / Air Date: 4/20/75    written by Paul & Margaret Schneider  Directed by Earl Bellamy

We're back to standard spy-type thrills and special missions with this one, though this wasn't anything planned by OSI and Steve Austin sort of acts on his own here. It takes place in the small fictional island nation of Balinderry, kind of a stand-in for Ireland, where the IBA is in conflict with the established government. Negotiations were about to go to the next level but then the wife of the U.S. ambassador (William Sylvester of 2001 fame) is kidnapped. Austin decides to help out where normal channels cannot. He meets a stewardess (Martine Beswick, a staple of Hammer films in the late sixties/early seventies), but she may be more than she seems.

This one suggested a large budget, with some nice location shooting, some of it at a dam. There's also some stock footage of army movements in the beginning. Most of the guest actors speak with an Irish accent and it is good casting - I especially was impressed with the actor playing the small role of a general. The young revolutionary was played by Gavan O'Herlihy, later in mostly bad guy roles. It's somewhat tepid overall, though, an attempt to be topical in regards to the volatile IRA of that time. BoG's Score: 6 out of 10
Bionic Trivia: besides the bionics and fictional countries that are presented on some TV shows like this, this episode has a more visual sci-fi glimpse of this being a truly alternate Earth a bit over 5 minutes in, when a world map behind Austin shows us a differently-shaped Northern American continent - the Canadian part of it, also with no Great Lakes - and what looks like an additional continent above Asia    - holy parallel Earth reality!