episode #35 - Steve Austin, Fugitive

episode #22 of 2nd season / Air Date: 4/27/75    written by Mark Frost & Richard Carr    Directed by Russ Mayberry

This was the rare episode in which an old foe of Austin's returns for some payback; the most popular one at doing this was Dr. Dolenz, the robot maker; in this case, it's assassin Mr. Hopper, back from Eyewitness to Murder in the 1st season. Hopper (Gary Lockwood) finds one of those employees willing to betray OSI and then frames Austin for his murder. In a case of bad timing, Oscar Goldman and Rudy Wells are out of the country, in London for arms talks, and Austin's only aid is a brand new secretary, Callahan (Jennifer Darling). Her security clearance is only  a 3 - but that doubles very quickly.
Some of this was played tongue-in-cheek, in contrast to the cold killer that Hopper demonstrates himself to be. Callahan is mostly comedy relief - at first flustered by the events and then 'getting into' the intrigue. Lee Majors himself gets into the theatrics by playing a 2nd one-scene role in heavy make-up as an old hardware store clerk, winking heavily at the audience; he didn't fool me when I just watched this, but maybe it worked back in the seventies. This culminates with Austin's bionics vs. heavy rig equipment. Though amusing, this is also mostly forgettable.  BoG's Score: 6 out of 10
Bionic Trivia: in a small role as a cop is Reb Brown, who went on to play super-hero Captain America in 2 TV movies in 1979. Goldman mentions here that he changes secretaries every 3 months, for security reasons...