episode #68 - Task Force

episode #11 of 4th season / Air Date: 12/19/76 written by Robert C. Dennis directed by Barry Crane

A mostly no-nonsense, nuts 'n' bolts action adventure episode about mercs and mission training and infiltration: Austin already went undercover a few days prior as the episode begins; OSI had gotten wind of some mercenary group planning to attack the USA so Oscar Goldman sent in Austin as one of the applicants for the merc 'army' - it's a small group actually, only 7 or 8 guys. The villain sergeant and recruiter (Alex Cord) recognizes Austin from somewhere but can't recall the details. This also features, mostly in amusing scenes, the last appearance of secretary Callahan (Jennifer Darling) on the show (though she would make more appearances on The Bionic Woman). She has to get very involved in the mission action since Steve's contact took sick with appendicitis and Goldman was out of contact. The merc plan is to steal the parts off a new missile which is to be transported over the roads of CA very soon.
This was a pretty good action episode, with some suspense as we wait to see if/when the villain remembers where/when he had last seen Austin. Austin makes friends with one of the mercs, who has a bum knee - that's one thing about this mercenary group: they're not too intimidating or impressive, being mostly a bunch of disgruntled guys who had problems making it in conventional jobs. I think they all had military backgrounds - the villain is one of those ex-army guys-gone-bad - but mostly they seemed to be average joes who would need a lot of training. The training, however, seems very simple (jogging, jumping from a tree onto a jeep moving 10 mph); yet, they pull off the mission no sweat - which doesn't say much for our real army, who fall for the old 'take-the-other-road-and-tunnel' trick. The most memorable moment is when Austin thinks Callahan might have been blown up in an explosion. BoG's Score: 6.5 out of 10