episode #77 - The Privacy of the Mind

episode #20 of 4th season / Air Date: 2/27/77 written by Vanessa Boos,Wilton Schiller directed by Jimmy Lydon

One of OSI's scientists (Roger Perry) is being coaxed by another employee to do one week's work for secret "friends" - for a million dollars pay. Fortunately, the scientist is ethical and reports this to Oscar Goldman. Austin, in greying make-up, impersonates the scientist when he's taken by the "friends" to a secret location. He's to work with a female Russian scientist on a discarded project involving mind reading. This isn't mystical - it's a scientific invention; the two scientists had approached it from different directions and, pooling their knowledge, should be able to come up with a final product. The culprit behind the scenes is some Soviet official. Paul Mantee (Robinson Crusoe on Mars-1964) plays the on-site bad guy in charge.
Much of this episode plays on the amusing notion that Austin's scientist character is very weak physically. He overplays this to the extent that he can't even keep up with the female scientist when they try to escape. The bad guy and the henchmen naturally underestimate Austin severely, laughing at his ineptitude. Of course, when he goes into action in the final minutes, they can't begin to cope with him. This was also an interesting look at OSI from the inside. Overall, though, it was average, and it really strains credibility that the villains didn't know what the real scientist looked like - this seems very careless of them, not even having a photo of the man. But, that was the only way for the whole plot to work. BoG's Score: 6 out of 10

Bionic Trivia: Leslie Moonves has a small role in this episode; he went on to a long career as a bigshot executive and president of entertainment corporations, and married Julie Chen; actor Perry previously appeared in the 2nd season's The Peeping Blonde episode. Star Trek TOS actor alert: he also played a pilot in Tomorrow is Yesterday