episode #14 - Brainwash

BRAINWASH - episode #14 / production #15 / Air Date: 1/12/69
written by William Welch; Directed by Harry Harris

Capt. Steve and Fitzhugh run into a drain pipe and stumble across an advanced computer set-up in a cave - built by little people! It turns out, this is what's left of an Earth expedition from 3 years prior; Mark recognizes the equipment as constructed by his own company. The radio transmitter is still receiving from Earth; early in the story, Steve tells Fitzhugh not to touch the controls as he's leaving; well, we know what will happen Two giants, a police captain (Warren Stevens) and a scientist (Leonard Stone), are monitoring the transmissions. They want to track down the location of this set-up.
In this episode, the giant police captain spells it out: Earth technology, according to him, is 50 years ahead of the giants' (this doesn't make much sense, but... ). To get their hands on such technology is obviously a primary goal of the giants. It gets really hokey when Steve is captured and the giant scientist uses a foam to control Steve's mind; the foam is found to be deadly after a few minutes, yet they take their time in starting to question Steve.
Another wacky scenes occurs near the end when Mark, who's good at these things, is about to contact Earth; Steve halts him because the giants know where they are and Steve wants to hit a self-destruct switch. Mark says he just needs 5 minutes; Steve declines. They have this big fight scene which lasts almost 5 minutes anyway - I sometimes get this feeling that Steve has no desire to return to Earth; maybe he likes being in charge of this small group too much .

There is a rather spectacular action finale to this one - more than usual - and the intro of (as opposed to the giant hand) the giant foot prop. However, I didn't really get how

Spoiler:

BoG's Score: 5 out of 10


Giants Trivia: Star Trek TOS Actor Alert:
Warren Stevens also played an alien in By Any Other Name of that series and is well known for his role as the doctor of the crew in Forbidden Planet (1956)