Wonder Woman 1.09

Judgement from Outer Space - Part 1

Andros, an alien from a distant solar system travels to Earth as ordered by the Council of Planets. He has been there before and has returned to observe Earth one final time. If it doesn't prove worthy then the Council has plans to destroy all humans on Earth.

Paul Bjornsen, a Nazi posing as a Swedish journalist, learns of Andros. He gets close enough to Andros to see a demonstration of his powers. He gets some inside information from Etta Candy, who has a crush on the fake Swedish journalist.

Andros meets Wonder Woman on a couple occasions, between which he also meets with the President of the United States of America. Andros explains the situation to her. He sees through her disguise as Diana Prince but he doesn't tell anyone about her dual identities.

General Blankenship gives Steve Trevor the assignment of organizing a task force to deal with Andros, in case he proves unwilling to ally himself with the Allies in World War 2. Diana Prince disapproves of the assignment and lets Steve know how she feels.

Andros visits the Library of Congress. He communicates with the Council of Planets while he is there. They inform him that they are stripping him of his powers to control the weather.

Paul Bjorsen and other Nazi agents attack Andros before he leaves the Library of Congress. Wonder Woman gets there is time to help but she is knocked out by poison gas that Bjornsen uses on her. The Nazis take off with the captured and defenseless Andros.

Wonder Woman recovers from the poison gas and goes looking for Andros spaceship. She hopes to reach out to contact the Council of Planets. She finds the spaceship but, after she steps inside, a deafening sound begins causing her great pain.

Thoughts

Tim O'Connor played the part of Andros. I know him best from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century where he played the part of Dr. Huer. This is the first of three episodes of Wonder Woman in which he appeared. He is also in the next episode and in one from the third season, although he played a different character in that episode. His longest stint on a TV show aside from Buck Rogers was on Peyton Place. He was in over 400 episodes of that show.

There were four people on the Council of Planets but only two of them has speaking parts: Gorel and Sakri. Vic Perrin played the part of Gorel. I love how close that name is to Jor-El. Perrin looked familiar to me. He was in four episodes of Star Trek (1966) but he was only seen on screen in one of them: 2.04 (Mirror, Mirror). He was disembodied voices in the other three episodes. He was also the voice of Sinestro in Super Friends. He appeared in two episodes of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

Janet MacLachlan played the part of Sakri. She has over one hundred credits according to IMdB including one appearance each on Star Trek (1966), The Invaders, and Moonlighting, but I don't believe that I have seen any of those episodes yet.

I really enjoyed this episode more than I thought I might. This might be my favorite Wonder Woman story to date. A guest star who plays their role with some gravity can make all the difference in the world and that's the case with Tim O'Connor. Hopefully the second part of this two-part story will be at least as good as the first installment.