The Skreels disperse throughout the city seizing the most privileged minds, Wonder Woman and Andros appear before the United Nations to alert about the situation, but they are ambushed by the aliens who take over Andros's mind. Wonder Woman manages to find his hiding place and confronts the Zardoz monster to finally stop his actions. The influence of the highly successful Star Wars is evident in this episode where Wonder Woman's opponent is none other than a being with identical characteristics of Darth Vader. The episode isn't bad but it doesn't get enough of a suspense level, let alone a script level, than its prequel Judgement from Outer Space from season 1.
Wonder Woman (TV Series)
Mind Stealers from Outer Space: Part 2 (1977)
User Reviews
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Time Stealers from Hollywood
GaryPeterson6731 March 2023
Well, that's two hours I'll never get back. I woulda/shoulda bowed out after the first hour if I weren't such an OCD-addled completist. Gotta watch 'em all, right?
Mind Stealers was a dreadful two-parter that like so many double-length episodes could easily and efficiently been done in one. That would have at least spared us the padding, the puffing, and the palaver by the Space Council. If you thought our government had problems, this rogues' gallery is running the universe? A man with lipstick and a woman with a nose hoop who sneer and derisively chuckle at primitive earthlings but seriously consider committing intellectual genocide by allowing the whole planet to go insane just so they can eliminate their nagging problem with the Skrill.
On that note, as a comic book fan, I heard "Skrill" and immediately thought of those green-faced, shape-shifting impersonators from the fifth quadrant of the Andromeda galaxy, the Skrulls.
While nobody missed the tributes to STAR WARS with the poor man's Darth Vader and those Artooesque bleeps and bloops, many were unaware of Stephen Kandel's successfully sneaking in an alien race drawn from Fantastic Four #2 (and many issues thereafter). Kandel perhaps presumed only DC Comics readers would be watching Wonder Woman.
Believing one good swipe deserves another, Marvel Comics a couple years later in '79 published a series called "Rom: Spaceknight" that bore striking similarities to the plot of Mind Stealers. Just sub in the alien avenger Rom for Andros and the Dire Wraiths for the Skrill. Rom would travel around uncovering aliens in human form much like Andros did that phony general.
(And David Vincent was doing the same on THE INVADERS a decade earlier, and a decade before that saw INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, a remake of which came out in 1978, just a year after these episodes aired.)
Two-parters are notoriously larded with filler. So many scenes in this one needed trimming, like the initial victims welcoming the aliens with upraised hands, aping the naked couple on the Pioneer Plaque (thankfully, this pair kept their pants on!). And would somebody please throw that teacher from a train? Did we need that extended field trip scene with Johnny and Debbie going so ga-ga for flora they ignored their teacher's nails on a chalkboard caterwauling their names again and again? No.
In addition to all the scenes with the Space Council and the New Agey meditation method for of contacting them, other meaningless moments that could have been trimmed and left on the cutting room floor include the knockoff Doublemint Twins persuading the landlady to let them into Diana's apartment with some ruse about a birthday surprise. And on that note, yikes, did the producers even try to find wigs for the stuntpeople that matched the actresses' blonde tresses? No, they just plucked two gray, curly ones out of Phyllis Diller's trashcan.
So what was good about the show? Very little. One highlight was Dack Rambo. I've been a fan of his since THE GUNS OF WILL SONNETT, and here he again played a son in the shadow of his father, the original Andros, Tim O'Connor. I suspected O'Connor was passed over in favor of the younger, dashing Dack in order to foment a star-crossed romance with Diana. That subplot was never really developed, and frankly, I'm grateful.
Vince Van Patten (Johnny) and Kristin Larkin (Debbie) were also very good, though they wore out their welcome with way too much screen time. Larkin's EXORCIST moment was very effectively played (and thankfully sans the pea soup!), though the sleepy-eyed and shaggy-headed hippie doctor was a casting dud. Regis Cordic made the most of his one scene as the grumpy college prof who detested being disturbed when he's eating, though was game for sticking half a hard-boiled egg on his noggin in the name of science!
STAR WARS was the blockbuster movie of 1977, but a runner up was SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, and I enjoyed the homage paid to that film with the exasperated police captain, speeding cop car crashes, and C. B. lingo. This movie-length exercise in audience endurance needed some levity, and Captain Pirelli and his Keystone Kops provided it.
But the derivative and dully executed story is secondary to my greatest grievance: Lynda Carter, who has begun playing this fun and fanciful role with a sharp edge. Watch how she rushes past Steve to be first out the door, how she's brusque with Steve when he phones, and is put out the one time Steve is actually calling for Andros. Steve's role has already been diminished, to the show's peril, but why add insult to injury? Whether this was the actress' prerogative or the director's dictate, the result is the same. The affable charm Carter displayed in earlier episodes has fast eroded. This series is supposed to fun, frothy, escapist fare. Why so serious?
First they took away the animated comic book opening, then the catchy lyrics to the theme song, and now even the closing freeze-frame smile is gone!
Mind Stealers was a dreadful two-parter that like so many double-length episodes could easily and efficiently been done in one. That would have at least spared us the padding, the puffing, and the palaver by the Space Council. If you thought our government had problems, this rogues' gallery is running the universe? A man with lipstick and a woman with a nose hoop who sneer and derisively chuckle at primitive earthlings but seriously consider committing intellectual genocide by allowing the whole planet to go insane just so they can eliminate their nagging problem with the Skrill.
On that note, as a comic book fan, I heard "Skrill" and immediately thought of those green-faced, shape-shifting impersonators from the fifth quadrant of the Andromeda galaxy, the Skrulls.
While nobody missed the tributes to STAR WARS with the poor man's Darth Vader and those Artooesque bleeps and bloops, many were unaware of Stephen Kandel's successfully sneaking in an alien race drawn from Fantastic Four #2 (and many issues thereafter). Kandel perhaps presumed only DC Comics readers would be watching Wonder Woman.
Believing one good swipe deserves another, Marvel Comics a couple years later in '79 published a series called "Rom: Spaceknight" that bore striking similarities to the plot of Mind Stealers. Just sub in the alien avenger Rom for Andros and the Dire Wraiths for the Skrill. Rom would travel around uncovering aliens in human form much like Andros did that phony general.
(And David Vincent was doing the same on THE INVADERS a decade earlier, and a decade before that saw INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, a remake of which came out in 1978, just a year after these episodes aired.)
Two-parters are notoriously larded with filler. So many scenes in this one needed trimming, like the initial victims welcoming the aliens with upraised hands, aping the naked couple on the Pioneer Plaque (thankfully, this pair kept their pants on!). And would somebody please throw that teacher from a train? Did we need that extended field trip scene with Johnny and Debbie going so ga-ga for flora they ignored their teacher's nails on a chalkboard caterwauling their names again and again? No.
In addition to all the scenes with the Space Council and the New Agey meditation method for of contacting them, other meaningless moments that could have been trimmed and left on the cutting room floor include the knockoff Doublemint Twins persuading the landlady to let them into Diana's apartment with some ruse about a birthday surprise. And on that note, yikes, did the producers even try to find wigs for the stuntpeople that matched the actresses' blonde tresses? No, they just plucked two gray, curly ones out of Phyllis Diller's trashcan.
So what was good about the show? Very little. One highlight was Dack Rambo. I've been a fan of his since THE GUNS OF WILL SONNETT, and here he again played a son in the shadow of his father, the original Andros, Tim O'Connor. I suspected O'Connor was passed over in favor of the younger, dashing Dack in order to foment a star-crossed romance with Diana. That subplot was never really developed, and frankly, I'm grateful.
Vince Van Patten (Johnny) and Kristin Larkin (Debbie) were also very good, though they wore out their welcome with way too much screen time. Larkin's EXORCIST moment was very effectively played (and thankfully sans the pea soup!), though the sleepy-eyed and shaggy-headed hippie doctor was a casting dud. Regis Cordic made the most of his one scene as the grumpy college prof who detested being disturbed when he's eating, though was game for sticking half a hard-boiled egg on his noggin in the name of science!
STAR WARS was the blockbuster movie of 1977, but a runner up was SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, and I enjoyed the homage paid to that film with the exasperated police captain, speeding cop car crashes, and C. B. lingo. This movie-length exercise in audience endurance needed some levity, and Captain Pirelli and his Keystone Kops provided it.
But the derivative and dully executed story is secondary to my greatest grievance: Lynda Carter, who has begun playing this fun and fanciful role with a sharp edge. Watch how she rushes past Steve to be first out the door, how she's brusque with Steve when he phones, and is put out the one time Steve is actually calling for Andros. Steve's role has already been diminished, to the show's peril, but why add insult to injury? Whether this was the actress' prerogative or the director's dictate, the result is the same. The affable charm Carter displayed in earlier episodes has fast eroded. This series is supposed to fun, frothy, escapist fare. Why so serious?
First they took away the animated comic book opening, then the catchy lyrics to the theme song, and now even the closing freeze-frame smile is gone!
Is This Trip Really Necessary?
darryl-tahirali15 March 2022
The tepid conclusion to the two-part space saga "Mind Stealers from Outer Space" confirms that, first, the title is truly worthy of Ed Wood, second, even with Bruce Lansbury as supervising producer, "Wonder Woman" seemed to be running out of gas, and, third, Stephen Kandel's thin story could have been condensed into a single episode.
With Andros (Dack Rambo), an alien from the planet Octarus, down to his last 48 hours on Earth to round up the fugitive Skrill, deadly criminals who escaped Octarun custody and have been harvesting the minds of Earthlings, desperation sets in for him, Wonder Woman, and the Inter-Agency Defense Command before the Octaran high council sends its "decontamination unit" to Earth to recapture the Skrill, with decontamination likely to render at least two million Earthlings insane.
Moreover, the Skrill have grown bolder, sending the Sardor (Paul Baxley), the low-budget spawn of Darth Vader and the Punisher, to kill Diana Prince and luring Andros into a trap to kill him. When those actions fail, Skrill under the command of college student Johnny (Vincent Van Patten), whose body was commandeered by a Skrill, begin to seize elite members of a prominent think-tank as their harvesting of human minds escalates.
Implored by Diana and Steve Trevor, Andros asks his high council for more time, and when he is rebuffed, his instruction is to address the United Nations to brief the world on the impending decontamination. You might think that, upon hearing this shocking news, global outrage or panic would ensue, but Lansbury and his production staff didn't seem to budget for that. Instead, they send in the Sardor for the anticlimactic climax. Thanks to the stretching of Kandel's story across two parts, "Mind Stealers" only amplifies the limitations inherent in a formula one-hour weekly television series made on a quick turnaround time, particularly one dependent upon stunts and special effects to deliver the punch.
Ensconced in her role, Lynda Carter gamely flexes her limited performance chops while Lyle Waggoner supplies competent if unexceptional support as Rambo does what he can with yet another Klaatu iteration of the benevolent alien. A new twist is the suggestion of romance between Diana/Wonder Woman and Andros, although Diana's playing the straight woman to new character IRAC, the IADC's joke-telling computer, produces groans over and above the hoary gags IRAC trots out. Let's hope IRAC doesn't have the last laugh.
With Andros (Dack Rambo), an alien from the planet Octarus, down to his last 48 hours on Earth to round up the fugitive Skrill, deadly criminals who escaped Octarun custody and have been harvesting the minds of Earthlings, desperation sets in for him, Wonder Woman, and the Inter-Agency Defense Command before the Octaran high council sends its "decontamination unit" to Earth to recapture the Skrill, with decontamination likely to render at least two million Earthlings insane.
Moreover, the Skrill have grown bolder, sending the Sardor (Paul Baxley), the low-budget spawn of Darth Vader and the Punisher, to kill Diana Prince and luring Andros into a trap to kill him. When those actions fail, Skrill under the command of college student Johnny (Vincent Van Patten), whose body was commandeered by a Skrill, begin to seize elite members of a prominent think-tank as their harvesting of human minds escalates.
Implored by Diana and Steve Trevor, Andros asks his high council for more time, and when he is rebuffed, his instruction is to address the United Nations to brief the world on the impending decontamination. You might think that, upon hearing this shocking news, global outrage or panic would ensue, but Lansbury and his production staff didn't seem to budget for that. Instead, they send in the Sardor for the anticlimactic climax. Thanks to the stretching of Kandel's story across two parts, "Mind Stealers" only amplifies the limitations inherent in a formula one-hour weekly television series made on a quick turnaround time, particularly one dependent upon stunts and special effects to deliver the punch.
Ensconced in her role, Lynda Carter gamely flexes her limited performance chops while Lyle Waggoner supplies competent if unexceptional support as Rambo does what he can with yet another Klaatu iteration of the benevolent alien. A new twist is the suggestion of romance between Diana/Wonder Woman and Andros, although Diana's playing the straight woman to new character IRAC, the IADC's joke-telling computer, produces groans over and above the hoary gags IRAC trots out. Let's hope IRAC doesn't have the last laugh.
The Skrills
elo-equipamentos6 May 2017
I'm not sure if watched some episodes in my teenage years, with the advent of DVD allowed to me purchase the first season and later the second season l had to import from Mexico instead in Brazil was sold out!! In this episode which is second part "Mind Stealears from Outer Space" the Earth were invaded by Aliens called Skrill whose stolen brilliant minds, so Andros who was of the same planet was sent to arrest them, remaining 48 hours only...Andros gets help from Wonder Woman before the time run out...Lynda Carter was one the most sexy woman in the world.
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