Auberjonois week: day five

To celebrate this weeks birthday of René Auberjonois, this reviewer is having a week long look at 7 guest starring roles from the 70's by the incomparable Mr. Auberjonois. Today is day five: Wonder Woman: Spaced Out.

This installment opens with very funky spy music as our own Auberjonois climbs into the Torrence Aerospace Plant to steal a trio of collimating crystals from a giant telescope. He manages to escape getting caught by the guards by disguising himself as a cleaner, or more accurately, a 'Conciergonois' and hides the crystals in a crate filled with Apollo moon rocks about to lend out to the Space Questicon. 

René plays professional burglar James Kimball, who's faced Wonder Woman before (though not on screen). This is something the writers on this show liked to do a lot: Wonder woman and her alter ego Diana Prince both have lots of acquaintances that she met on adventures between the episodes. This particular story is filled with them: apart from having failed to catch Kimball at least once, Diana also knows Sylvester Grogan, son of the 'famous Professor Grogan' as well as the crook Kimball is working for, Simon Rohan. Apparently WW 'ran into him last spring when he was arranging to bug the U.N. committee room' (an adventure that was obviously not exciting enough to be televised).

So Diana Prince reluctantly agrees to accompany Sylvester (who wants to be called 'Sly' even though his friends call him 'Ester') to the Space Questicon's main attraction: a costume contest hosted by Robbie the Robot itself. Kimball meanwhile knocks out an actor known only as 'the Masked Avenger' and puts on his world famous outfit. This actually makes him draw even more attention from the convention goers, who are all enormous Masked Avenger fans. The studio shot convention scenes are inter cut with some footage filmed at the 1978 Galacticon in Los Angeles. Of course none of the early Star Wars cos-players seen here take part in the costume contest, which seems to be promoting some kind of Logans Run cult instead, calling them "Logies" as opposed to "Trekkies".

You've really got to hand it to the man: René Auberjonois spends almost the entire episode wearing a mask over his face, and yet he still manages to convey all kinds of emotions with just his eyes. Not only does this show the man has a refreshing lack of vanity, he also manages to make a lot out of very little. Eventually Kimball and Wonder Woman team up to recover the crystals and catch the bigger crook, Rohan. Kimball manages to slip away from Diana/WW once more (how many times does that make?), meaning that for once, the final freeze frame features Diana looking concerned instead of the usual bright smile. 

9 out of 10

Kimball may have escaped, but René Auberjonois week will continue tomorrow with Starsky and Hutch: Dandruf.