Wonder Woman 3.3: The Deadly Sting

Airdate: 10/6/78

Something weird in the college football world: an underdog team keeps winning over the heavy favorites, who keep making basic, embarrassing errors. Diana and an agent from an athletic association investigate, and the discover the cause behind it is a professor named Brubaker, who has found a way to control physical and sometimes emotional behavior in others through the use of microscopic darts and a programmable transmitter. An underground gambling operation has gotten wind of this, and now they’re planning to use the technology to take in a 10 million dollar kitty and a big upcoming game, much to the concern of Brubaker and his generally benign intentions. WW helps thwart the plans and right all wrongs; the IADC lets Brubaker go free given his involvement with the mobsters was not necessarily voluntary.

An actually not bad episode, given the potentially ludicrous idea behind it. Seeing pretty solid athletes go beserk could feasibly have more serious ramifications in a different context, and indeed a scene with Diane’s co-agent, artificially enraged and potentially murderous, now plays disturbingly like a PSA on the evils of domestic violence. But with a light, comic-booky air, we keep the tone light – and the only thing bad that happens is some property damage and a few bad football games.

Hmmm – a couple of times, Bill (Diane’s cohort), seems to get wise of Diane’s double identity. Perhaps the writers, trying to build more plausible plotlines, are getting tired of playing along with such a suspension of disbelief!