The GBI is trying to pass a bill for the abolishment of all secret
weapons in the universe, but the voting has come to a tie, so Commander
Andrews (Henry Beckman) has to deliver the all-important earth vote to
Mars and present it to the council (needless to say, good old earth is for
the abolishment) ... but the Martian leader has ideas of his own, ideas to
conquer the universe, and to that end, he doesn't need earth's vote
virtually prohibiting him from owning secret weapons (secret weapons come
in pretty handy when you are about to conquer the universe you see), so he
hires a trio of cutthroats to shoot Commandeer Andrews' spaceship - which
is of course piloted by Flash Gordon (Steve Holland) and Dale Arden (Irene
Champlin) right out of the skies.
Flash is of course able to avoid total desaster, and he lands his
spaceship safely on the next asteroid - interestingly the very same
asteroid the baddies shot their deathrays from. Soon, the goodies and the
baddies meet, Flash single-handedly beats the baddies to a pulp, and
earth's vote reaches teh council just in time.
As was often the case with early science fiction television, this one
was grossly underbudgeted for a story of its scale, and thus saving the
universe has more in common with a meagerly attended barroom brawl, and
the death ray the baddies are using to shoot Flash's spaceship out of the
sky looks kind of cute in its wooden frame - at times one can't help but wonder
what were they thinking ?, actually. All this might make this episode
kind of amusing in a so-bad-it's-good way, but nothing more than
that.
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