Almost every reviewer for this episode here on IMDb gives it a rating of '8' or higher, but I have an issue with that. Watching the series in order, I found 'The Ballero Shield' to have the most inconsistent story line of the first twenty programs. For example, early in the story the Alien being (John Hoyt) states that he must return to his planet-like amplification of light within an hour from Earth and Richard Bellero's (Martin Landau) lab. But shortly after, he asks Judith Landau (Sally Kellerman) how long a minute is. He didn't really get an answer, so how would he know when he had to go? Along the same lines, the Alien explained that he couldn't be destroyed by Earthly means after Judith shot him with the ray gun. Later on however, he's knocked out and presumably dead when Judith shoots him with an ordinary pistol. Granted, it turned out that the Alien survived, but it didn't say much for the Being's invulnerability given the original premise of the story. Ultimately, the episode makes its point about how a very human lust for power and control can turn aspiration into ambition of a most inhumane kind. Ultimately, Judith's entrapment by the invisible shield was symbolic of how one's greed and desire for wealth and notoriety can make a person a prisoner of their own making.
Review of The Bellero Shield
