As notorious international jewel thief Evan Robley, David Hedison steals the spotlight in "The Queen and the Thief," which scrambles a heist, shifting alliances, and low-wattage palace intrigue into a mild suspenser that must rely on its performances or else be left hanging. When widowed Queen Kathryn of Malakar (Juliet Mills) arrives at the Malakan Consulate in Palm Beach, Florida, with her country's precious crown jewels, she is naturally targeted by Robley, who first posed as the late king's distant cousin to gain entrance to the consulate, then claims to be an Inter-Agency Defense Command operative sent to protect her--which naturally irritates actual IADC agents Diana Prince and Steve Trevor dispatched to provide the same service.
In this "bottle" episode--virtually all of the action occurs inside the consulate--writer Bruce Shelly must concoct complexity while veteran director Jack Arnold must keep the pace from flagging as he coaxes credible performances from his cast. Shelly's premise puts Kathryn under siege: As an American commoner who married into royalty (shades of Grace Kelly and Monaco), she is under pressure to abdicate, and loss of the crown jewels would be fatal to her political life. Malakan Ambassador Orrick (John Colicos) feints toward sympathy for her but is actually in league to discredit her with Robley, who manages to get Steve arrested as himself although he's unaware that Diana, posing as a maid, is also IADC--and of course Wonder Woman.
Along with Hedison, Lynda Carter shoulders much of the burden as both Diana and Wonder Woman, but Shelly's intrigue is ultimately hand-waving as Mills's Kathyrn, supposedly from scrappy working-class Irish-American stock, comes across as genteel English minor nobility evincing stoic dignity, too polite to be of substantive interest. The climax finds Wonder Woman, working with Robley, suspended above a deathtrap in a maneuver to be imitated much more memorably by Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible" (1996). Hedison oozes florid charm but "The Queen and the Thief" keeps its excitement bottled up.
