Upon touching Conroy's moon rock James also falls under its control and believes that SHADO HQ has been invaded by aliens: he gains possession of a guard's gun and starts shooting everyone he sees.
The moon rock is still on Straker's desk and he picks it up instead of the glass paperweight he usually holds from habit during discussions in his office.
In the movie studio filming sequence Sylvia Anderson has a cameo reading prompts and is referred to on screen by her first name.
[6] John Kenneth Muir praises the episode, writing that it "works so well" both as a "literal narrative" about an alien trap, and as a metafiction about film and TV production.
He interprets the Wild West scenes as a homage to the cinematography and music of the Dollars Trilogy and other Spaghetti Westerns.
"[7] Ranking "Mindbender" the fourth-best episode of UFO, review website anorakzone.com comments that the "odd, vaguely Prisoner-esque" story manages its "meta/fourth wall-breaking content [...] with a real sense of style.