"Burning Bright"

Astronaut Josh Lang returns from a space walk (or something) and is babbling about Andy and also showing increased brain power.  As in telepathy and telekinesis.  His supervisors are worried about him, so they ask his good friend Steve Austin to talk to him.  This goes about as well as it can, since electric space rays have altered Josh's brain.  He can also understand dolphins now, and his power is growing.  It is also burning out his prefrontal lobe at an alarming rate.  He accidentally kills a sheriff, and Steve goes out to stop him.  Unfortunately, he does not succeed and the burning of the brain kills him.  Space exploration will still take place.

This episode was aired on April 12, 1974, which was a Friday (and the day after my birthday).  I knew that Josh was played by Bill Shatner, who was also Captain James T. Kirk.  I remember the electrical stuff, and knew ol' Josh was going crazy, but for some reason I thought he lived.  Shatner does a really good job with this script, though it is rather vague about what he was doing in space in the first place.  It is an odd episode, without a happy ending for our hero.  Nice change of pace.