THE TIME TUNNEL-Rendezvous With Yesterday (aired and unaired)

 

THE TIME TUNNEL

RENDEZVOUS WITH YESTERDAY

Writer-

Dir-

Music-John Williams

 

This first episode, like all Allen series, expertly sets up the series. A jet plane flies and Senator LeRoy Clark is told over the intercom to fasten his seat belt. The plane lands in the desert. Clark gets out and waves goodbye to the pilot. A car comes and picks him up, a Dr. Douglas Phillips introduces himself and sits with Clark in the back seat of the limo. Doug calls in a pass word, "Mobile Tic Toc One to Tic Toc base--permission to enter."  The car drives down into a rectangular opening that suddenly appears in the desert. We hear LOST IN SPACE music. The theme song plays.

 

ACT ONE

We see the large shaft that Doug's limo rides down, a security guard waiting at the end. There is light from behind them so it doesn't look like it is underground but it is. They get out and go up steps to other rooms. They meet Master Sergeant Jiggs who checks in their suitcases--Doug calls him, "the ramrod of our security forces."  They pass the security center and go into another area of large automatic doors. Doug takes the Senator out onto a bridge and they look down at a miles deep drop with towers on all sides, lights, elevators. There are 12,000 personnel in each of those complexes--each complex is over 800 floors deep. Clark asked, "Is time worth all this?"  Doug telling Clark about all the personnel and the 800 floors being on each complex as well as Clark asking if it is worth is were not on my copy of the aired version. They are in the unaired version. It may have been an edit on the pilot as I believe it is there. Doug tells him, "The control of time is the most valuable treasure man will ever find."  They go past double doors and onto an elevator which seems electrically and magnetically run. The elevator free falls for 800 floors, the Senator not being happy with it. They walk out of another huge door set in the wall (it is the Keeper spacecraft used on LOST IN SPACE's THE KEEPER two parter as well as reused in HIS MAJESTY SMITH). There is a hum and a door sliding sound. They walk out onto another bridge which is over the gigantic atomic furnace. On the bridge, a General Woody Kirk walks out to meet his old friend LeRoy. LeRoy jokes, "How'd they ever manage to get an old dog face like you out of the mud."  Kirk laughs and tells Doug, "He was one of the worst paratroopers I ever commanded. I told him to go into politics where you couldn't hurt anyone."  When LeRoy doesn't laugh, Kirk adds, "Oh, it was meant as a gag, not a dig."  Clark is here to examine the experiment and keeps asking about the cost and where all the money is going. Doug tells them, "Tony should be in on this. Where is he?"  "In the tunnel,"  Kirk leads the way and foreshadows. They go into a spectacular view of the round time tunnel set against the bridges and the area that is supporting it up--and the perspective is quite awesome, in fact, all the effects for this episode and the entire series are awe inspiring. Clark looks, "So, that's the monster that's cost us all this money."  There is a great view of them coming into the complex, looking quite minute. He claims that all they have ever sent back are mice and monkeys and haven't yet been able to return them. He asks if they were just disintegrated. Doug tells him they were not--there would have been some kind of residual matter left over. Clark feels that there is enough guessing going on since the tax payers have paid into this project--seven and a half billion dollars. Doug calls Tony out of the tunnel which has its rings glowing white. Tony has on a white lab coat. Doug introduces him, the second in charge of the project and when Clark feels he is a bit young, Doug adds, "His youth is only a disguise, inside is an old genius struggling to get out."   Clark says they either find success or scrap the project--today. Tomorrow he is going to write a blank check for them or cut their umbilical cord. Tony protests--they are close to sending a man back in time and returning him. Tony has been with the project seven years; General Kirk and Doug have been on it ten years. Tony wants to try to go back in time himself, he won't just give up. Doug won't allow it--it is too soon and he won't commit murder and won't allow Tony to commit suicide or sacrifice himself. Clark says, after Tony takes a control box back from Kirk and storms off, "He seems a little emotional for a scientist."  Kirk and Doug show Clark more, leaving me wondering what more they have--Kirk telling him they haven't even begun.

 

Night (and an ABC promo used this sequence)--Tony sets the devices on the consoles and runs to the foot of the tunnel. The others are working behind three or more windows along the wall unit area--a window area we never really see again. He pauses, looks back at them, then moves into the tunnel. Doug calls a red alert as alarms ring out. All Time Tunnel Personnel are called to their stations. Men run across bridges and we see their point of view from the other side of the bridge. We also see a point of view from inside the tunnel to outside, a wide angle view as the others run into the complex control center. Kirk asks Doug if he can stop Tony but Doug informs him he can't--if he tried Tony might be burned alive. Doug orders George to start the countdown and George does start it--from the number 16. Clark asks an agitated Ann what is happening now. She explains Tony will be in a radiation freeze field which is the first step in his relocation. Doug orders a location probe on Tony. Jerry is ordered to set a five year time curve and Ray is told to find out the power and time distance ratio, Ann is ordered by task master Doug to find out what the specific radiation Tony used is. Clark asks where Tony has gone. Doug answers, "He can be living in yesterday, next week from now, or a billion years from now. You got your guinea pig, Senator."  Kirk snaps, "Doug!"  Clark tells Doug to take a sock at him if it will help make him feel better but he wants to know what is happening. We see the light walkway inside the tunnel--looking like a light bridge. Doug explains--Tony used the blue mist which is a radiation bath--to garner a magnetic fix like a homing device on a person going into the tunnel. This should help them locate him in time but if it doesn't work, Doug says, "Well, then he'll be lost in time for the rest of his life."  

 

Tony flies through time vortex---a swirling maze of kaleidoscope colors and proportions. He seems stiff and turns in a closer up shot than we will see later. We see him in it for a long time. There is a ship as Tony flies in a long shot. Tony heads for it out of the time crystal like tunnel. This is quite a stunning effect and one which is far ahead of its...time. In slow motion, Tony falls out of the air onto the ship and into a corner. A pretty woman sitting in a beach chair nearby turns and hears and sees him fall, asking if he is all right. Jazz music seems to play as a band entertains. It is daytime. Tony gets up, "I made it."  James Darren does a terrific job of acting here. We almost feel Tony's total disorientation. He had a very bad fall, the woman tells him. Tony looks out across the ocean, realizing he is on a ship at sea. He asks her about it---it is supposed to be the biggest one ever but in the middle of all this water, she says, it doesn't seem so. She is British she tells him, making her first trip to New York and wondering if it shows. Her name is Althea and she bids him to sit down. Tony is cold, hugging his arms to his body. She smiles and asks if all Americans have adapted the rigorous life to please Mr. Roosevelt. Tony, still disoriented asks, "Roosevelt?"  She says, Teddy. She mentions the cold in London in April. She hopes it is warmer in NY. Tony tells her he forgot his jacket. Althea doesn't think America is filled with cowboys and indians like some Europeans do, but, "It is the other side of the world, isn't it?"

Tony jokes, depending on which side you start from. Althea mentions she hasn't seen much of him on the voyage and he tells her about working all the time. She tells him not to today---it is bad luck (Tony's forte) on a Saturday especially the 13th. Tony walks off to get that jacket he tells her. A young boy is cleaning the floor of the deck. Passengers are playing shuffleboard on the floor. One hits his foot as he realizes he walked into the game. When he picks it up to return it, he spots the life preserver of the ship hanging on the wall and says the name of the ship, "Titanic!"  This sequence was used when THE TIME TUNNEL was first put into syndication in New York. This scene is also the most fondly remembered by people who haven't seen the show in a long time. It is quite well done and matches even the best of the time travel episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE, STAR TREK, THE OUTER LIMITS, and others. The strange feeling Tony has is excellently conveyed by James Darren.

 

ACT TWO

The tunnel staff have collated an auto setting on the energy Tony used. Doug tells Ann to reduce her limits. They have to pinpoint where in over 200 years, nothing compared to the countless billions of years of time. Tony and his immediate environment will be relayed into the tunnel recorders and reproduced on the image area. They get an irregular coordination. They hear bell sounds. A corpsman is playing bells on the deck of the Titanic--a drizzle effect and we see him and the ship. Tony meets Capt. Smith (Oh dear! Never fear!) and tells him, "This is the Titanic. I don't know how to say it without sounding like I'm out of my mind. This ship, the Titanic sank. It struck an iceberg and was lost. How can I make you understand?"  Tony admits to not being on the passenger list but he has a doctorate in electrophysics, "I know I sound insane. To me, it's history. I was born in 1938."  The Capt tells him if he says so. "I'm part of a scientific experiment in the year 1968..."  he continues to try to explain and the tunnel picks up his voice--the others in 1968 hear him. Smith asks Mr. Granger (they'll ride up with wear) to confine Tony under guard. Before being taken away, Tony tells Smith to go farther south. Smith won't do it, citing other TransAtlantic runs that do not want this ship to make a record speed on her maiden voyage. After they take Tony, Smith orders information double checked on icebergs in the area.

 

Ray is working in the tunnel complex. We hear a sound used in LOST IN SPACE-THE GALAXY GIFT and other shows, including Hanna Barbera series. The image projection grids come out from either side of the tunnel and they see the Titanic, figuring it to be a ship not too long ago in the past. Doug wonders if anyone recognizes it. Kirk says, "I do. I'd know those lines anywhere--gentlemen (hey, what about Ann?) that's the Titanic."  Doug asks Ann to get the boys to give information on the Titanic including cross sections and other details--the works. If Tony is on the ship when it does go down, he'll die like all the rest.

 

Althea comes to see Tony and asks why he is behaving like he is--it's been a peaceful trip up to now. Tony tells himself more than her, "I must have been stupid to think anyone could understand."  He asks Althea if she believes in the future...the future for herself and her children and children's children...after a moment of hesitation, she says she does. She also believes in it for mankind (hey, what about womankind?).

 

Tony then tells her, "What if I were to tell you the past and the future are the same?"  Despite his wonderment at what she thinks of him, she lets him go on. "That time itself doesn't exist, it's only the motion we measure, the motion of the Earth spinning, the orbit of the Earth around the sun."  This is one of the most important things said in the series regarding the time concept itself.

 

The guard kicks Althea out but before she lets him, she tells Tony she will give him a good word with the Captain--he let her come to see Tony--if Tony will promise to stop this talk of sinking. He tells her he can't do that---that he does know. She gets upset, "No one could know!"  She leaves. The guard doesn't see that she has some kind of attack in the hallway and collapses to the stairs. She takes some kind of pill and she moves upward.

 

There is a shift as the tunnel people receive Tony's image--his hand up against the door of his small prison, his watch in his hand. A guard warns Tony that if he doesn't stop moving around and making noise, he will put him in chains. Tony calls Doug and tells him about the cabin--a forward cabin above the water line and it is April 14th (in the unaired pilot, Althea was asked by him the date and time so he could set it on his watch). Ann says, "He's a prisoner!"  The area he is in was slashed open. The iceberg was hit on late Sunday April 14th and sank Monday. They have 14 hours. Kirk wonders if they can suspend Tony and change his time. While he is suspended his heart rate, tissue regeneration, and breathing stop. If he can't be switched to another time or brought back...he'll die in seconds. Doug figures 300 men survived the Titanic disaster...he wants to make sure Tony is one of those. "We could go back and help him."   Ann says, "Doug, no."  Kirk agrees with her.

 

Kirk says, "Doug you know me well enough to know I don't give orders just to play soldier."   Doug tells him, "I know that, Woody."   Doug gives a bold, daring speech about the need to help their friend who is in trouble...who risked his life to succeed where Doug failed. Clark tells General Kirk that Newman took off like a madman and, "If you let this man go, Woody, it's a cold blooded responsibility you might have to live with the rest of your life."  Kirk asks Doug if their positions were reversed, if he would let him go. Doug says probably not but, "I'm hoping your tougher than I am."  Kirk agrees and wants a briefing to begin.

 

Later, Clark reads a newspaper--The NY Sentinel--April 15th 1912 headline: USS Titanic Wrecked on Maiden Voyage. Clark gives the paper to Doug--it is tomorrow's paper to Capt. Smith and the time Tony is in, "Good luck, Doug."  Ray tells Doug the master guidance control will be programmed so Doug's signal ID will be overlaid with Tony's. Doug thinks if they overshoot he may end up there before Tony...early. Kirk ponders a worse scenario--or end up a day late in the freezing waters of the ocean where the Titanic sunk with Tony on board and already dead. Doug smiles at that thought. Ann tries again, "Don't go, Doug."  Doug puts a cap on. He tells her not to worry and shakes her hand! No kiss? Doug tells Ray, "Ray, you'll be calling the scientific shots from here. Don't gamble unless you have to but if you do have to, go for broke."  He shakes his hand and then General Kirk's and Ann's. The hum of the Jupiter II builds--it is being used for the sound of the time tunnel power building. Ann goes to one of the side wall consoles and with anguish (good acting from Lee Meriweather--as always) pulls on the levers. Doug walks straight into the tunnel. Ann huffs but does her duty. The tunnel radiation bath bursts forth and Doug is behind it.

 

ACT THREE

Doug turns upsidedown in the time vortex. His cap stay on. He land in the engine room of the ship as a man stokes the fire or something. It was a neat landing--very mysterious even though we've already seen it with Tony. It appeared as if Doug landed in the fire from the angle it was shot at. Very nice camera work. Doug looks at an irate engineer who wonders where he came from. Doug says, "I guess I should be back where I belong."  The engineer kicks him out, "Tourists."  Doug sees the RMS ship insignia and sneaks out and then inside the hallways. He finds a bathroom...and Marcel Copo, a small French boy, also in cap, hiding behind the door. He is hiding from the ship's corpsman--a nice man but he cannot let all the immigrant children from 3rd class steal and horde the scraps of food from 1st class. Marcel has his pockets full of food. The steward comes in and asks about the boy and whose paper was on the counter. Doug says it is his. When the steward leaves, Doug enlists Marcel's help to find Tony. The music used here was also used in parts of LOST IN SPACE-A VISIT TO HADES and VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA-THE TERRIBLE TOYS. Marcel eats a banana. He distracts the guard on Tony's door by pulling a fire hose after staring at him. Doug gets in to Tony, who is asleep. Doug wakes him, "That radiation bath of yours was sheer genius. It homed me right in on you in this point in time."  The time tunnel personnel hear Doug and Tony talking. Kirk, excited, wakes up a sleeping LeRoy Clark who is sitting on one of the chairs behind one of the three main consoles. They get an image of the boys. Ray orders them to regulate the probe 50 percent less radiation. Tony asks Doug, "Why did you come here?"  Doug tells him maybe the ship won't sink. He says they could wire for help before the collision on the ship's radio. Tony makes a noise, Doug being more optimistic than Tony about getting out and changing time.

 

Tony yells, "I'm going to break a hole in this tub."  The guard comes in and Doug knocks him out. Tony, in a ship's uniform and holding a gun, and Doug move into the radio room, tie up the radio operators, and take over the radio. Doug seems to reach a Dutch liner with CQD. Three more guards force the door open, knocking Tony over. They fight Doug and then Tony briefly. Doug tries to explain the Capt. Smith and to show him the paper, "The story's all here in tomorrow's paper."  He tells his men to radio all ships and tell them to disregard all signals from them--they are safely underway.

 

The time tunnel staff view the ship at night as it nears the iceberg. Althea plays the piano in the ship's lounge but the room shakes, spoiling Smith's drink of champagne. He and Mr. Granger go up deck. The tunnel people view sailors watching the iceberg loom up at the side of the ship. Smith sees Tony and Doug, "We have hit an iceberg."  Doug explains once again, "We come from 1968--this is history to us."  The captain tells them his reasoning cannot accept that. Tony yells at him to give the order to lower the life boats. The room shakes and Smith does give the order. He tells Granger to initiate abandon ship procedures. He cannot ignore 23,000 lives on board but Doug tells him the life saving techniques on the ship are inadequate and outdated--the life boats will only hold 750. Smith says, "My mind will not let me believe you--only the fact that you are here are the only reason that those that survive will survive."  He goes on to say, "I do believe in God--and perhaps your being here is God's mercy."   Tony (who will later in WALLS OF JERICHO recall Bible passages) says, "In a way, Captain, maybe it is."  Smith asks if he dies and Doug tells him yes, he does. This scene is filmed partly through one of the portholes from outside the ship! The three go out, Tony figuring they can be of more help on the decks.

 

The tunnel image screen shows the engine room flooding and men running out and being overcome by water. Kirk, Ann, and Ray talk. With no control, the two men could disappear into time to any moment amid billions of years in the past and the future. Ray asks, "Is that any worse than condemning them to certain death aboard the Titanic?"   Kirk says, "I wonder."  

 

Smith order that only women and children are to be put in the lifeboats. Tony runs to the upper deck. Doug goes below. Smith orders his men: Mr. Donas, Martin, Williams, and tells them that six able bodied seamen are to help the passengers with steering. People are running all over the ship in panic. Some are in night robes and caps. The lounge shakes and the chandelier moves back and forth. We hear a bit of LOST IN SPACE music leading to an ad.

 

ACT FOUR                          

The lounge continues to shake. Tony finds Althea sitting at the piano and stops in his tracks. She is a school teacher who gave up ten years of her savings for the trip. She tells him she has a growth in her head and will die in months. Her doctor in London is sure but he sent her to NY since a neurosurgeon in NY may save her, it is new--a brain operation. Tony tells her these things are common place in the time he comes from. Not a fad. Neurosurgery can save her life despite her reluctance to believe. They shake. Tony tells her she is deciding when it is her time to live or die, may survive and has a chance, and she tells him, mockingly that he is a doctor now. "I am not a doctor,"  he pleads with her angry, "...and you have no right to play God!"  She asks if he is asking her to believe in miracles. He responds, "I'm asking to believe in life, not death!" He takes her hand and leads her away. Doug gets Marcel in the crowds on deck and gets the boy and his mother into a life boat. In the halls and deck vestibules, there are many other passengers including a man holding a boy. All adults are running. Tony fights though the crowds to get Althea upstairs. A sailor falls into the sea trying to help with the lifeboat (the unaired version had a few more others falling into the ocean). Clark watches Ann and Kirk as the time tunnel scanner sees the people struggling, dying. (In the unaired pilot, he comments on how horrible it is to have to sit here and watch people dying and not be able to do anything about it.) Tony leads Althea to the life boat area and puts on her life jacket. He gets her to a boat, she telling him she won't see him again. Doug and Tony remeet and climb up to a higher deck--Doug told him there was trouble up on A-Deck. A woman smashes a porthole from a cabin she may be trapped in--using a bottle. She may be drunk and screams. A man in another cabin smashes his window with a candle stick. They may be trapped.

Doug and Tony run but pass an open area where there is only a small chain. An explosion from the engines rips through the ship and knocks Tony and Doug over, through the chain, and they both plunge head first toward the ocean! Ann gasps, "Doug! Tony!"

 

Kirk snaps, "Freeze them!"  They do and the two are frozen in image before they can hit the water. Ann says, "Establish limits."  Kirk yells, "Hurry, they're dying!"  Ray orders, "Accelerate power!"  They switch them. Clark reports the tunnel has gone blank.

 

Ann says, "Wherever he (Tony) and Doug are...at least they're together."

 

Clark asks, "Where?"  He is obviously sincerely concerned.

Ray answers, "We couldn't begin to guess."

 

Later, Clark is given his suitcase back as he prepares to leave. It is signed out at a desk near the doorway to the tunnel control room. Ann, Ray, Kirk, and Clark talk near the tunnel rings which we see very clearly---rings which have large spaces between them! Ann thanks Clark--he won't take any action until they safely get Phillips and Newman back...or beyond any hope. He wants to know what the estimates of their chances are. Ray and Kirk feel their procedures are being perfected more and more each day. Ray says, "I'd have to say without trying to be funny..it's just a matter of time."   Clark shakes his hand, "Well, it helps to keep a sense of humor about these things."   They bid him goodbye. After he leaves, Kirk says, "Ray, are you being optimistic or am I being pessimistic?"  Ray tells him they know the boys are alive and they are doing a location probe for them right now.

 

Kirk says, "That won't mean beans unless they can survive wherever they are."   He and Ray turn and look at the tunnel mouth, the pair having moved in front of it. It swirls with strange noises and lights.   

            

CLIFFHANGER-Doug and Tony land on the bottom half of a rocket ready to take off. Doug comments if this is one of the early Canaveral jobs they could be incinerated right there on the pad at takeoff. They try to get the attention of the crew above. The countdown goes off and the rocket blasts off, pinning them down. The rocket soars up and we hear the music as the first cliffhanger freeze frames--the music is very different from what would becomes the cliffhanger freeze frame music.

 

END SCENES TO THE NEXT TIME TUNNELS TAGGED ONTO RENDEZVOUS WITH YESTERDAY INCLUDES: A narrator saying, "This is the incredible time tunnel in weeks to come,"  amid scenes of ONE WAY TO THE MOON, END OF THE WORLD, REVENGE OF THE GODS, and SECRET WEAPON. Quite impressive.

 

RENDEZVOUS WITH YESTERDAY was edited slightly in many scenes with key dialogue changed or removed. An example includes when Senator Leroy Clark says (just after Doug tells Tony they should go above to help out with trouble on A Deck), "We've got to stand here helpless and watch people die---its horrible!"  This is in the unaired pilot but not in RENDEZVOUS WITH YESTERDAY as aired. Also--Tony gives Althea his 1968 watch in the unaired pilot but not in the aired one. There are also two men in the unaired pilot that fall from the lifeboats or the side of the Titanic---they fall into the icy waters. Sequences of people screaming and running are a bit longer.

 

THE UNAIRED PILOT 1958 sequences vs. the same 1958 sequence from the second to last scene in END OF THE WORLD: In the unaired pilot, Tony and Doug fly through time but Tony falls in a rare long shot of the whole area. He appears in thin air above the ground, then falls. Shift to the tunnel where Ray, Clarke, Kirk and Ann watch in medium shots. Ray says, "They've been separated in time."  Cut to Tony calling for Doug, who is not around. Then comes the altercation with the 14 month on duty young soldier and Jiggs, neither of whom know Tony, who tells them he has been with the project for the last 7 years. (In the unaired and aired pilot Clarke tells Tony, "You've been with the project nearly 7 years."). Cut to the tunnel sequence with all four watching, including Clarke. Referring to Jiggs, I think, Kirk says, "He's younger."  Close up shots of Ann and Kirk as they discuss where and when Tony is. Clarke asks, in a close up, "Why not just go out there?"    Ann answers, "You'd see nothing. That's taking place ten years ago."  Clarke sees the car drive up with Doug in it and says, "It's Phillips."  Cut to scene with Doug meeting Tony, he doesn't know Tony. Senator Clarke watches and says it is Phillips. Cut to sequence with Tony breaking free up to his vanishing, also in a rare long shot. Clarke looks at it and says, "The tunnel's gone blank."  Then dialogue with Ann, Ray, and Kirk about where Tony and Doug are and them at least being together (this conversation was used in the aired and unaired pilot and also in the later five edited opening to the TV movies--but only certain versions!?!). END OF THE WORLD: Tony lands. Ray, in a different scene--a long shot of the tunnel group but from a side view--Ray says, "They've been separated in time,"  in what seems to be dubbed from the previous dialogue. Cut to Tony's encounter with the guard and then Jiggs. Kirk says, "He's younger."  Kirk goes on with the same dialogue about them bringing Tony back ten years too early--and he seems blaming and angry, frustrated perhaps. Ann counters as she did before. Close ups on both as before. Ann tells them to close the ten year gap and Jerry comes over in a long shot, "Why not just go out there?"  Ann answers the same as before. In short, Jerry's dialogue replaces the Clarke dialogue with the exception being when Ray says, "It's Phillips,"  (something Clarke said before) when Doug drives out. Kirk says the same thing, "Ten years ago."  The sequence goes on the same as before with the close ups all the same. The sequence goes on until we see Tony and Doug fly out to the Pearl Harbor Japanese consulate (with the only difference being that no one says, "The tunnel's gone blank,"  since they watch this next adventure beginning on it. The whole sequence is cleverly edited and not jarring at all. 

 

THE UNAIRED PILOT & CHASE THROUGH TIME: A short segment of Doug and Tony re-meeting in the jungle and facing a lizard giant dinosaur. In the unaired pilot, Tony & Doug were separated after being transferred off the Titanic by the tunnel. They land in 1958 where Doug, Jiggs, and a soldier do not yet know Tony. Tony is switched out of this time and lands in a prehistoric jungle. He looks around and runs through fog. He finally bumps into Doug and looks at him as he calls Tony. "At least this time you know me,"  Tony grabs his friend's arm, happy to see him. They talk about what happened and feel they may be on an island--Doug's been trying to find his way for hours. It wouldn't matter to Tony if they were in 1968. A dinosaur-lizard giant on two legs roars and comes through the giant ferns and chases them. They run. END OF UNAIRED PILOT. This scene is used in CHASE THROUGH TIME. Now, it has ERRONEOUSLY been reported elsewhere, several times, that CHASE THROUGH TIME has left the dialogue of Tony saying, "At least this time you know me,"  in. THIS IS NOT TRUE. The entire scene plays as in the unaired pilot with one major difference. In CHASE THROUGH TIME, Tony's line, "At least this time, you know me,"  is not heard AT ALL. It wouldn't make sense to have it in CHASE THROUGH TIME and therefore, it is not there--and I've checked many sources and showings of CHASE THROUGH TIME. For the later edited two hour movie travesty, ALIENS FROM ANOTHER PLANET, the entire re-meeting of Tony and Doug as well as the very first dino chase scene has been removed; Tony and Doug were never separated in this TV movie (in my opinion the TV movies should never have been made). 

 

KIRK'S NAME: It has been reported erroneously--do you see a trend?--that General Kirk's first name--Woody--was first mentioned in THE LAST PATROL. This is not true as he was called this in the very first episode.

 

MORE ABOUT THE UNAIRED PILOT: It hardly differs by much. The theme song is almost the same with the exception that the theme is played first, no teaser before it--but then the theme ends with a weird unused ending blending into the sequence of the plane flying over the desert. It has been erroneously reported elsewhere that the sequence with Clark's plane and his landing and being let out is not in the unaired pilot. It is in the unaired pilot. When scene not in the unaired version I saw was when Doug explains to Clark about the 12000 people in each of the complexes, each complex over 800 floors deep and then Clark asks, "Is time worth all this?"   There seems to be a few different musical cues but not many and one of these occurs as Doug tells Clark about the control banks where their power is mixed. Doug and Kirk then take Clark to the tunnel and just before they call Tony out of the tunnel, Doug shows Clark Dr. Raymond Swain--an expert in electronics and Dr. Ann MacGregor--the leading electro-biologist whose unit determine the amount of force and heat a time traveller can obtain. On the Titanic, Althea asks Tony, "Are you a man of mystery, Mr. Newman,"  but this is in both version. When Tony sees the life preserver and realizes he is on the Titanic there is no break for commercial interruption, thus there are no  "acts"  to speak of. Each break is missing--to be added in later when the show sold and had to be re-cut for TV. In what would later become Act Two, Althea visits Tony in his prison cabin. Tony asks her the exact time and tells her it is deeply important. She tells him it is six minutes past ten. Tony sets his watch as she looks on. He then goes on to tell her about time and the same speech in the aired version. When Clark tells Kirk about Tony Newman running into the tunnel like a madman---the copy I viewed had some loud and strange whistling sound--sounding like a sound effect that went wrong--or perhaps it was the tape but I doubt it. It sounded like a flubbed sound effect. When Doug walks into the tunnel for the first time and the hum builds into blasts--there is no lapse--he is flying in time right after. While I didn't catch this during the aired version, in both versions, Capt. Smith tosses yesterday's newspaper that Doug brought with him from 1968---out the port hole window. Doug tells Smith that only 750 will be saved and that the life saving equipment is inadequate. Doug's cap is taken off when he first finds Tony in the cabin asleep. He takes it off and leaves it there. There are a few shots of a clock that I didn't recognize from the aired pilot but this may still be in the aired pilot. One sequence which was longer was when Tony with Althea fights his way through the crowd. There is a longer version of the on deck mayhem as more people run across the decks and at least three men fall overboard trying to help steer the lifeboats---or just save themselves. In what would be act four, more people run. Doug finds Marcel and his mother and gets them on a lifeboat.

 

Tony gets Althea out toward the lifeboats and then ties her life preserver. He then says, "Here, take this. It's mine...a 1968 wristwatch."   Althea then says (belief in her voice and on her face), "Then it's true...all the things you were saying."   He gets her to the side and a man helps her into the life boat.

 

Clark is watching Ann and Kirk and says, "We have to stand by helplessly and watch people die--it's horrible."   Ann says, "There's not much time."  A woman breaks the glass on her porthole with a bottle, then a man does the same thing to his porthole using a candlestick holder. Tony and Doug run up to the A Deck and then fall as in the pilot. They are transferred but Clark asks where---Ray answers they couldn't even begin to guess. They look at the screen and see Doug and Tony flying in the vortex. Ray says, "They've been separated in time."  Tony materializes a few feet over the desert ground but falls. Clark's lines are later given to Jerry and a few are even spread out to Kirk and Ray in END OF THE WORLD. Tony encounters Jiggs and a soldier who has been here 14 months on the project--Project Tic Toc. Jiggs has no moustache and doesn't know Tony. The soldier doesn't know him either and Jiggs says he never had a moustache. Tony figures they brought him back in the wrong time. Kirk is mad, "You brought him back in the wrong time."  Ten years ago. Ann says to close a ten year gap. Clark asks, "Why not just go out there?"   Ann explains, "You'd see nothing. You're in the present--that's ten years ago."   Doug pulls up in his 1950s car. Tony greets him, "They got you back, too."  Kirk tells them Newman was still in school--he and Doug hadn't yet met. We see a shot of Senator Clark watching this. Doug tells Jiggs to give this strange man a ride back into town but Jiggs tells Doug that this man will have to answer to his security officer. Tony goes half out of his mind--as Kirk puts it--and Kirk worries the men may try to shoot him. Tony breaks free of the soldiers but vanishes in the familiar pop music sound---which is used extensively in later episodes, especially the second half of the season. Clark tells them, "The tunnel's gone blank."   Ann says, "The tunnel's moved Tony from ten years ago. Wherever he and Doug are at least they're together."  Clark asks, "But where?"

Ray says, "We couldn't even begin to guess."  

 

A security guard gives Clark his suitcase back and they bid him goodbye, Ray making his crack about it only being a matter of time before they perfect the process. As Clark heads out, Kirk and Ray talk, walking to the front of the tunnel. Kirk wonders that all they do here won't mean beans unless the boys can survive. As he says this, he and Ray look into the tunnel, which seems to glow with a life of its own. The time tunnel lights up and hums with strange sounds.

 

Tony is in a jungle with smoke and heat, lightning, and thunder. Doug's clothes are torn and he finds Tony, telling him he's been clawing his way through this jungle for hours. Tony says, "Hey, at least this time you know me."   Doug asks, "Know you? What do you mean?"  Tony avoids this and it doesn't matter. They figure they are on an island, a hothouse. Tony says, "I'd settle for the Amazon as long as it's the 1968 Amazon."  A giant lizard appears over the ridge of the dense forest and moves at them. They run. We hear the theme song.