Post-58th Anniversary Viewing
The Time Tunnel
"The Last Patrol"
Originally aired October 7, 1966
Frndly said:
Tony and Doug are charged with espionage when they land in Louisiana just before the battle of New Orleans.
January 6, 1815: Tony and Doug are initially separated while landing in a fake wood. While evading British soldiers, Tony grabs some buckskins hanging out, which he and Doug don after they find each other. They're promptly captured, and while they try to explain themselves to the commander of a British regiment, Colonel Southall, aka "The Butcher," he tells them to stifle, promising a speedy trial that will end with them being shot as spies.
Doug surmises that they've arrived just before the Battle of New Orleans, the last battle of the War of 1812. In 1968, Gen. Kirk's invited a colleague out from the British Embassy who has a particular interest in the War of 1812--General Phillip Southall, the colonel's descendant, who's always wanted to know why his ancestor led his Seventh Regiment into a slaughter the day after the one they're monitoring.
As the trial proceeds in the past, the colonel produces papers found on the guys' clothing that indicates they're Jackson's men. When he's unable to get information out of them about the disposition of Jackson's forces, he sentences them to death by firing squad. The colonel and Captain Hotchkiss (Michael Pate) are unable to turn Doug and Tony against one another by offering each an opportunity to be part of a prisoner exchange with a captured scout of Southall's, so the colonel decides to use their camaraderie against them, strongarming Tony into leading the captain, wearing Doug's clothes, on a scouting patrol to Jackson's forces in exchange for Doug's welfare. The plan is for the captain to infiltrate Jackson's forces on an espionage mission and have a rocket fired to signal the direction for flanking Jackson's forces; following which the colonel plans to have the prisoners executed.
Despite it being a case of the blind leading the blind, Tony and Hotchkiss manage to find Jackson's camp. Spying the general from a distance, Hotchkiss considers taking a shot at him, but Tony makes him think better of it. They're soon caught by an American patrol, and while Tony makes a break for it, Hotchkiss is taken to see Capt. Jenkins (John Napier) and divulges his true identity. Tony takes out a couple of sentries, relieving one of his musket, and frees Hotchkiss; who quickly assumes control of the situation and the musket. Once they're alone in the woods, however, Hotchkiss reveals that it's time for Tony's delayed execution. Tony finds an opportunity to make a break for it.
Back at the British camp, Southall tries again to get information from Doug, then orders his execution. At TT, Southall 1968 is desperate to know what his infamous ancestor is thinking and wants Kirk to send him back via the tunnel. After Southall goes through the Pentagon to get permission, the decision comes back down to Kirk. Southall offers that he could help convince his ancestor to spare Doug; but his final method of persuasion is the revelation that he's terminally ill, making this a dying request from a familyless man who has nothing to lose by being stranded in the past.
IMDb said:
When Gen. Southall is transferred back to 1815, he is shown moving through the time vortex. Throughout the run of the series, more than a dozen characters are transferred by the Tunnel, but this is the only time that anyone other than Tony and Doug is shown in the vortex. The others just disappear from one time and appear in another. Southall is the only traveler to land his feet in the course of the entire series. Tony and Doug always fall and tumble when they arrive for their next adventure.
The general floats down like a bag of feathers right next to Doug as he's about to be executed, so Doug makes a break for it. Southall orders the officer in charge to take him to his commanding officer. Elsewhere, Hotchkiss falls into the obligatory pool of quicksand and Tony saves him by pulling him out with Hotchkiss's musket. Nevertheless, when signal officer Lt. Rynerson (David Watson) arrives to handle the rocket firing, Hotchkiss announces his intent to go through with the execution of Tony. Back at British field HQ, Col. Southall thinks his descendant's account is a great jest; but the general gets down to business, questioning why the colonel will attack Jackson's stronger side against the rocket signal. The colonel begins to believe the general when the latter quotes verbatim a letter that the colonel had just written by hand.
Which one, Meathead, which one!?!
Doug arrives at the clearing where the execution and rocket-firing are to take place and pounces in, initiating a brawl. The British soldiers are put out of commission while the lit launcher is facing the wrong way. The colonel sees the signal and the general witnesses as his ancestor orders his men to march in the direction indicated by the rocket. From a vantage point on high ground, the travelers watch as Southall's men march into slaughter; while Doug expresses concern for the unknown 20th-century British officer who saved his life. The TT crew realize that General Southall's dying when their readings indicate that he's losing radiation--How does that work? In the aftermath of the battle, the guys find Gen. Southall, whose dying request is for them to testify on his behalf that his ancestor was not a butcher, he marched into slaughter in error.
As the guys are about to be pulled into the time stream, we get our first total clothing change-back where it's obvious that the original clothes aren't being worn underneath.
IMDb indicates that Col. Southall wears a wristwatch, though I didn't notice it.
The Invaders
"Genesis"
Originally aired February 7, 1967
Frndly said:
David's search for the invaders leads to a sea lab---where the project director has mysteriously disappeared.
Motorcycle officer Sgt. Hal Corman (Phillip E. Pine) pulls over a Woodie with a headlight out. The driver, Steve Gibbs (Tim McIntire), tries to make excuses when the officer wants to see what's curtained off in the back. It turns out to be something alien but off camera that emits a pulsing glow and evokes a horrified reaction from Corman. Gibbs puts a hand disc on his neck and drives off.
This week's opening titles:
The QM Narrator said:
A police officer had seen something so terrifying that he had been driven to hysteria, and from hysteria to the thin edge of madness. His incoherent words describing a creature not of this world and a strange, metallic disc bring David Vincent to this Rhode Island city and Officer Hal Corman.
Psychiatrist Dr. Grayson (one of a handful of roles former 12OCH regular Frank Overton did between the end of that QM series and his death in April 1967, which also included his
Trek appearance) convinces Joan Corman (Louise Latham) to let him take Hal to a facility where his mental block can be overcome and he can be brought out of his state of deep shock. When David comes to the hospital trying to see Hal, police detective Greg Lucather (John Larch) suspects that he may be the station wagon driver, but a background check at HQ turns up that he's an alien conspiracy kook; and a call from Grayson alerts him that after talking to David, she's insisted on letting him see her husband at the psychiatric hospital. David is let in against Grayson's objections that the wrong word could send Hal deeper into his madness. When David's sympathetic but persistent questioning about the metal disc provokes a strong reaction of horror, Grayson kicks Vincent out and Lucather threatens to take him in; though David tries to warn the detective that Corman needs to have a guard put on him.
Later a man claiming to be an officer comes to David's hotel room to take him in, saying that Corman died of a cerebral hemorrhage; but he turns out to be one of
them, whose attempt to use a metal disc leads to a parking garage brawl that the alien is winning when Lucather drives up. The alien tries to flee while exchanging shots and takes a bullet, causing Lucather to witness the resulting disintegration. It turns out that Corman
is dead and Lucather, who's now more open to David's claims, was coming to bring David in. They trace the Woodie, which this alien was also using, to Dr. Selene Lowell (Carol Rossen) at the Newport Sea Lab. She indicates that her car was often borrowed, but tells them of how the director, Dr. Lanier, just went missing; and of the major shake-up since Lanier took over, with just her and Dr. Ken Harrison (William Sargent) being holdovers from the prior director's staff. She also shows Lucather and Vincent what they've been experimenting on--an organism in a tank that she says is created life, an attempt at recreating the conditions under which life developed on Earth. Looking around the place, David finds Gibbs, who says he's with the power company, installing some heavy-duty cables.
We see Dr. Grayson calling the shots at the sea lab, learning that he's one of
them and is exerting influence over Dr. Harrison via a handheld device that looks like a pair of spinning crystals. The invaders need the knowledge of Lanier and his top staff to further their goals; and this involves Harrison needing a massive burst of power that may disrupt the city's power grid. Lucather gets a call that Mrs. Corman is holding him responsible for her husband's death and goes to meet her at a warehouse, which David tries to warn him may be a trap, verifying afterward that Mrs. C has left the state to visit in-laws. David and Lowell head to the warehouse, which they have reason to believe may be connected with Lanier, and David starts to fill her in on the alien invasion angle. At the lab, Harrison opens the faceplate of a seemingly empty diving suit seen dangling in a tank in previous scenes and addresses its unseen occupant as Dr. Lanier. Something smaller than human is subsequently carried out on a litter and put into a tank.
The warehouse turns out to be a regeneration station, where David joins Lucather in captivity. They're put into the tubes for induced heart attacks, but the anticipated massive power surge disrupts things, giving David and Lucather an opportunity to escape. From the station wagon's traced movements on the night of the Corman incident, David deduces that Lanier was being taken to the regeneration station because he was having trouble maintaining human form; that it was he that Corman saw in the back of the wagon; that he's now at the sea lab; and that
they are desperate to get him well for a planned meeting that's been established. (David mentions knowing that when regeneration fails, aliens die and burn up, though I don't recall this being directly established in prior episodes.) At the lab, as power is fed into the thing in the tank, it begins to assume a more human form.
While Lowell provides a distraction out front, David and Lucather sneak into the lab. After Lucather and David spy on Lanier's regeneration, all three are caught; but the guys manage to trap the ones holding them at gunpoint on the wrong side of a pair of doors and start to bust up the lab. When the brainwashed Harrison raises a gun and is ordered to shoot the intruders, he uses the firearm on Grayson instead, causing him to disintegrate. The operation by this point going haywire, Lanier decomposes into multiple pieces in the tank, the sight of which horrifies Selene. The lab starts to go up as the heroes escape.
In the Epilog, Lowell is hospitalized for trauma, while Harrison is back to normal and remembers nothing. Lucather questions why David doesn't want to go to the FBI with what they have, but David handwaves it away to maintain the series premise. Lucather contents himself with having found and dealt with Hal's killer, and they walk off together for a cup of Joe.
The QM Narrator said:
One cup of coffee, a few stolen minutes: a last, small gesture of defiance from a crusader who fought and won the crusade and knows he can never claim a victory.
IMDb photos 3-6 and 10 show various stages of Lanier in the tank. 3 is of the decomposition.
This episode was the victim of unusually rough and choppy syndication editing, such that some sequences didn't make sense. Even the closing narration was partly affected...I got the full version from IMDb. There were a few surviving mentions of Lucather having been some sort of crusader, and an implication that Corman was relegated to patrol bike duty because he was an ally of Lucather's. As this thread seemed conspicuously undeveloped, I suspect that for whatever reason, the edits were chopping out dialogue concerning it.
Some caps from the previous episode of Thinnes and Richman at the Rocks:
I've learned that Suzanne Pleshette will be returning in another role late in Season 2.
Welcome to my world.
Which is introduced with a Serling narration.
You'd probably want to go for height rather than speed.
I'm thinking that the Joker wouldn't be a thrower, he'd just be there to spoil the contest.
