This episode opens with Doug (Robert “no relation to Stephen” Colbert) and Tony (James “Moondoggie” Darren) landing in different areas of a dark and dusty mine. Almost immediately, there’s a cave in. Interesting how our boys always land somewhere seconds before some Big Event. Can’t just roll up on an Oklahoma farm in 1955, enjoy a slice of pie and time tunnel to the next adventure, they’ve got to land in the middle of something big.
And this is big, as alarms blare and bells ring. Coal-dust coated men run out of the mine seconds ahead of a major collapse. Tony tries to get out, but a bunch of rubble falls on him. He yells for help from his bestie, Doug, who, unable to free him, hurries to the mine’s HQ for help.
“Where’s the rescue crew?” he yells at an old man named Henderson (rubber-faced Paul Fix, known to Sci-Fi fans as Star Trek’s 1st “Bones”). “Isn’t any,” Henderson says. Doug’s like WTF? “No one’s coming,” Henderson elaborates, “Not with that…thing out there.” That thing, Doug discovers when he looks outside, is a meteor, headed straight for Earth. Well, no, it’s just Halley’s Comet, on its every 75-years fly-by, but I suppose old man Henderson doesn’t know that.
Cut to the Time Tunnel control room and team Tic-Toc bustling around, everyone trying to look important, except for that guy in the red shirt, who’s trying to look invisible, because he knows what happens to people who wear red on Sci-Fi shows. Dr. Ann (Lee Meriwether), working Time Tunnel TV’s monitor, pinpoints our boys as somewhere early 20th century, based on the sepia-toned stock footage she’s eyeballing.
Dr. Ann zeroes in on Doug and old man Henderson, who’s convinced the comet’s going to 86 the world. “Nobody can save those miners,” he mutters. “We can’t even save ourselves.” Duh, not with that attitude. Doug agrees—he sneers at Henderson’s lack of grit and runs off to save the men by himself.
He succeeds in freeing one man, Tony, but more unstableness in the mine sends them both running back to HQ. Now they’re both yelling at Henderson about getting help. Everyone’s yelling in this episode. Everyone’s covered with coal dust, and sweaty, too. Tony looks hot in more ways than one.
Sadly, the yelling has no effect on Henderson, who waxes on and on about fate and futility so long it’s a wonder Doug doesn’t dope slap him. I sure would.
In the control room, our core cast debates whether the comet’s electromagnetic field can make Tic-Toc’s space age equipment go wonky. I’m less interested in the debate than I am in Jerry (Sam Groom), the team’s new hire, a big guy who resembles a young Harrison Ford with an overbite.
Back in 1910, Doug discovers the reason no one will aid the trapped miners—they’re all on Pilgrimage Hill, awaiting the end. Professor Ainsley at the local observatory has predicted the comet will obliterate Earth, so everyone’s given up. There’s always a Professor Ainsley at the observatory, and he’s always wrong. Doug knows this, and sets out to get him to retract his doomsday prediction. It’s a convoluted plot and not very engaging, but here we are, 22 minutes in.
Meanwhile, Tony goes to town and finds the sheriff (James Westerfield, who played a sheriff or lawman an impressive 32 times in his 35-year career). Tony starts yelling at him and soon they’re yelling at each other, the gist of all the shouting being there’s no hope. Bleak, made more so by the creepy, minimalist sets and dark, moody lighting.
Cut to Doug, pleading his case with Professor Ainsley (Gregory Morton), and yes, he’s yelling. Ainsley insists his calculations are accurate—the comet’s going to pummel Earth and who are you, sweaty, coal-dust-covered man to challenge me? Doug’s like, I’m Doug-Freaking-Phillips, Scientist, Time Tunnel guy, that’s who, and I can prove you wrong. Doug snaps into action, hurtles to the chalkboard, snatches up a piece of chalk and… does math.
Meanwhile, Tony’s on Pilgrimage Hill, begging for help from a bunch of torch-wielding extras in tweed caps. Curiously, there are no women waiting for the comet-rapture. They’re probably all home doing what I would do as the apocalypse neared—scarfing down carb-heavy delights and watching RuPaul’s Drag Race with my feet up.
Team Tic-Toc is watching Doug do math like they’re watching a hockey game and trying to follow the puck; I half-expect them to cheer when he carries the 1. “If Doug had a radarscope, he could prove the comet’s harmless,” Dr. Swain (John Zaremba) laments. A light bulb pops on over Dr. Ann’s head. “We have one we could zap through time,” she says. Swain tut-tuts—too dangerous, but General Kirk (Whit Bissell) is like, Go, team, go, and it’s on.
Team Tic-Toc tries to send the radarscope through the tunnel. Something interferes with the transmission and Jerry can’t keep a fix on the location. That interference, Doug and Professor Ainsley discover, is some kind of mass in the comet’s path that will render the comet harmless, proving Doug right. He and Ainsley race to Pilgrimage Hill to yell at the torch-wielding crowd to snap out of it.
At Tic-Toc command, the dials and meters are going wild. Dr. Ann struggles to control the flux capacitor or whatever. “It’s the comet! It’s coming at us!” Jerry yells, as if that ball of fire is rolling up the time tunnel with murder on its mind. He’s hysterical, but he’s right—somehow Tic-Toc and Halley’s Comet have crossed time streams. Circuit breakers overload and explode, lightning flashes, explosions roar, gale force winds kick up, and alarms shrill. “Everyone evacuate!” General Kirk orders. The extra in the red shirt is already gone.
Our core cast remains behind. The time tunnel becomes a giant vacuum. Everything is getting sucked into… somewhere. The past? A void? Don’t know, but it’s mighty scary. Poor Jerry gets rolled across the room and into the tunnel, hanging on for dear life. Hell of a first day on the job.
Dr. Swain to the rescue—he, literally, pulls the plug. The vacuum instantly turns off. The team crowds around Jerry, who’s had a massive shock and isn’t breathing. Dr. Ann MacGyver’s a crude defibrillator and juices him up like he’s a car’s dead battery in a New England January.
The team’s not even done sighing in relief before Swain jumps in with, “So many dangers and unknowns, maybe we should shut this project down.” Jerry, smoke still pouring from his ears, is in wholehearted agreement. General Kirk’s like, save it for the debrief, we’ve got to repair what’s busted and get Doug and Tony out of there.
In 1910, Tony’s at mine HQ, ready to give up, when Doug bursts in and gushes, “Help’s on the way!” The Pilgrimage Hill crowd has doused their torches and is rushing to the mine to help their buddies. Their work done, our heroes vanish.
Tony lands, alone, in the desert, looking confused—and squeaky clean. Apparently there’s a drycleaners somewhere in that time-space continuum. A jeep carrying armed soldiers rolls out of the underground ramp we saw in the first episode, so we know Tony’s close to home. Only… When? None of the soldiers know who he is, not even Sgt. Jiggs, Tic-Toc’s head of security. I’m insanely happy to see Jiggs, since he was shot in last week’s episode and I thought he was a goner. Maybe he still is, because this is clearly earlier in time, 1958, to be exact.
Our core cast is watching, and may I say they got the control room tidied up speedy quick? Jerry is only mildly twitching from his recent jump start, and yells that they need to go out to the desert and haul Tony in. “We can’t, that’s ten years ago,” Dr. Ann says, giving Jerry a look that says she feels bad, but only slightly, for frying the poor boy’s brain.
Tony’s freaking out, freaks out even more when Doug, wearing a tweed jacket and nerdy bow tie, drives up. “Doug, tell them who I am!” Tony yells. Doug is all, “Back off, weird stranger,” and takes off. Tony chases him and the soldiers chase Tony, with orders to shoot if he doesn’t stop. Seriously, Jiggs? Maybe flying off the handle like that is hindering your career advancement. I mean, you’re a sergeant in 1958, a sergeant ten years later, too.
In the control room, there’s a lot of yelling and panic, but finally all the button-pushing and switch-flipping does the trick and our boys are once more floating—together—in the kaleidoscope of time. They land in the Japanese embassy in Hawaii, where several official-looking guys are burning papers and looking shady.
“Oh, hey, hi,” Doug stammers as the guys glare at them. Tony tugs at his turtleneck collar. Dramatic music swells as the camera zooms in on a conveniently placed desktop calendar that shows the date and sets the stage for the next episode—December 6, 1941.
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I don’t believe the episode outright stated it, but was the implication that Halley’s Comet WOULD have hit Earth if the Time Tunnel hadn’t pulled it off course?