This episode opens as usual with kinetic music and our heroes floating in the time kaleidoscope, as the announcer intones, “Two American scientists, lost in the swirling maze of past and future ages…” Wait! Four episodes in and I finally recognize that voice—Dick Tufeld (1926-2012), best known for shouting Danger! Danger! as the robot on Lost in Space.
I’m thinking we’ll all shout Danger! Danger! this episode, as Tony (my heartthrob, James Darren) and Doug (Robert no-relation-to-Claudette Colbert) slo-mo land in Hawaii, on the date before the date that will live in infamy—December 6, 1941. Plus, they’ve dropped in on the Japanese consulate and are witness to several officials burning important documents.
“Who are you?” demands Lieutenant Okuno (Jerry Fujikawa, Japanese-American actor whose string of stereotypical Asian roles are less interesting than his real life experiences in the Manzanar internment camp during WWII, examined in his daughter’s 1998 documentary, Old Man River).
“Uh, we’re tourists who got lost?” Doug tries. GTFO, Okuno snarls, and instructs his henchmen to eject our heroes.
Cut to Time Tunnel central command, where our core team is trying to get a lock on Tony and Doug. The set’s been redone, with a new background showing Operation Tic-Toc’s balcony levels and computers blinking with more lights than the Christmas tree at 30 Rock. The extra in the red shirt is still alive and kicking, and earnest technician Jerry (Sam Groom) is back at work. It seems his near-electrocution last episode didn’t slow him down a bit.
Back in 1941, Lt. Okuno has directed his henchman Sumida (Fuji, a wrestler/stuntman who was also interred at Manzanar) to follow our heroes. “If they make one suspicious move, kill them,” Okuno orders. In English, of course, because everyone in old movies and TV shows speaks English, no matter their native tongue.
Outside, Tony’s slipped into bittersweet memory territory. Doug asks what’s going on, and, with Sumida eavesdropping, Tony spills his sad story: When he was a kid, he lived at Pearl Harbor with his dad, Lt. Commander Newman, and was witness to the awful events of December 7th. His dad went to help out during the attack and was never seen again. Oh, and Tony’s mom had died in 1940, meaning after dad’s death, Tony was an orphan. Now, that’s a backstory.
Tony snaps out of his moody reverie, suddenly excited—his dad’s alive, he can see him again, and warn him. I’m with him up until that last part. I mean, who wouldn’t want to see lost relatives again? It’s what time travel’s all about. But messing with the past is tricky at best. Doug doesn’t see it my way. He drops an enthusiastic Let’s go, and the two men race off to the last place Tony remembers seeing his dad, childhood friend Billy Neal’s house, where 7-year-old Tony slept over the night before the attack.
Opening credits. Yes, all this has happened before the show properly begins.
At the Neal’s house, the maid, Yuko (Caroline Kido), lets them in. Tony huffs in anxiety—will he even recognize his dad? His stunned expression says he recognizes Billy’s mom, Louise (Susan Flannery, who’s appeared in a whopping 2,981 episodes of The Bold and the Beautiful). The 40s historian in me is stunned too, by Louise’s thoroughly anachronistic 60s chiffon dress and Dippity-Doo hairstyle.
“We’re looking for Commander Newman,” Doug says, since Tony can barely speak. “Is it about my husband, commander of the Enterprise?” Louise asks, meaning the ocean-going Enterprise, not the star-trekking one.
In the dining room, Yuko opens the door and Sumida hulks inside, saying he’s come to observe Doug and Tony. Yuko doesn’t bat an eyelash, so clearly she’s in on the plot. Because, of course. My low expectations for the portrayal of the Japanese characters just got lower.
Tony’s dad (Linden Chiles) arrives. I like how James Darren underplays this—his face goes blank, but somehow we feel the million emotions coursing under the surface. Tony tells Pop they’ve met before, “Many years ago.”
“You must’ve been very young,” Pop says.
Tony’s half-whispered, Yes, sir practically kills me. I’m a sucker for these kinds of timey-wimey reunions.
They get down to business. With Sumida and Yuko eavesdropping, our heroes spill the beans about the coming attack—and that they’re time travelers. To his credit, Pop listens without laughing, but when Tony and Doug conclude, he renders his verdict—“You’re both a pair of lunatics.”
Yuko announces dinner is served and Pop asks our heroes to leave. Yuko ushers them from the house, into Sumida’s arms. Captured, Doug and Tony are taken to a Hawaiian shirt fabric warehouse for interrogation. They talk, but they’re not saying what Okuno wants them to say. Something, something, time travel, something. The lieutenant rewards them with a slap to the kisser and a date with a bottle of truth serum.
Cut to the Neal house, where Pop (whose first name, we finally learn, is Tony, but I’ll keep calling him Pop because two Tonys is already two Tonys too many) and The Admiral (Robert Riordan) chat about everyday stuff, like war and top-secret reports. Louise sure is entertaining a lot of men while her husband’s away; I hope the neighbors won’t talk.
Okuno’s truth serum kicks in, revealing nothing new except Pop is the only person besides our guys who knows about the impending attack. But he’s not sure he believes them, so, being a shadow of a doubt kind of guy, Pop heads for the Naval Communications building on base to try to get confirmation of the plot.
Segue to Tic-Toc command, where the mood is grim. With L’il Tony sleeping in a house that’s supposed to be hit by a bomb, and Our Tony captured by the Japanese, the team worries about what will happen to both when the attack begins. The discussion gets all paradoxical—if L’il Tony dies, does Our Tony vanish and vice versa, etc.—with no satisfactory solution offered.
It’s almost dawn. At the warehouse, our heroes have been left alone—time for some good old fashioned escapin’! They untie each other’s ropes and, after a nicely choreographed fistfight with Okuno’s henchmen that leaves one man hopelessly entangled in a bolt of fabric, Tony and Doug are out the door.
Pop’s still at the radio room, fretting over Tony’s warning. The radioman heads to breakfast but Pop stays behind. “A peaceful, quiet Sunday morning, why not relax and enjoy it?” the radioman says, shaking his head at worrywart Pop.
At Tic-Toc command, Jerry’s demanding they do something to stop the impending attack. General Kirk (Whit Bissell) gets in Jerry’s face and the two men have a blue-eye-stare-down. Jerry’s baby blues are strong competition, but the general’s got years of stare downs under his long eyelashes, so he wins. “Someday you’ll realize all men have to live with their past, it can’t be changed,” he says, with so much gruff fatalism I wonder if Kirk’s backstory includes something really dark.
Tony and Doug return to the Neal house to warn Louise to get out. She instantly goes to gather up the kids, only to discover L’il Tony has vamoosed. Tony scrambles to remember why he ran and where he went. Then it hits him, the answers are a paradox—he overheard his adult self, talking about the attack and ran off to warn his father. Meanwhile, in less mind-blowing news, Louise has changed into this sleeveless, lemon-drop yellow dress I know I saw Angie Dickinson wearing on one of Bob Hope’s Vietnam shows.
Our Tony catches up to L’il Tony (Sheldon Collins) and the fabric of time is torn asunder. Ha, just kidding. It’s an almost mundane moment, with Tony promising his younger self he’ll warn Pop, then sending the boy to safety with Louise and Billy. Tony’s off, lickety-split, heading for the base and his dad. He arrives the same time as the attack force (pretty amazing footage, cribbed from an unidentified movie). Doug’s busy too—he leads security forces to the consulate, where Okuno and his team are arrested.
Team Tic-Toc’s watching as Tony reconnects with Doug (he’s stolen Okuno’s car, the cheeky bugger). Bombs drop around them as they rush to the radio room, where Pop and the radioman are trying to reach the Enterprise and warn it not to enter the harbor. An explosion rocks the radio room. Pop’s unconscious and in deep trouble—there’s a live bomb ticking away in the corner.
Jerry loses it. He grabs at the controls, frantic to move the bomb somewhere else. He succeeds—the bomb vanishes from 1941, then reappears in the time tunnel. And it’s ticking. Everyone leaps into action, shouting orders, pushing buttons, flipping switches. The extra in the red shirt checks to see if his life insurance is up to date. Jerry, thinking he’s invincible after last episode’s shocking events, volunteers to disarm it. As he steps into the time tunnel, we get a cool reverse-angle shot of the control room and I get major flashbacks. I distinctly remember this tense scene from watching the show as a kid.
The bomb vanishes again, popping up where it belongs in history—the radio room. That’s Mother Time and Father Fate, folks, working in cruel harmony. Tony and Doug burst into the radio room. Pop’s in rough shape, dying, and Tony’s hands tremble as he helps his father to the radio, so he can warn the Enterprise.
Mission accomplished, Pop sinks back, looking at Tony. “You said you knew me, that you always remembered me,” he says, rasping for breath.
James Darren’s still underplaying it, his voice soft, slightly shaky as he says, haltingly, “My name is… Tony Newman.”
“I know you,” Pop says. “I know you as well as I know my own son.”
Then Tony breaks. “I am your son.”
I’m not crying, you’re crying. Okay, I’m crying. And why not? It’s a pitch perfect moment.
Pop dies, and I’m thinking The Day the Sky Fell In is an apt title for this episode, metaphorically and literally. Doug drags Tony outside before the bomb blows. They stop and Tony watches in agony as the explosion obliterates the communications building. “That’s why my father was never found,” he says, in a way that makes me unsure whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing he finally knows the truth.
Then they vanish, or quantum leap, or disapparate, or whatever the Time Tunnel does to whisk them to their next historical location. After a quick stop at the inter-dimensional dry cleaners, of course, where Doug’s seersucker suit gets a thorough spruce up and Tony’s mod boots get buffed to a gleaming shine.
Next Episode: More cringe-y cultural stereotypes—this time, the French and Indian War.
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