The episode opens with the usual voiceover and Tony and Doug slo-mo tumbling in the Time Tunnel kaleidoscope until they’re spit out on their new adventure.
Tony (James Darren) lands in a forest that looks suspiciously like a studio backlot. Musket-carrying soldiers in red coats stumble by and Tony skitters into the bushes. That he doesn’t jump out and cry “I’m a time traveler!” means his self-preservation skills are improving. He finds a campsite, with clothing conveniently hung out to dry, which he promptly five-finger discounts. He makes off with two fetching buckskin outfits, one for him and one for his bestie, Doug. Aw, he’s so considerate.
Doug (Robert Colbert) flops down nearby and immediately starts shouting for Tony. Clearly his self-preservation skills aren’t as sharp as Tony’s—all that shouting brings a barrage of bullets whizzing by his ear. Tony hears the shots, crawls through the bushes with his ill-gotten gains and our boys are reunited. “Judging by these trees and these buckskins, we could be somewhere in the southern US, but where and when?” Doug exposits. Tony’s all, who cares, history nerd? We need to find a place to hide so we won’t get shot.
A sound plan that immediately fails—they’re caught. Wow, 3 minutes in and they’re already captured; it must be a Time Tunnel record.
At the British camp, a barrel-chested colonel struts out of his tent, bellowing about needing intel for tomorrow’s attack on the American forces. His men push the prisoners forward, saying that they’re spies. Our guys go nuh-uh, but the colonel waves that off, saying he’ll find out the truth at their court martial, and then he’ll do to them what he does to all spies—execute them.
Opening credits, after which we pick up where we left off, in the British camp. Tony and Doug are chained up while Colonel Southall (Carroll O’Connor—yes, Archie Bunker himself) and his aide, Captain Hotchkiss (Michael Pate, who had a long career playing bad guys, so I don’t expect anything different here) discuss strategy.
We find out many things as the two men talk—it’s the War of 1812, we’re outside New Orleans hours before the Battle Of, and Carroll O’Connor does a mighty convincing Ronald Coleman, pip-pip, cheerio British accent. Tony and Doug, chained to a tree, listen in. “January, 1815, the last battle of the war,” a grim-sounding Doug whispers to Tony. “It’s going to be a bloody one, and a useless one.”
Switch to Tic-Toc command, where the core cast watches the action on their big-screen Time Tunnelvision. The extra in the red jumpsuit is still alive and back for another episode, but fan fave (okay, my fave) Jerry the technician is absent. Out sick? Vacation? Or maybe quit? I wouldn’t blame him, after being electrocuted one episode and having a bomb nearly blow up in his face in the next.
General Kirk (Whit Bissell) gets a phone call—General Phillip Southall, War of 1812 expert, is on his way in from the British unit to provide advice. Wait…what? There’s a British unit? How much damn money did the US spend on this crazy project?
General Southall, also played by Carroll O’Connor, is scruffy and adorable, a far cry from his ancestor, the colonel who’s chomping at the bit to execute Tony and Doug back in 1815. The general says his 5-times great-whatever was known as “The Butcher” because he insisted on attacking a heavily defended flank during the Battle of New Orleans and his hubris got most of his men butchered.
“If your men are with him,” General Southall says, upper lip extra stiff, “Then you’d better get them out.”
D’oh! Not only are our guys with Colonel Butcher, they’re being tried as spies. “Not guilty,” Doug cries. Their clothes—and the secret spy papers found in the pockets—tells the colonel otherwise. He demands they spill the beans about New Orleans’s defenses and how to break through them. Doug and Tony go all Johnny Tightlips, so Butcher sentences them to death.
Team Tic-Toc jumps into action, attempting to bring them back, but there’s trouble refining the time lock, or some other kind of plot device. Cut to the British camp where Colonel Butcher gives Doug one last chance: give him the info he seeks—or die. Seriously, what could Doug tell him? He’s a doctor, not a military historian.
Over at the tree Tony’s tied to, he’s sweating and glaring sexily at Captain Hotchkiss, who gets all chatty with him and asks if he has any regrets. “No,” Tony bites off. “Not even T.J. Hooker?” Hotchkiss prods. Tony spins an eyeroll and tells the captain to beat it.
While Butcher toys with our boys, Tic-Toc command is still trying to quantum leap them out of there. “I don’t know what happened—Jerry always pushed those buttons!” Dr. Ann (Lee Meriwether) cries when the transfer attempt fails again. Southall’s no help, he’s too busy watching the action and live-commenting on his ancestor’s pomposity.
Tony’s brought to the Butcher, who gives him an ultimatum—lead Captain Hotchkiss to the American lines, or your pal will be shot. Tony puffs up his hairy chest in outrage, but ultimately agrees. He has a moment with Doug before he goes. The two get as mushy as tough-guys could in the ’60s, then they part.
Tony and Hotchkiss traipse through the woods for, like, ten seconds before they not only find the American troops, they find General Andrew Jackson. Hotchkiss draws a bead on him and goes all Rittenhouse evil. “One pull of the trigger, and Jackson’s a dead man,” he sneers at Tony. “Quite a dilemma for you.” Tony’s all meh, he’s one of my least favorite dead presidents, so whatevs…
Before Hotchkiss can get off a shot, American scouts stumble onto them and Tony takes this opportunity to run. Hotchkiss is the one captured this time, but he’s freed pretty quickly by Tony, who needs to get him back to the British camp so the Butcher won’t kill Doug. Only problem is, Hotchkiss has been ordered to kill Tony as soon as he found the American camp, and the captain attempts to follow orders. A swift karate kick from our hero kayos that plan and Tony’s on the run again.
Back to Team Tic-Toc, watching events unfold with no way to help. General Southall begs General Kirk to send him to 1815 so he can fix things. Wait, they can do that? And why did no one tell Dr. Ann? She would’ve hurtled through time episodes ago, kicking butt left and right to bring Doug and Tony home.
Southall pleads his case: he’s studied the Butcher all his life and knows his mind. “But you may not be able to come back,” Kirk argues. The general delivers the argument-ender, “I’m terminally ill, I’ll take the risk.”
In 1815, his ancestor hasn’t harassed any Americans in a while, so he drags Doug into his quarters and tries to interrogate him. Doug shrugs and says, “You’re gonna kill me whether I talk or not.” That pisses the colonel off, and he orders Doug executed immediately.
Dr. Ann counts down as General Southall steps into the Time Tunnel and is caught up in the swirling kaleidoscope. He lands in 1815, right by Doug’s side—in front of a firing squad. This disarms the firing squad (figuratively, of course) and as they stumble about in surprise, Doug takes off into the woods. The general buttonholes a lowly lieutenant and demands to be taken to the Butcher.
Meanwhile, Hotchkiss has fallen into quicksand and Tony’s the only one around who can pull him out, which he does, the big sap. Hotchkiss repays him by saying he won’t kill him now, he’ll do it later, after he’s sent out a signal flare that will tell the colonel which way to attack. What a nice guy.
At the Butcher’s quarters, where we’ve totally been cheated out of a but they’re cousins, identical cousins all the way moment because General Southall has already met his ancestor—and shared the news that he’s a time traveler—off-screen. The colonel laughs like a loon at that.
Cut to Doug, who spots the Redcoats lighting up the signal flare. One’s holding a weapon on Tony, about to shoot him. Our guys have spent an awful lot of this episode about to be shot. Clearly the writers just phoned it in.
A fistfight ensues and those old-school Marquess of Queensbury rules the Redcoats fight by are no match for Tony and Doug’s ’60s Judo chop action. After our guys defeat the Brits, they slap each other on the back in victory when you know they really want to hug it out. They run off, while the flare, which has been turned around in the fight, pops off in the wrong direction.
General Southall waves his ancestor and his men off to certain doom on the battlefield, then sends Team Tic-Toc a twizzle twazzle twozzle twome signal that it’s time for this one to come home. Dr. Ann’s all, uh, not sure we can fit three of them into the kaleidoscope, but General Kirk grits, “We never leave a man behind,” so she tries her damnedest. No luck, she’s losing the general’s signal.
“There’s only one explanation,” Dr. Swain (John Zaremba) says somberly. “He’s dying.”
Doug and Tony get a glimpse of the battle—clips from some big-budget movie—and it’s as bloody as Doug predicted.
Our heroes find General Southall dying near the battlefield. He begs them to let people know that Colonel Southall was not a butcher—he just made a mistake. He dies, and Tony and Doug walk away, heads bowed and dragging their feet in sorrow for a guy they just met two seconds ago.
Suddenly, their clothes morph from 1815 chic to their time travelling attire—Tony in that slinky green turtleneck and Hagar slacks, Doug in his seersucker suit. All cleaned and pressed and with a spit-shine on Tony’s mod boots. Man, that Time Tunnel can do anything!
Anything, that is, except bring our boys home. They slo-mo kaleidoscope off to their next adventure and land in a jungle setting left over from an old Tarzan movie. During a thunderstorm. “What’s that smell of Sulphur?” Tony asks. “Hmm, Sulphur, lightning, ground tremors,” Doug postulates. “It all adds up to one thing.” Could it be Satan? Haha, no, it’s a volcano!
Next time, Krakatoa blows—literally.
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