This week, the time tunnel spits our heroes out in a tropical locale that looks like an old Gilligan’s Island set. The ground shakes and lightning flashes and Tony (James Darren) and Doug (Robert Colbert) science the situation out pretty fast—they’re near an about-to-erupt volcano. But where?
They hear a scream and run toward the sound, coming upon a group of bare-chested “natives” dragging a guy over to a steaming lava pool, with the intention, I suspect, of tossing the poor fella in. Our guys put a stop to that right quick. Tony and the head native guy, Karnosu (he-man Vic Lundin, singer, screenwriter, and Klingon in the original Star Trek) exchange words, quickly learning the men are from Sumatra.
Earthquakes and lightning disturbs their convo. Karnosu blames Tony and Doug for the turbulence and orders his men to grab them and toss them into the lava pool. They do, and the episode is over. Haha, no—cut to the opening credits!
Afterward, a scruffy-looking guy emerges from the woods and demands to know what the heck Karnosu’s doing. “Getting rid of the devils from the sky, what does it look like I’m doing?” Karnosu says. Scruffy guy gets all crotchety, saying the volcanic activity has nothing to do with gods and sends Karnosu and his pals on their way.
Scruffy introduces himself as Dr. Everett Holland (Torin Thatcher, frequently cast as a villain), and gets all smiley when he hears our guys are scientists. “Capital! The Royal Society sent you?” Tony and Doug hem and haw and finally go with, “We were shipwrecked nearby.” I’d be suspicious, but not Dr. Smiley. “Splendid, I can use all the help I can get.” Tony and Doug ask where they are and what important event in history they’ve dropped in on this time. They exchange alarmed glances when Holland replies, “Krakatoa.”
Cut to Tic-Toc command, where the crew (and the extra in the red overalls) watches the action on the Time Tunnelvision. “Krak-a-whatta?” Dr. Swain (John Zaremba) gulps. “The greatest volcanic explosion in history,” General Kirk (Whit Bissell) opines. Dr. Ann MacGregor (Lee Meriwether) doesn’t say anything, she’s too busy keeping her head—and her new 250-pound beehive hairdo—upright. Technician Jerry (Sam Groom) doesn’t say anything either, he’s just happy to be back on the job after being left out of the last episode.
Dr. Ann’s pinpointed Tony and Doug’s location as Krakatoa, 1883, sometime in late August. The Tic-Toc scientists strap on their history hats and struggle to figure out when the island’s volcano blew. My money’s on 1883, sometime in late August.
Back on Krakatoa, Holland’s taken the boys to his camp in Gilligan’s lagoon, where they have the first of many discussion-arguments about the possibility of the volcano blowing up. Holland’s all, nah; Tony and Doug are like, survey says…100%.
Another violent earth tremor, followed by a woman screaming for help. Doug, Tony, and the doc rush into the jungle to find a woman trapped under a fallen tree. It’s Holland’s young, single, beautiful daughter, Eve (Ellen Burstyn, wearing a brown wig and an unconvincing British accent), who’s followed dear old dad across the globe to help him with his work. Of course. All eccentric scientists have young, single, beautiful daughters who follow them across the globe to help them in their work.
Eve may be devoted, but she isn’t trusting—she’s instantly suspicious about two scientists plopping down on Krakatoa, where her father’s carrying out the most important research of his career. “They plan to steal your work and take credit,” she cries. Credit, schmedit, Holland grumps, the work is what’s important to him.
Cut to command central. General Kirk’s in a snit because Jerry hasn’t come back with the Krakatoa info. Give the guy a break, do you know how long it takes to thumb through an old-school card catalog? Dr. Swain and Dr. Ann are attempting to nail down our heroes’ coordinates, but volcanic activity is interfering with their science-y gizmos. Jerry finally rushes in with the research and tells the team volcano will erupt in one day, a massive explosion that will destroy everything for miles around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCwBTOVFWAM?rel=0
Team Tic-Toc scrambles to figure out a way to communicate with our guys, so they can tell them to flee to Sumatra, the only island not in the path of the coming tsunamis. Earnest Jerry proposes trying the new isolation techniques they’ve been working on. He promises to whip something up if they let him use the new RC-7 computer. Dr. Swain agrees, mostly to get him out of what little hair he has left, and Jerry hurries off to play with a computer the size of a city bus.
On Krakatoa, more lightning and thunderclaps. Doug warns Dr. Holland to evacuate the island. The doc ignores him and grumbles on his way, only to run into Karnosu, who demands a human sacrifice to appease the angry island gods. Holland grimaces, wishing all these pesky humans would just leave him alone so he can finish his research. Meanwhile, Tony turns that Moondoggie charm on Eve, trying to convince her to leave. “And we’re to give up everything, all of our work, on your word we’re in danger?” she scoffs. Tony, realizing he and his signature smolder have struck out, stomps off.
Doug and Tony meet up and compare notes. Another earth-shake and they decide it’s every man for himself. They haul butt to the lagoon, only to discover the Sumatrans have taken one of the two canoes. Unwilling to strand Eve and her dad, our heroes decide to stay. Aw, they’re good guys, but sometimes I wish they weren’t.
At command central, Jerry’s in the computer room, trying to make watching paper scroll out of a printer exciting. He rushes back to the core cast and proudly presents his findings—if they focus all the energy on moving just one of our heroes at a time, they can bring them both home. Dangerous, Dr. Ann says, needs further study. While she goes off to doublecheck the calculations, Jerry’s gets his lifelong wish and takes over the Time Tunnel controls.
On Krakatoa, Doug and Tony finally get Holland to admit he knows the volcano’s going to erupt, but he won’t evacuate until he finishes his research. “You’re mad,” Doug says. I think so too, and so does Eve, after she begs her father to leave and he says no. “I’m not leaving this island, and neither are you, until I have the data I want!” he growls.
With the eruption imminent, Karnosu and his buddies grab Doug and Tony and gear up for a double sacrifice into the lava pool. Team Tic-Toc can’t wait to analyze Jerry’s calculations—they’ve got to quantum leap one of our guys NOW. Tony’s the lucky guy. One second, he’s fighting for his life, the next, he’s walking out of the Time Tunnel in a swirl of smoke.
Success! Or… maybe not. A slow pan of the control room shows an eerie sight: The core cast, Jerry, the support crew and the extra in the red overalls—frozen in time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npWMvviuncI?rel=0
Tony’s elation turns to astonishment. I totally remember this scene terrifying me when I was 10. Of course, The Sound of Music terrified me when I was 10, so that should say everything you need to know about me. Anyhoo, Tony circles the room, calling out the crew’s names, muttering, snapping his fingers in people’s faces, until he figures out what’s happened. He’s caught between two split seconds of time.
Tony’s not a pro at flipping switches and pushing buttons, but he figures out how to send himself back, and hopefully start up time again. He snatches up the documents showing Sumatra as the only safe place to evacuate to, then leaves Dr. Swain a note: “Do you like me? Check YES or NO.” Teehee, no, he basically says he must go back to help his bestie and leaves the coordinates on Krakatoa where they can be found.
Tony makes the leap and time resumes. He lands in the middle of a brawl between Doug and the Sumatrans that ends, predictably, with Karnosu taking a swan dive into the lava pit. Meanwhile, team Tic-Toc finds Tony’s note and figures out what happened. “And he went back,” Dr. Ann says, admiration in her voice as she gazes at Tony’s image on the Time Tunnelvision. “He deliberately went back.”
Krakatoa’s really heating up. Tony rushes up to Eve and demands she leave with him. “Not without my father,” she says, like the young, single, beautiful, misguided daughter of every crackpot scientist on every TV show ever made. Suddenly, General Kirk’s voice blares from the heavens, “Can you hear me now?” Eve gives Tony a frightened side-eye. “Who are you?” she breathes. “Travelers in time,” he says with a shrug. “That voice is from nearly 100 years in the future. That’s how we know things are gonna go boom. Can we go now?” Eve: “Uh, yes?”
The voice of a god, er, a general convinces Dr. Holland to leave too, but there’s still the problem of one canoe too few. Our guys solve the problem Titanic-style: they stay behind. Eve thanks them both—with a little kiss for Tony—before climbing into the canoe, and they’re off.
Tony and Doug rush to the coordinates, hoping they can be leaped back home before the island explodes, but that’s not going to be easy. Tic-Toc control room’s in a panic—there’s interference with the transfer. The forces building in the volcano are affecting their instrumentation. Man, volcanoes blow, huh?
Command central finally gives up hope of bringing them home and leaps Tony and Doug off Krakatoa as the island explodes, sending them into… A Cecil B. DeMille sword and sandals epic! Well, no, actually, it’s 1200 BCE.
Next time: Helen, meet Troy.
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