End of the World

We never had this much trouble when Halley's Comet passed by in 1986. Then again unless you had a decent telescope there really was nothing to see. So the end of the world was not nigh.

This time Doug and Tony find out that the local townsfolk seem to care little for the two hundred miners are trapped inside a mine in 1910.

They think the world is due to end because of a flaming apparition in the sky. Halley's comet and a local professor is convinced that it will hit Earth, he had done the calculations.

It is left to Doug to convince the scientist that he has got it wrong.

A flaky episode with dodgy science. That people did not know about Halley's comet and Doug had difficulty in explaining to a scientist why the comet will not hit the planet.

Doug and Tony find themselves in league with some miners and end up trapped in a cave in. No help. That's because people in 1910 think that Halley's comet is going to blast into the earth, destroying it. Mostly, the boys have to face off against a naysayer who refuses to help. The problem with the comet is that it is a fireball moving slowly toward our dear planet.

Doug and Tony are transported to a mine shaft and Tony finds that two hundred miners are trapped in gallery due to a cave-in. They seek help but nobody wants to come to the Emperor Mine since they believe the world will end in a couple of hours. Doug and Tony find that it is the late spring of 1910 and the Halley's Comet is passing near to Earth. Further the prominent Professor Ainsley believes that the comet will crash on Earth and the world is in panic. While Tony tries to convince the locals to help the men trapped in the mine, Doug tries to prove to the scientist that he is wrong in his assumption. Meanwhile The Time Tunnel complex is in danger affected by the magnetic field of the comet.

"End of the World" is a flawed episode but also an exciting adventure. The desperation of the emotional and impulsive Tony contrasts with the prudent attitude of Doug and is engaging to see their fight to save the miners. The situation in The Time Tunnel complex is also fantastic. However there is a great contradiction with the paradox of the encounter of Tony with Doug and Sergeant Jiggs in 1958, since they should recall the event ten years later. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "O Túnel do Tempo" ("The Time Tunnel")

Tony and Doug see Halley's comet in 1910.

They don't come much better than this!

This is one of my three favourite episodes of The Time Tunnel.

The teaser sees a surprisingly pumped up Robert Colbert grab Paul Fix ("Oh come now") and Colbert walking outside to see an ugly planet-like ball in the sky. Then the teaser ends, the viewer knows they are in for a ride!

I am not sure why it is, but there is something really special about the spoken words in the hour. The thing that defines End Of The World is a general feeling of gusto in the acting, gusto in the direction and a clever use of stock music. This is Whit Bissell's finest hour. I first viewed this episode in February 1978 and have made an estimated 150 viewings of it over the years. Yes, it really is that good.

Paul Fix is the guest star of this episode. The great sheriff of Northfork, Micah, on The Rifleman, could play many roles. He could look really old and beaten down, like he does in this episode, or pretty chipper and tough as he did on many movies and on The Rifleman. One thing you could always count on was that he delivered a solid performance and he was always a good person playing a good guy!

The Time Tunnel was a pretty sketchy show that usually did not do much research into the science that they were talking about. It seemed like most of the time, they just winged it. A perfect example is when Whit Bissell is asking the scientists whether or not the time tunnel machine can create any cosmic magnetic interference with Halley's Comet, and nobody knows anything.

Sam Groom plays a junior scientist to Dr. Ann McGregor (Lee Merriweather), and Dr. Raymond Swain (John Zaremba). When Groom begins to explain a possible side-effect of the magnetic interference, Whit Bissell tells him to shut up, or be demoted. That was a pretty lame way for a scientist to get verbally abused on a science show.

Whit Bissell played Lt. Gen. Heywood Kirk, and since he was in charge, and not a scientist, they used his character to blow off science and to do things that had no scientific explanation, and to otherwise turn what could have been a scientific science fiction show into fantasy garbage. Whit Bissell was basically on the show to bully the scientists and order them to do stupid things that they told him were dangerous.

It seemed like about half of this episode was spent on a screen shot of a flaming orange fireball that was supposed to be Halley's Comet. Having had the benefit of seeing Halley's Comet when it came by the Earth in 1986, and knowing that it never looked like a giant orange fireball, this episode seems even dumber than it is.

Another flaw is that James Darren keeps telling everyone that there are 200 miners trapped in the mine, and every time there is a shot of the miners, there are less than fifteen in a small room. It is pretty awful and ridiculous.

The best thing about this episode is that there are a ton of Western actors in it. Besides one of the stars, Robert Colbert being a Western actor, there was James Westerfield, a long time supporting actor, Paul Carr, Sam Groom (who was a guest on Gunsmoke a couple of times), Paul Fix, and Wesley Lau (a guest on The Virginian, Big Valley, Gunsmoke, Have Gun-Will Travel, Wagon Train, etc., and who also had been an L.A.P.D. Detective on Perry Mason).

Aside from the horrible special effects of the flaming orange ball, and the lack of any science research, the episode is entertaining thanks to the good actors!