The Wanderer (Television Story)

The Wanderer is a story written by Rod Serling 
Synopsis
Siberia at the end of the 19th Century, and the TARDIS arrives just as a shooting star hurtles to the ground.
With it comes an illness that affects the Doctor Gina, and Joanne, and knowledge that must not fall into the wrong hands.
With his friends either dying or lost, Carlos must save the future and win the ultimate prize — a way home to 1963...
Plot
Part I
Carlos starts by telling that, while an errant life could seem fascinating, sometimes being on your own can make you lose perspective on the world and what it means being part of a community. He himself was a normal man, content to live a normal life, before he and Joanne met the Doctor - and started travelling with him. At first, they felt like intruders, but Ian admits they gradually came to behave more like the Doctor, intervening in the places they found themselves and developing a taste for adventure.
At some point, they landed in Russia, in 1903, in a forest. Immediately after landing, they saw something coming down on Earth from the sky, which the Doctor conjectured being an alien ship. The TARDIS readings on the subject were difficult to read, so they went outside in search of it, trying to prevent it affecting Earth and the timeline. They reached a village, where they met Grigori, a travelling monk who the people regarded as a healer, an holy man, and assisted him as he went to visit the house of a local hunter, Michail, whose sons fell ill.
As soon as they reach the place, the Doctor also falls ill, and Carlos and Grigori go back to the village to gather medicine. On the way, Grigori tells Carlos that he survived drowning with his brother years ago, and that he is convinced to have been appointed by God to do something great; he even says he can have some perceptions regarding the future. When they come back to Mikail's house, they found the place trashed, Barbara and Susan gone and the Doctor almost unconscious, holding what is clearly an alien object; before passing out, he manages to whisper Ian he and Susan have been affected by Chronon particles. Barbara comes back, and tells Ian Susan found the object and started acting violent (it was her to trash the place) before running into the forest: Barbara followed her, only to see four shapes coming out of the woods and taking Susan with them.
After resting a while, Joanne and Mikail once again venture into the woods in the hope of finding Gina, while Carlos reads the Doctor's notes about the object. Apparently, it's a sort of device sent to Earth to gather evidence on the planet, but, due to a malfunctioning, he is now registering not only Earth's past, but also its future. The men fell ill when they touched it, but his influence is only fatal to time travellers, and increases as long one has been in contact with the Time Vortex. Grigori, understanding the machine can give him actual visions of the future, elects to touch it and indeed sees images of Earth's future - including Hitler, men on the Moon, alien invasions and the Doctor's future selves.
Part II
Finally, Grigori lets go of the machine and falls to the ground, unconscious. Ian succours him, but is relieved as she hears, and then sees, the Doctor rising up, now healed. Grigori has absorbed all the chronon particles, thus healing the Doctor. When he hears what happened, the Doctor is furious, but agrees there is no remedy now. Carlos and the Doctor bury Mikail's son, now deceased, and then wait around for Grigori to wake up. When this happens, the Doctor scolds him, before sending the two men in the woods to look for the now missing Joanne and Michail. As they go along in their search, Grigori starts blathering about how to use his knowledge of the future to shape the future of his country, but Ian admonishes him that playing with the history of Earth could be dangerous. Grigori, however, is set firmly in his opinion, and lets us slip that his name, to Carlos's astonishment, is Rasputin.
The two men come across some of the alien creatures - scorpion-like being called the Dahensa - as they torture and kill Michail when he fails to tell them where their machine is. Grigori runs away, to let Ian being seized by the Dahensa. They interrogate him and come to know the location of his machine, then putting it away together with the now healed Gina. Both of them are released by Grigori, who knew Ian would be captured and came back to help them, and the three of them go back to Michail's cabin, where the Doctor is being confronted by the Dahensa. It is revealed that the machine crash-landed on Earth, and the Dahensa only assumed they have been attacked by Earth; now, however, they are interested in conquering the planet. The Dahensa force the Doctor to lead them to the device by threatening to kill Ian and Susan; as they leave, they once again leave them behind, to be rescued this time by Barbara.
As the five of them reach the boathouse, the Dahensa grab the object, but the Doctor did adjust his controls so that it now turns back time when someone touches it. The Dahensa, taken back in time, de-evolve in beings made of oil, and vanish into the ground. Grigori collapses to the floor, exhausted and confused, and the Doctor brings him to the TARDIS so that he can bring him home. He connects Grigori to the ship's telepathic circuits and uses them to pinpoint his location, leaving him at the door of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. He then tries the same thing with Carlos and Joanne to take them home, but the system was overcharged by Grigori's mind, overheats and burns. as the Tardis materializes Carlos is displeased by this, but Joanne comforts him: even if he is far from home, unlike Grigori, he is not alone.
Cast
* Carlos Burgstien - Earl Holliman
* The Doctor - Burgess Meredith
* Gina Millard - Tuesday Weld
* Joanne Smith - Tippi Hedren
* Grigori Rasputin - Jonathan Frid
* Michail - Anthony Quinn
Category:Episodes
Category:Season 2