Return to The Time Tunnel

*Return to The Time Tunnel* is a 1973 made-for-television Science-Fiction Adventure film. It was written by Mayo Simon, with the story by Irwin Allen, and is a sequel to his 1966 series, *The Time Tunnel*, which only lasted one season. The movie is set in 1983, fifteen years after the events of the series. The cast included Anne Randall, Richard Benjamin and Alan Oppenheimer. Most of the cast from the original series reprised their roles in the film. the one exception was Lee Meriwether, who played Dr. Ann MacGregor. Meriwether was filming the series *Barnaby Jones* when production began, and her role was recast with Majel Barrett. It premiered on the *DuMont Monday Night At The Movies* May 5, 1973, and served as a pilot for the 1973-80 series, *The Time Tunnel*

## Plot

Daphne Parker (Anne Randall) is a brilliant young, headstrong graduate student at the Nelson Institute of Technology (a nod to another Irwin Allen series, *Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea).* Of late, she has been plagued by dreams of men she has never met, but sees and remembers them clearly. The men she sees are always fighting or in some other danger (Clips from the Time Tunnel episodes "End Of The World" and "Chase Through Time" are used in this sequence). Her dream always ends the same: One of them looking right at her, and a voice saying, "Find us....save us!" as she awakens. The morning of her latest vision, Parker receives a package addressed to her, but no return address. She finds papers filled with mathematical equations and formulas, and a map that leads to the Arizona Desert. Several points on the map contain dots and dashes Parker recognizes as old style telegraph. When she translates, she writes the location of a seemingly vacant stretch of desert and one phrase over and over: Tic-Toc.

She brings them to one of her professors, Peter Markson (Richard Benjamin) who's just finishing a lecture (one Parker is actually late for) on space time relativity. Markson is astonished by the complexity of the formulas she has. Parker asks the Professor if he believes time travel is really possible. As they both head back to his office to explore things further, they're intercepted by a man who identifies himself as Air Force Intelledge, and insistently escorts them both to a private villa inside March Air Force Base. There, a woman introduces herself as Dr. Ann McGregor (Majel Barrett), and a wheelchair-bound man introduces himself as General Kirk (Whit Bissell). Both of them have been living on the base in secret under the tightest security for the last ten years. Next to them is a picture of Kirk in uniform standing with two men whom Parker recognizes as the ones in her dreams!

Both McGregor and Kirk reveal to their bewildered guests (and the audience) the story of how The Time Tunnel came to be; How brash Tony Newman went in the tunnel to prove that traveling through time, and returning was possible, and how Doug Phillips followed to try and save his friend, and how both became lost together. Parker wonders what her connection is to either of these time travelers, when Kirk shows her something she thought was lost - a Birth Certificate from the year 1958, bearing the name Daphne Phillips! McGregor explains that Doug and Tony tumbled through a time corridor to May of 1958 somewhere in Paris, France during the Algerian War of Independence. While there, they ended up protecting a scientist named Arlette Petrisot, whom Doug had fallen very much in love with. Petrisot had her own theories of forth dimension travel, ones that actually improved on what Tic-Toc Base had accomplished. She was very excited when she found Doug and Tony to be the genuine articles of actual time travel.

Just as Doug, Tony, and the staff back at Tic-Toc Base were in heavy debate about how to go forward, an explosion deep inside the underground complex triggered a chain reaction, destroying much of the equipment, and ripping Doug and Tony back into the tunnel, leaving a very broken hearted....and pregnant Arlette behind! Back at Tic-Toc, a hooded man wearing a Base Uniform identifies himself as the saboteur, responsible for the attack. "Now I shall rewrite history to suit my vision of the world!", and runs into the tunnel, disappearing just before it's rendered useless!