The Time Tunnel

The guys arrive in a brick basement on the North Atlantic coast in 1978. It has advanced electrical equipment, and they are attacked by an overalled man. He collapses dead, then gets up and disappears in a cloud of smoke. They go upstairs and are paralyzed by an alien-android disguised as an old woman. The aliens are preparing to steal Earth's oxygen. The Project staff execute a lateral transfer and free the guys. They escape to a seemingly empty town surrounded by a force field and filled with paralyzed townspeople. A young couple, Paul and Joan, find the guys and tell them about the oxygen-stealing plot. Meanwhile the alien androids infiltrate the Project base, seal it off, and start sucking out the oxygen through the Tunnel itself. The guys must destroy the operation at their end. They fight off the androids and use explosives to blow up the alien HQ.

The guys' signal is intercepted and a silver-skinned alien shows up and kidnaps Anne. He leaves behind a data card which the rest of the Project staff use to send Tony and Doug to. The guys end up in a futuristic complex and meet a zombiefied ancients from different time periods and locales. A mysterious voice provides historical detail. According to the Project staff they're on a distant planet in the Canopis system in 8433 A.D. The guys meet the Curator then escape. They get hold of Ann before being captured and the Project staff try a recovery but grab a OTT (""Official Time Traveller) instead. He grabs the Time Tunnel's time/space converter and leaves. The guys and Ann stage an escape but mess that up as well. The Canopians go dormant during night, and the guys avoid being drugged to take advantage of the situation. They get nowhere for a while, and the OTT is not vulnerable to lack of sunlight. The three Earthlings manage to overcome it long enough to send Ann back with the convert

Doug and Tony are captured by the Mongols in 1287, led by Genghis Khan's grandson Baku. Tony is tortured until Doug stages a rescue, where they meet with Marco Polo, who is aiding Kublai Khan. Tony falls in love with Sahib, daughter of Kublai Khan that Polo is aiding and who is kidnapped by Baku. The guys rescue her by using black powder that Polo has discovered in China. When Baku launches an assault on the fort where Polo is staying, the Project staff try and send artillery back to the guys. They thwart an attack on the fort while Tony considers staying with Sahib. In the end she returns to her duty and the two part. Doug provides the necessary ingredient to turn the black powder into gunpowder, while the Project try and send detonator caps to assist them. With the explosives the attack is thwarted and the guys are whisked out. (Copyright 2003 Steve Crow)

The guys arrive in Arizona, 1547, as a technician named Niman kills a scientist. After a shootout, he flees into the Tunnel. Niman is a spy who has planted a nuclear device in the complex. The guys need to find Niman to get him to reveal the location of the bomb. They lure him in with a fire but he slips, and the Project transfer Doug and Tony after him to 1,000,000 A.D. Niman is already there and has established himself with the ruling clique. The guys get the info on the detonation time, bypass a force field, and with the aid of a local female ""defective"" manage to get to Niman. The Project transfers everyone, including two of the future-types, back to 1,000,000 B.C. After some running around from dinosaurs, they rescue Niman from a quicksand pit in return for the location of the bomb. The head alien eventually comes around and forces Niman to give the location of the bomb which they defuse. Everyone ends up in a giant bee hive and the Project gets everyone but Niman out.

Doug and Tony arrive in Lincoln in late April in the 1860s, and run afoul of Billy the Kid. Doug shoots Billy and apparently kills him, then he and Tony escapes. It turns out Billy took the bullet in the belt buckle, and he goes after the two. They manage to capture him thanks to a voice-transmitted distraction provided by Kirk, but Tony goes back into town and is mistaken for Billy. Pat Garrett arrives and eventually convinces the sheriff that Tony isn't Billy, but the mob isn't hearing it. Billy catches up to Doug and challenges him to a gunfight. Pat and Tony get involved, with Tony knocking out one of Billy's men planning to backshoot Doug and Pat intervening when Doug blows it. The two men are whisked off again.

Tony and Doug arrive outside the tent of Joshua on the sixth day of his seven-day assault on Jericho. With their future knowledge of the Bible they are able to convince Joshua that they are emissaries of the Lord, and he basically forces them to go into Jericho as spies. Doug is captured and tortured after they try to stop an exection, and Tony befriends a harlot, Rahab. With the help of Rahab and her father, a blind architect, they manage to free Doug. Tony and Rahab are set up for execution, but when a skeptical Anne tries to use the Tunnel to free them in opposition to how the Bible describes the incident, the Tunnel shuts down as if by some outside (dare we say Divine?) force. Tony and Rahab are spared when Joshua launches his attack and both the guys and the Project team witness the miracle just before they are whisked away once more.

The guys land in a Western town in the late 19th century, where they are intercepted by two silver-clad aliens. The two aliens need to steal protein to supplement their own supplies, and soon use their advanced technology to mind-control Doug and hold the confused townspeople at bay while stealing local cattle. Tony manages to get hold of one of the alien control devices. Meanwhile, at Project TickTock the same alien race but from 1966 arrive and demand to know what happened to their scouting party a hundred years earlier, believing the Project to have something to do with it. Tony manages to free Doug from mind control and defeat the aliens in the past, while the ones in the present witness the departure of the scouting party in the past and are satisfied Earth had nothing to do with their disappearance.

Doug and Tony show up in June 1215 when the Earl of Huntington is trying to convince King John to sign the Magna Carta. Doug is captured along with Huntington when the King gets surly and orders their torture. Tony manages to rescue Doug and they flee where they meet up with Huntington's men: Little John, Friar Tuck, and the Merry Men. Using their knowledge of modern-day chemicals, Doug and Tony help the rebels while trying to get hold of a homing post that the Project staff has sent back to them to enact a rescue. With the time travellers help Huntington and his men capture King John and force him to sign the Magna Carta...at Runnymede! The homing post fails to work and the two are swept off.

Tony is shot by Afghani tribesmen and left for dead, and they then take Doug prisoner. Doug is taken before Singh, the head of the Afghanis fighting against the British in 1876, while Rudyard Kipling rescues Tony and takes him to the English fort. The Afghanis are preparing for a massive attack on the English, the 'Night of the Long Knives'. With the aid of a blind slave, Doug escapes and gets back to the fort, while Kipling is captured. The general in charge has been ordered to only defend himself, so he has the head of the Afghani forces under English command launch an ""unofficial"" attack. Doug and Tony accompany them and rescue Kipling, and Singh is killed in the attack.

The guys land in Baltimore on February 22, 1861, in a barn where a group of conspirators and followers of Abolitionist John Brown are meeting. They are mistaken for fellow collaborators, but the Pinkertons break up the meeting. Doug is captured while Tony escapes with brothers Jeremiah and Matthew. They still plan to blow up Lincoln, who is enroute to his inauguration. While Doug tries to convince Pinkerton he is innocent, Tony tries to persuade the brothers not to go through with there plan, but Jeremiah is determined. Tony manages to escape but Pinkerton doesn't believe him either. The two manage to convince Pinkerton there is a bomb and go to look for it. The Project staff have spotted the bomb and brought it to the future to disarm it, accidentally scooping up the conspirators' other, younger brother David. They convince David to delay the bomb before having to send him and the bomb back. As Lincoln departs, Tony, Doug, and brother Matthew manage to convince Jeremiah that his cause

The guys arrive in Paris, 1793, and Doug is arrested by the Committee for Public Safety. Tony rescues him with the aid of a shopkeeper, who is a royalist and friend of Marie Antoinette. Meanwhile, Kirk has the Project send back an irradiated personal ring to the guys which they hope will act as a focal point to home in on. Doug and Tony get the ring, but then reveal themselves to a man who is a splitting image of General Kirk! This General, Querque, is with the Revolution and has them arrested, along with the shopkeeper. Querque has the ring and believes it is the evidence he needs to have Antoinette executed. Kirk brings his ancestor into the present and tries to convince him to change his mind. Querque escapes back into the Tunnel when they send the ring back, and tries to thwart Doug and Tony. They escape, and with forged passports get to Marie Antoinette and then help the Dauphin to escape. The shopkeeper and the Dauphin get on board a departing ship: Tony recognizes the Corsican g

The guys arrive in South Dakota in June 24, 1876, near Little Bighorn. They are captured by Indians, although Doug manages to escape and make it to Custer's camp. Custer refuses to believe Doug's tale. Meanwhile, Tony has tried to warn Sitting Bull. The Indians prepare to burn Tony at the stake, but Sitting Bull intervenes, impressed by Tony's bravery. A trial-by-combat settles the matter when Tony wins against Yellow Elk but spares his life. Tony tries to convince Sitting Bull to approach Custer peacefully, much to the disgruntlement and skepticism of Crazy Horse. Sitting Bull lets Tony go to Custer's camp with a message of peace, but Custer refuses it and locks both travellers up. They manage to escape, and are forced to watch as history plays itself out and Custer and his men are massacred.

On the island of Krakatoa in 1883, time travelers Doug and Tony try to convince a British scientist that the volcano is about to erupt in one of history's biggest explosions.

Tony and Doug land in the Japanese Consulate in Honolulu on December 6, 1941, and see three men burning files. They talk their way out and Tony goes to find his father, who disappeared during the bombing. Cmdr. Newman is initially skeptical, but Tony convinces him with family knowledge no one else could know. The Japanese agents get wind of Tony and Doug's knowledge, capture the pair, and interrogate them for information. They don't break, and manage to escape. Meanwhile, Cmdr. Newman is at Naval HQ checking out Tony's warning, and the Project staff realize that if the young Tony (who was also present at Pearl Harbor) isn't rescued, then ""their"" Tony will vanish. Tony manages to convince the housekeeper, Mrs. Neal, to flee to the mountains with her child and Tony, and then he goes to rescue his father. They head to Naval HQ but a barrage hits and Cmdr. Newman is killed. An unexploded bomb lands, and the Project staff use the Tunnel to delay it long enough for the travellers to get clea

Doug and Tony land 10 years in the future on the Mars Excursion Module during liftoff. Their extra 335 pounds of weight endanger the mission by putting it over the weight allowance. Everyone believes the time travellers are spies except one man, Harlow. They are forced to land on the moon for a refueling stop, but the ship crashes. One of the other men, Beard, kills Harlow. Beard is a spy. To further confuse matters, ten years in the past at Project TicToc, Beard and another spy, Brandon, are visiting the complex. Brandon sabotages the tunnel and then tries to escape, but Beard shoots his superior to bolster his own cover and his own role remains undiscovered. In the future, Doug and Tony manage to blow up the ""future"" Beard, but the MEM takes off without them. As they are stranded on the moon, their air running out, the Tunnel scoops them up and sends them on their way. (Copyright 2003 Steve Crow)