The travelers arrive in a new time zone without Liana, who has remained at their last stop and will catch up with them later. A man on horseback approaches with a cryptic, almost poetic clue about the way to Evoland, the point at which everyone can supposedly return to their own time. Varian and Fred follow a running man as instructed by the horseman, but they lose track of him when he uses a strange power to cause an avalanche to slow them down. Willaway and Scott find the safe house also mentioned by the enigmatic horseman, finding a man and a woman living there with their servant; when Varian and Fred catch up, they recognize the man: the man with strange powers who they were told to pursue. Over dinner, Scott realizes that the man he sees is not the man that the others see: they see a healthy younger man, while Scott sees a much older man. Willaway later has a similar experience with the house servant: he sees a much older man than the others do. When it becomes apparent that their wandering guests have seen through their disguises, the occupants of the house drop any pretense of hospitality: Varian, Fred and the others are trapped and subjected to a series of their own nightmares. But what secret are their hosts concealing?
written by Katharyn Michaelian Powers
directed by David Moessinger
music by Robert PrinceCast: Jared Martin (Varian), Carl Franklin (Fred Walters), Ike Eisenmann (Scott Jordan), Katie Saylor (Liana), Roddy McDowall (Willaway), Dale Robinette (Kedryn), Carole Demas (Krysta), William O’Connell (Simkin), Dax Xanos (The Rider), Lynn Borden (Enid Jordan)
Notes: Due to Katie Saylor’s illness, Liana is mentioned but does not appear in this episode outside of the opening credits. She has supposedly stayed at the travelers’ last stop (possibly the time zone visited in Turnabout), and it is said that she will catch up with the others at a later date, implying that Saylor was expected to return to the show. (In any case, production on the series was halted, and the show was then cancelled, during her leave of absence.) The aliens in this story have been banished from a world of youth where one of the highest crimes is growing old: a coincidental prediction of the next project most of The Fantastic Journey’s writers and crew would find themselves working on later in 1977 – the TV version of Logan’s Run. Enid Jordan returns as Scott’s mother, the only instance of a member of the ousted cast of the pilot returning to play the same role in the series.
LogBook entry by Earl Green