A woman being recruited by a future organization of time travelers is given a chance to return to the day in 1969 that her father died.
Opening narration
| "It is said, 'The moving finger of fate, having written, is indelible.' But what if destiny's trail could be erased and etched anew?" |
Plot
Lorelle Palmer (Kristin Lehman) is a grad student at Berkeley in 1989, focused on the history of the US in the 1960s. She meets Gavin (Chris William Martin) and he quizzes her on her knowledge of the period before "accidentally" spilling coffee on her notebook and scratching her. She walks away and Gavin uses a discreet device to analyze a blood sample and confirm Lorelle is a woman he's been seeking. Lorelle visit her mother and then drives to work, during which Gavin appears in her car and transports them both away before Lorelle's car drives over a cliff.
Lorelle awakens in a strange place with esoteric furniture and decorations. She meets Nicholas Prentice (Alex Diakun), a man who works at Chronautics, a company that offers time travel for hire. Gavin appears and reveals that he brought Lorelle to Chronautics in the year 2059. Gavin believes Lorelle has the potential to join Chronautics as a time travel agent, but if she chooses not to join them, she must be returned to the moment when her car drove off the cliff, where she will die.
Gavin introduces Lorelle to Satchi (Grace Park) and Travis (David Pauls), fellow time travel agents. Lorelle doesn't believe any of them and Nicholas expresses doubt that she'll succeed before leaving on a mission. To convince her, Gavin takes Lorelle back to Berkeley in 1969. They roam the campus, meeting hippies and other students, and Lorelle realizes she can meet her father, who died when she was a young girl. She flees from Gavin and goes to her parents' home where she meets her mother as a young woman, still unburdened and energetic because she hasn't suffered the loss of her husband. She also meets herself as a child (Jessica Amlee).
Meanwhile, Gavin grows concerned over both their next window of time to return to the future and how Lorelle may change the timestream by altering events. He seeks out Tom (Paul Popowich), Lorelle's father, who is an anti-war activist. Satchi and Travis contact Gavin and tell him he must quickly return before Nicholas returns from his mission. When Nicholas does return to Chronautics, he discovers the unauthorized time travel and they realize Lorelle has already altered history, causing Satchi not to be born as she disappears from existence.
Lorelle stumbles into her father on campus and meets him, interrupting a conversation he would have had with a fellow activist. They agree to meet for dinner later that evening. Gavin catches up with her and continues to try to convince her to join Chronautics, but she continues to refuse and eventually punches him out to get away. Gavin is informed of the change in the timestream, caused by Lorelle interrupting her father's intended course. While Lorelle has dinner with her parents, Gavin calls Tom as an anonymous friend, calling himself "Luke Skywalker" and telling Tom to get to the meeting he was intended to attend, which would restore the timestream. Tom learns that his activist friends intend to set off a bomb that would kill students as an act of terrorism in protest of the Vietnam War.
Lorelle realizes that Gavin has set her father's course back on his eventual death and goes to stop it. She leaves him tied up as his friends left him so he doesn't die while attempting to disarm the bomb, but Tom's activist friends knock her out before she can stop the bomb. Another of Tom's friends frees him and he goes to stop the bomb as intended, dying in the explosion and restoring the timestream. Lorelle is finally convinced that she must allow history to run its course because her father chose to save lives, and she must do the same.
Back at Chronautics, Lorelle is ready to join the team. While she hesitates because she doesn't want to leave her mother, she discovers that her conversations with her younger self in 1969 changed her mother's life for the better.
Closing narration
| "As our scientific knowledge expands, so do the borders of our explorations, ultimately moving beyond the bounds of three dimensions." |
Notes
- While not a clip show, this episode does feature clips from earlier episodes with the time traveling escapades of Nicholas Prentice. In fact, when Nicholas disappears for a while during the story, he is shown to have traveled back to the events of "Tribunal", meaning the events of that episode transpired during the events of this one. Furthermore, footage of the Confederate Army camp from "Gettysburg" is shown on the Chronautics viewing portal.
- This is an example of a time travel story in The Outer Limits where their own previous rules of time travel are applied somewhat consistently.
- This episode marks the eighth and final appearance of Alex Diakun on the series. Along with Eric Schneider, he was one of the series' two most prolific guest stars.
- Nicholas Prentice is the only character to appear in three episodes of the series.
- This is the 18th and final episode written or co-written by Sam Egan, the series' most prolific writer.
- This episode is included on The Outer Limits: Time Travel & Infinity Collection DVD set.
- Lorelle Palmer is named after Sam Egan's daughter.
- Gavin uses the pseudonym Luke Skywalker while talking to Tom Palmer on the phone. Mark Hamill previously played Dr. Sam Stein in "Mind Over Matter".
- The line "The moving finger of fate, having written, is indelible" cited in the Control Voice's opening narration is a quotation from a quatrain by the 11th/12th century Persian polymath Omar Khayyam, which was translated into English by Edward FitzGerald in 1859. The same quotation inspired the title of a 1942 novel by Agatha Christie and a 1990 short story by Stephen King.
- Although Kristin Lehman (Lorelle) has blue eyes, Jessica Amlee (Young Lorelle) has brown eyes.
Cast
- Kristin Lehman as Lorelle Palmer
- Chris William Martin as Gavin
- Paul Popowich as Tom Palmer
- Alex Diakun as Nicholas Prentice
- Ingrid Kavelaars as Angie Palmer
- Ryan Robbins as Richard
- David Pauls as Travis
- Grace Park as Satchko "Satchi" Watanabe
- Jessica Amlee as Young Lorelle Palmer
- Emy Aneke as James Williams
- Aaron Craven as ROTC Student
- Audra Ricketts as Tiana
- Lee Tockar as Pothead
- Cory Chetyrbok as Hippie
- Phillip Mitchell as Radical (uncredited)
- Kevin Conway as the Control Voice (voice)
Appearing in archive footage
- Saul Rubinek as Aaron Zgierski
- Peter Boretski as Leon Zgierski
- Kyra Azzopardi as Hannah Zgierski
- Lindsay Crouse as Gwen Sawyer
- Robert Weiss as Guard
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