episode #10 - Reign of Terror

episode #10 / Air Date: 11.18.66
written by William Welch; Directed by Sobey Martin

Paris, France - 1793! Early Fall. Doug & Tony find themselves in the middle of the French Revolution. Doug is swiftly arrested, while Tony befriends a shopkeeper (David Opatoshu). Meanwhile, the Time Tunnel crew get the idea to send General Kirk's inherited ring to the past, to use as something to zero in on. However, in a surprise, the ring ends up on the finger of Kirk's double, a French officer (also played by Whit Bissell), even though Kirk's ancestry is Scottish. The shopkeeper, Doug and Tony all get imprisoned at one point but they escape, later going to see Marie Antoinette. Kirk's double is the one who gets future shock, transported into the Time Tunnel complex, so we get the split screen affect with Bissell.

I thought the twist would be that Kirk takes the French officer's place temporarily to help the time travelers, but no; Kirk's double just breaks free and runs back into the Tunnel. For some reason, it was this episode in which it was glaring to me how everyone speaks English (with a French accent) when they should be speaking a foreign tongue (I suppose it was worse with ancient Greeks & Troyans). Also, Kirk states at one point how Doug & Tony cannot interfere with history, but isn't that what they were trying to do in every previous episode? This time, they influence a young Napoleon Bonaparte. The next big reveal is that Kirk finds out that his ancestors did migrate to Scotland from France - whoops. BoG's Score: 5 out of 10

NOTE: This episode followed Devil's Island, which also featured the old-time French and the guillotine - a coincidence or...

Epilogue: Doug & Tony land in another city, somewhere in southeast Europe, June 1956; they see a red, glowing rectangular object - a block, which Tony tries to grasp; he can't let go of it; Doug pries his hands free, but then another block explodes...!

Time Tunnel Trivia:
Star Trek TOS actor alert - Opatoshu appeared in A Taste of Armageddon