episode #17 - Kill Two by Two

episode #17 / Air Date: 01.06.67
written by Bob & Wanda Duncan; Directed by Herschel Daugherty

Doug & Tony land on a Japanese held island in the South Pacific during World War II; Tony messes up his ankle in landing - he thinks it's broken, but probably just twisted.  As fate would have it, all the Japanese forces except two soldiers leave the island as the two time travelers arrive. The bad news is that one of the remaining Japanese (Mako) is some kind of psycho who enjoys tormenting the two after he captures them. He has a fight with Tony using bamboo staves, eerily similar to Tony's fight with Little John in the previous episode. The Time Tunnel personnel find out that it's a couple of days before the famous Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. Besides that, the Japanese soldier has some sort of ambush set up for American forces. It then turns into a variation of The Most Dangerous Game: the Japanese soldier gives the two travelers a one-hour head start and then attempts to hunt them down.

This was one of the episodes which had the added distinction of an additional subplot & guest character in the 1968 Time Tunnel: the personnel send for an elderly Japanese doctor (Philip Ahn) who commanded the forces on that island in WW2 and he turns out to be the father of the deranged Japanese Lt. who actually has a death wish; that's why he plays the sick games with Doug & Tony, hoping they will kill him. It has to do with the lost honor of a Japanese warrior, who was supposed to go thru with a Kamakaze attack and failed. The father thought his son to be dead and is naturally stunned to see him on the Time Tunnel screen. At first, the father cuts a deal to get his son back but changes his mind by the end. There's some tension generated when the heroes get their hands on some grenades but it's mostly a limp affair. BoG's Score: 5.5 out of 10
Epilogue: Doug & Tony land inside a spaceship on its way to Earth; two aliens with silvery skin appear, claiming that their plan is to destroy all life on Earth; one of them zaps Doug when he moves forward... (as sometimes happened when moving on to a new episode, things change without reason - Tony's ankle problem is suddenly gone when they land in the spaceship).