Wild Journey (8 Mar. 1970)

Steve and Dan meet up with a pair of time travelers from another planet. The two pilots wind up stealing the device the pair uses for their travels and use it to go back to the day the ... See full summary »

Director:

Harry Harris

Writers:

Irwin Allen (creator), William Welch

Stars:

Gary Conway, Don Matheson, Stefan Arngrim

Cast

Episode cast overview:
Gary Conway	...	Capt. Steve Burton
Don Matheson	...	Mark Wilson
Stefan Arngrim	...	Barry Lockridge
Don Marshall	...	Dan Erickson
Deanna Lund	...	Valerie Scott
Heather Young	...	Betty Hamilton
Kurt Kasznar	...	Alexander B. Fitzhugh
Bruce Dern	...	Thorg
Yvonne Craig	...	Berna
Sheila Allen	...	Miss Collier (as Sheila Mathews)
Erik L. Nelson	...	SID Man (as Erik Nelson)
Louise Lorimer	...	Miss Smith
Martin Liverman	...	First Security Guard (as Win Liverman)
Marshall Stewart	...	Passerby

Storyline

Steve and Dan meet up with a pair of time travelers from another planet. The two pilots wind up stealing the device the pair uses for their travels and use it to go back to the day the Spindrift crashed on the planet of the giants in order to prevent the accident from happening. However, the two time travelers have followed them and warn the pair that if they do change history there is a good chance that when the Spindrift crashes that this time no one will survive.

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Plot Keywords:

shrinking | miniaturization | time travel

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Genres:

Sci-Fi

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Details

Language:

English

Release Date:

8 March 1970 (USA)

Filming Locations:

20th Century Fox Studios - 10201 Pico Blvd., Century City, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Irwin Allen Productions, Kent Productions, 20th Century Fox Television

Technical Specs

Runtime:

60 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

All of the characters appear in new footage wearing what they wore in the first episode with the exception of Stephan Arngrim. By the time this episode was filmed Arngrim had already hit puberty and he was taller and his voice had changed. His only appearance in this episode was in the flashback to the moments prior to the Spindrift's crash.

User Reviews

Every Single Cast Member Is Great But We Have A Problem

Irwin Allen's Time Tunnel series may of ended in 1967 but Irwin Allen and writer William Welch simply can't let a good premise go away. When Tunnel ended this pair (sometimes just Irwin) simply stuck the time travel plot lines into Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea year four, Lost In Space year three and Land Of The Giants year two. They all worked amazingly well partly due to the fact that the guest time travellers were played by talented artists such as Henry Jones (Voyage), John Crawford (LIS), Warren Stevens (Giants) and in the case of Wild Journey we have time travellers Bruce Dern (yes, that Bruce Dern) and sexy Yvonne Craig. With Giants, the best episodes of year two were the three time travel shows (all reviewed by me on this site) and Wild Journey is the lucky last of the three.

Wild Journey wastes no time in getting into the story as the opening frames of the teaser deal with "the little people" discovering the time travellers. Early in act one we are already in the guts of the story about two of "the little people" going back to earth before the tragic blast off. Bruce Dern is very pleasing in his attempts to bring reality to such a way out script, his casual style of speech is in contrast to the more tense tones of previous Giants time traveller Warren Stevens. This is my second favourite Yvonne Craig performance (after Star Trek) as she does a great job of making the viewer think she has been partnered with Dern for years. They behave like a couple.

Once back on earth we see the actress who was soon to be Mrs Irwin Allen, working at the airport. Yes, this episode holds the position of being the Giants episode with the most colourful line up of guest stars...three of them! And as if all that were not enough, the regular cast, mainly Valerie, really shine in this one as well. "Captain, nobody tells me what I can and can't do" says Valerie to Steve. This is a people show more than anything, yes, the time travel story is also good, but the story has a painful problem...

I get the odd feeling that ABC took one look at the script and said "This is Land Of The Giants with no giants?" and Welch may of responded with "Well, okay, when Steve and Dan go back to earth I will make them even more little". I hated this when I was a kid and I still hate it today. Turning Steve and Dan into "little people" on earth is a really stupid idea which does damage to the show. It is the same old problem with this series, each really good episode has one problem. Only The Crash was perfect.

Too bad this was not the last episode aired as the closing frames seem to suggest that this SHOULD of been the final episode. Instead, Graveyard Of Fools was the last episode aired?? Maybe someone wanted to end Giants with an episode that gives male viewers a good look at Valerie, we get a bit of that in Graveyard Of Fools. The series had suddenly moved into the 1970s so who knows? But seriously, now being the 1970s is partly what ended this series, Giants did not fit into the more realistic style of TV that was being produced in the 1970s. But the series never went away...in Australia the series was being replayed in the 1970s/1980s when other parts of the world would mostly not re-run it. In fact, I spoke to Yvonne Craig in Sydney Australia in 2002 and the Wild Journey memories were still with her. Land Of The Giants, despite some problems, will never go away.

Added note: In 1974 a new TV series would appear - Land Of The Lost - with striking shades of Land Of The Giants.