- Professor Dwayne Clebe of South Dakota hopes to perfect his preservation formula and receive acclaim for it; long-widowed Irma Gideon hopes to contact her dead husband after twenty-five years of fruitless attempts.
- "The Inventor": Professor Duane Cleve has created what he hopes will be a revolutionary new formula that is purported to permanently preserve whatever it's applied to, but the stuff just isn't coming together. Proof of this lies in the formula's name -- ZX76409, with the 09 standing for the number of labs he's blown up in the process of creating the stuff. He and his assistant, Martha Meeks, have come to obtain a supply of a rare ingredient that can be found only on the island. Roarke supplies them with a lab that the klutzy professor manages to blow up twice before he is finally able to add the extra ingredient. Success! Tattoo offers his little car as a test object for the formula, now called ZX76411 to reflect the two latest explosions; meantime the overeager Cleve calls a press conference to show the world what he's developed. Roarke catches him in the act and calls a halt; but it's already had repercussions. Now bigwig business owners, union leaders, and even the Russians (remember, this is the Cold War era) are after Cleve, wanting to either destroy or steal ZX76411. But before anyone can take advantage of the formula, Tattoo shows up with a bagful of automotive parts -- all that's left of his car after ZX76411 disintegrated it! Cleve abandons the formula once and for all, and he and Martha leave the island with plans to get married. "On the Other Side": Irma Gideon has been trying for 25 years, ever since her psychic husband Howard died, to establish contact with him in whatever way possible, all in vain. Her grandson, Keith, is skeptical, but mostly willing to humor her. Just as Irma is on the edge of contacting Howard via a psychic medium named Zoltan, Roarke stops it, bringing her back, and explains that it's because she lied to him: when she meets with Howard, she has no intention of returning. Keith is horrified, but Irma mollifies him by promising she will return if Roarke will allow her to have her fantasy. Roarke agrees, and this time arranges her "trip" himself, with a medical technician monitoring sensor consoles to keep track of Irma's vital signs. Roarke sends her off, and she meets up with a mysterious guide standing on the other side of a stream, with a small footbridge crossing it. Now she has to decide whether to go or stay, for if she goes, she can't return. Keith is still afraid she won't want to, and when too much time passes, Keith sends himself in his grandmother's wake, using Roarke's words as his sendoff. He pleads with her to return, for he needs her more than his dead grandfather does; but she is still ambivalent, and he comes back fearing the worst. Then Irma wakes up...after all, she made a promise to her grandson, and she means to keep it. Convinced that she can still do good for people in life, she leaves the island happy.
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