William Searle is a TV presenter who has recently witnessed several tragedies take place in front of his eyes . The one common factor between them is that several faces in the surrounding crowd always appear just before tragedy ensues . Is he going paranoid ? is it coincidence ? or is something even more sinister at play
From the outset of its run JOURNEY TO THE UNKNOWN is showing signs of being formulaic . Like the first episode shown Somewhere In The Crowd features an American protagonist married to a blonde British women with a subplot of desire and supernatural over tones . As the end credits roll the audience will have no doubts that this is indeed a series revolving around the supernatural .
I won't give the plot away but while I knew where it was heading I was still impressed with the final scene . There are some slight flaws to the episode but this has more to do with slightly clouded childhood memories and social taboos .
First of all I always remembered this being a series with superb production values and whilst only THE AVENGERS and one or two ITC series might have been more expensive at the time there's slight an evident lack of budget on show . An accident involving a ship is reported as a news flash saving the production team with coming up with some convincing and hideously expensive filming of a sea borne accident .
Secondly there's a couple of scenes where Searle visits a psychiatrist where he is offered a cigarette and later on a stiff drink . One can believe that shrinks in the 1960s offered patients cigarettes but whisky ? To someone who is recovering from a drink problem ?
Little touches like that do give the show some added charm that similar shows like TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED didn't and from I have seen so far from the recently revisited JOURNEY TO THE UNKNOWN this is a charming show despite its flaws
