First broadcast 22nd January 1981.
After Silver's return, the three time agents question the couple from the future about their origins and their knowledge about the machine that transported them through time.
David McCallum ... Steel
Joanna Lumley ... Sapphire
David Collings ... Silver
Catherine Hall ... Rothwyn
David Gant ... Eldred
Russell Wootton ... Changeling
After Silver's return, the three time agents question the couple from the future about their origins and their knowledge about the machine that transported them through time.
David McCallum ... Steel
Joanna Lumley ... Sapphire
David Collings ... Silver
Catherine Hall ... Rothwyn
David Gant ... Eldred
Russell Wootton ... Changeling
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00You
00:22No one can get in no
00:24No one from this time period where are you from please wait here until you're needed
00:54All
01:07Irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension
01:14Transuranic heavy elements may not be used where there is life
01:19Medium atomic weights are available
01:21gold lead
01:24Copper
01:26Jet diamond radium sapphire silver and steel
01:34Sapphire and steel have been assigned
01:47Ah, oh I
01:50I was just about to no. No, I was just
01:59I was just in the process of doing something. Yes. So what was it? You were busy making a mistake. I
02:06Never make mistakes come here. In fact, I'm unable to make mistakes
02:11It's built in instant with duplication. It never fails it did this time. No
02:16silver
02:20I
02:28Open that
02:31Well, can you it would help if I knew what it was just a minute
02:39Would you mind what I
02:43Think he wants us to go with him
02:50Oh, this is them
02:55What is that
03:00What's behind there we don't know why should we know because you belong in this thing that's why we're not what
03:08Well, we're not engineers
03:10Oh
03:13What are you then historians researchers
03:17You don't know what it is that brought you here, but not how it did. You don't know that. No
03:24Well, what information can you give us? Well that you are in danger. Do you know that much? Well, yes, we realize that good
03:32Because we put ourselves in danger because of you then we know don't thank us
03:38It's not you we care about
03:41You'll just have to guess right
03:51We are real
03:54And it's our job to safeguard the structure of time the past present and the future
04:04It was an experiment that's all
04:08Experiment. Yes. I
04:10Mean, what's the point of a future?
04:12What do you use of accumulated technology? What's the use of learning? You can't experiment?
04:16Yes, if you can't go bulldozing back where you don't belong. We haven't exactly
04:21Came here hoping to play happy families in the 20th century, but it's gone wrong, hasn't it?
04:26You're stuck here. You're stranded
04:28Don't even know how to use the machinery that brought you here that left you here
04:33And then there's a language you just about got that right for the present time, thank you, but not the names you chose
04:39You got those wrong by several hundred years. How's that for learning?
04:45How's that for accumulated technology
05:00Do you think I might have that
05:03I
05:07Love me
05:19Thank you
05:25I need to tell them tell them what
05:33There are others others like us here to other groups we already know that yeah
05:41But there's an engineer in one of the other groups perhaps he could help I'm afraid it's too late too late
05:51They're all dead
05:53Ah
06:01Something out of nothing
06:13How did they die the others we'd like to know how they died
06:19They killed themselves
06:22Because of the danger not only to them but to everything and every yes
06:30Would you have done the same thing well if it meant you can always do it now, you know, it save us a lot of trouble
06:44No
06:47Someone
06:48Some of us have to tell them what went wrong
06:50To make sure it never happens again. Yes
06:53So we have to go back if we can get you back. Yes
06:57But if you can't
07:01How do these things work
07:16I
07:25Was there
07:28That's the farmhouse yes
07:30You were there. Yes. Well that tells me nothing. All right
07:37Rural study group room two, please
07:40I
07:45That is that the bedroom what the bedroom of that place I want to see it
07:53Well, show me I can't can't no you mean there's no monitor in that room
07:58There's a monitor in every room then show me that room
08:02Look if it's a question of secrecy then forget it. There'll be no secret. It's not exactly a question of secrecy. Then what is it?
08:11If you must know it's more question of privacy of decency privacy, yes
08:21Decency
08:23What is he talking about? I'm talking about the fact that unlike these times and the times in between
08:28We have acquired or rather gain
08:33certain standards
08:35What kind of standards?
08:37If you like moral standards
08:42Are you trying to tell us that it's taken 1,500 years of troubles wars and famines
08:49To learn not to peep into one another's bedrooms if you feel that you need to laugh at us then don't preach
08:56Save it for your own time
08:59Now show us that room
09:07I
09:11Will study group room five, please
09:37You
09:51Pep pep sir sleep. No, they're not asleep
09:56You
10:03In the third group the same thing has happened to them
10:14Please switch it off
10:17This monitoring device that you have doesn't work properly not between you and your control point
10:23No, but what about between groups between well each group keeps its own log its own recorded diary, right?
10:29Yes. Well, do you have access to their log?
10:32of course
10:34But they're dead
10:35Then it's no use to them anymore
10:38So let's hear it. I
10:41Need to know more about the power system being used whatever it is that brought you across time
10:45I've already said that into this capsule
10:49It's a kind of time
10:51Time source. Yes. Oh
10:54So you do know that?
10:56Yes
10:58Only that much only that much
11:00Yes, that's something some piece of machinery. Yes machinery was used to bring us back here
11:10Why didn't you ask what it was
11:15We didn't think it was necessary
11:17Well
11:19That piece of machinery did bring you here and it's keeping you here
11:24But now it's acting on its own behalf
11:28It's thinking for itself
11:31It's already caused people to kill themselves
11:36Now what's it got in mind for you and your baby but if we don't know the answers
11:44They might yes get her out of here
12:02Their last log will be with them
12:05Yes, well, that's about it. I mean it's coming slowly, but I can't do much more without taking this entire capsule apart
12:11That wouldn't be very sensible
12:13What are you doing? Ah
12:17This is where the time source lives is it still here? Oh, yes
12:23And I think I heard your baby crying a moment ago
12:30Look
12:33I know
12:34Animal blood. What's all that? I don't know. I'd need to do tests and then do tests
12:39Well, that rather depends on where the steel no, I'm sorry it rather depends upon me I need to know
12:52These are impulse stimulus
12:54Electronic nerves if you like a sort of artificial nervous system
12:58Partly artificial see these would be used to trigger existing nerves and voluntary muscle. It's a way of bypassing the original brain
13:06these
13:10Well, as you know, these are the sort of gadgets they use in scientific surgical operations
13:17Operations on living animals. Yes
13:20It's very advanced. They're going by this. It's very sophisticated, but still a form of vivisection. Oh, yes
13:27Sounds of pain what?
13:31It's just something still once asked and I didn't know the answer then
13:34What was the question?
13:36the scientists of the future
13:391,500 years in the future. What are they guilty of?
13:45Do those tests
13:56The children were included in the discussion it seemed only right that they should be
14:03The time unit that brought us here is to blame it is responsible
14:09But not because of any malfunction
14:11Its actions were deliberate
14:14It has turned against us
14:16Turned against us all could it? Yes
14:20It has played tricks with our minds and it is now our turn to be experimented upon and used
14:26It urges us to escape into this time period it wants us to become a risk to become a threat to both the past and
14:33the future in other words a threat to the whole human race
14:38It has the power of time itself and we are no match for it
14:45Therefore therefore the only alternative the only sure safeguard is our own self-destruction
14:53This final entry is logged at 8 45 p.m. Day 25 old Canada
15:00You
15:07Said it was an animal some kind of animal
15:15Well, I can't make any sense of it what kind of animal is it?
15:30I
15:54It's not one animal it seems to be every kind every species of animal
16:01In one small sample of blood, yes, where's Eldred?
16:11This is our sleeping room a private room we don't expect to be disturbed
16:16We want you to tell us something tell you something about the future about the time that you come from. We've no objection
16:22So if you'd like to wait outside, we want you to tell us about the animals animals. Yes
16:28What animals the animals that exist in your period
16:32There are no animals not there. Not anymore
16:36Only in children's books legends things like that
16:40but none living
16:42No
16:43well
16:45We've no further use for them
16:47Well, no one would consider eating their flesh
16:51Not anymore
16:52No one has for the past several hundred years. What about pets?
16:57Pets
16:59Domesticated animals in zoos
17:01It's the past the Atomic Age. That's history. Yes
17:06Anyway, the world it's better off without them
17:09They were unclean
17:11They were cruel and most of them carried some kind of disease
17:16Cruel. Yes
17:19Oh
17:20What about the scientists? Oh, well, there's that yes, but that's different
17:27Well, what did they do?
17:29your scientists
17:31well
17:33Creatures that are used there. They're not really animals not in that state
17:39What exactly are they?
17:42Just pieces
17:44Pieces yes
17:47pieces
17:48Kept alive
17:54Propagated as pieces
18:00Reproduced
18:09But we never see them of course the public never sees them
18:15Well, they never allowed out of the laboratories
18:21Well, that's where you're wrong
18:29What did he mean wrong
18:34What did he mean
18:36What did he mean
18:41We'd like to know what you meant by that
18:44Whatever is in there did leave one of those laboratories. It came back here with you
18:48It was made to train to it's responsible for bringing you back here
18:58Pieces of animal and pieces of machinery made to work together made to coordinate
19:04Perfected and then shaped into a time unit
19:06Given a kind of mind a kind of brain a brain. Yes
19:11One that's decided to work against you work against us. But why?
19:18Well, let's think of a hundred reasons shall we
19:22Things that
19:23Once ran wild but at least free
19:26Things that breathe and ate and produced their young
19:31Things that swam in the sea things that managed to survive once
19:38Reduced to a few living pieces
19:44Well, it's in here now somewhere
19:47It can hear us and it can see us and it only wants one thing from its encounter with a human race
19:55It wants revenge
20:00Revenge
20:15Still yes, it's broken free. It's escaped. It's out here with us. Where is it now?
20:24It's in the open yes right here
20:30You
21:00I
21:02I
21:32It's
21:57Keep the child with us at all times
22:03I
22:04Get them to take this capsule back now back. Oh, did you say you could make contact with their base control?
22:10There must be enough power in those monitors to make a hell of an emergency signal. Yes, but I make one now
22:15Can you do it? Yes get on with it. All right, you two into the screen. Come on
22:32Oh
22:47It's fighting us too
23:02I
23:19Don't turn on steel
23:22Still
23:24Let us in here
23:26Now we know why?
23:28It's using us to help it escape from this cut
23:32We have to send it back before you can break out. Did I hurt you? We don't have much time
23:39But what about Rothman and Eldridge we can't send them back with it it is their problem it can't and they caused it
23:49It doesn't belong here
23:52First we have to contain it
23:54Get it back in its home
23:56How?
23:58Mure it back
23:59It's made of all animals and lead anything
24:04Feed it
24:29I
24:43Want to know what's going to happen you're going home that's what's happening. Come on places everybody please quickly
24:50Right, there's the future
24:52That's home
24:55Not ours though is it? Definitely not sir. Could you take off this please?
24:59fingers crossed
25:00Can I ask you something? This is hardly the time. Yes you may. The figure the man we saw the one that made us sleep
25:08Was that our child?
25:11Yes, it was. Very good. Hold tight
25:23Well? It's gone. Just an empty roof? Yes
25:33Steel you can't leave like that, you know?
25:37What? You put a knot in the liftgate
25:44Imagine a world without animals
25:48Yes, well they're not quite as clever as I thought they were you know. What do you mean?
25:52They did have mice in that capsule
26:22I
26:52You