The Fantastic Journey - Premise

Premise

The series concerns a family and their associates who charter a boat out into the Caribbean for a scientific expedition. After an encounter in the area of the Bermuda Triangle with an unnatural green cloud the group find themselves shipwrecked on a mysterious uncharted island from which they are unable to escape.

They encounter Varian (Jared Martin), initially disguised as an Arawak Indian, who is later revealed to be from the year 2230; a 23rd-century pacifist, musician and healer. Varian explains to the travelers that, like many before them including himself, they have been caught in a space/time continuum where people from the past, present, future and from other worlds are trapped, co-existing on the island in a series of timezones. The only way home can be found in a place called "Evoland" which lies "far to the rising sun" (it was indicated in interviews of the time that Evoland was also the name of the island itself). The only way to travel between timezones is via invisible gateways which instantaneously transport individuals or groups from one zone to another. In one episode "Beyond The Mountain" the group also encounters a second cloud which has much the same effect, but which also splits the group up.

After the initial pilot story, a steady group of travelers forms around Varian as de facto leader, and the series then follows this group as they travel across the many timezones of the island to find Evoland. On their way, they encounter people from different planets and times who are also trapped on the island and who have adapted to their plight in different ways. The pilot initially suggested the historical past would be explored; however, the producers of the show rapidly adopted a consistently futuristic tone during the series following pressure from the network. They also dropped three characters after the pilot as they wanted a more exotic group of travellers, hence the arrival of Liana and Willoway. Liana disappears from the last 2 episodes when Katie Saylor fell ill.

Although airing in a time when the nation's interest in the Bermuda Triangle, UFOs and fantasy was at a height, the show failed to last beyond the ten episodes, having been scheduled as a mid season replacement (following the failure of another fantasy series, The Gemini Man) against The Waltons and Welcome Back, Kotter, both big rated family shows. There were several cast changes, with many main characters from the pilot being written out by the first episode of the series proper. By its tenth episode, its ratings had dropped and it was cancelled. The script for an unproduced eleventh episode entitled "Romulus" circulates on the Internet. The show continues however to have a small cult following, but has never been released commercially on any home video format. Within a few months of its abrupt ending several of the production team would be producing the thematically similar Logan's Run for the Fall 1977 season.