User Reviews

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

I've been watching this series and most have been great, including this one.

After viewing the first two episodes I was struck by this bizarre conjunction:

The first episode was the highly regarded The New People, and starred Robert Reed.

This second episode stars David Hedison, of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea fame.

Now, right after that series ended, he was offered the lead in a new series...you guessed it...The Brady Bunch.

He politely (I think) declined, stating "after four years of subs and monsters, who needs kids and dogs?"

That role, of course, went to the aforementioned Robert Reed.

I think this would be their first and last "meeting"...

This would be an outstanding episode were it not for the fact that it seems to be an uncredited adaptation of Ray Bradbury's 1948 short story "The Crowd" -- even the title is similar. The basic plot -- accident victim sees the same people over and over again at accident scenes -- is exactly the same with a few changes. Bradbury's name appears nowhere in the credits. An oversight -- or plagiarism? Other than that this is intriguing and creepy and star David Hedison gives one of his best performances. Rather a nice adaptation all told -- it's just odd that Bradbury wasn't given an acknowledgment, especially as the story is fairly well-known.

The second episode of this Hammer series is another worthwhile instalment, this time based on a Ray Bradbury story. Obviously it's been condensed down but it still works well, with more than adequate direction from DRACULA AD 1972's Alan Gibson and David Hedison on top form as a man puzzled by a string of coincidences. It reminded me of KNOWING and UNBREAKABLE a little.