Note:  This is Part 2 of Double Helix, an Outer Limits episode that aired 20 months earlier.  So this writer has about the same work ethic as me.

We start with a recap of Part 1.  Professor Martin Nodel recruited a group of college girls for an experiment that required them to get naked.  His effort worked better than mine, maybe because he also recruited some dudes as cover.  The group met at a cave in which a spacecraft had been hidden for millions of years.  The aliens left a message that they wanted humans to pay them a visit to see how we turned out.  Faced with the choice of abandoning Earth or trying to get a job with their “studies” degrees, the students boarded the ship with Nodel.

And now on with the story . . .

The “action” moves to the interior of the ship and it is as narratively underwhelming as it was in Close Encounters.  At least the CE3K ship looked great (if thoroughly inefficient) and had the John Williams score going for it.  Here, it is just transportation with some padded scenes to get us to a couple of twists at the end.

Dr. Nodel jacks in to the ship again and channels its builders, “Four score and seven eons ago, the ancestors of our race foresaw a great danger . . .”  However, before he gets to the good part, and I’m being optimistic there, he begins to glow and disappears.  His son Paul tries to help him and disappears also.  This leaves behind several students and Paul’s girlfriend Hope.  To head off any weirdness, I must point out that Paul and his girlfriend joined the group after the naked examinations.  Although, that does make me question their scientific value.

The walls begin to twist, but ship does not lose structural integrity, like that Star Trek episode that bugged me so much that I can’t remember whether it was TNG or Voyager.  Another passageway opens up, but it leads — literally, figuratively, and narratively — nowhere.  The shifting walls do split the group up, but not much is done with this.

Eventually, they all get back together somehow.  They can feel the ship decelerating.  One of the guys says, “Get back to launch positions, now!” which is probably the same as “landing positions” but why not just say that?  They land, and a hatch opens.

SPOILERS

They exit the ship to a very earth-like environment.  One of them wonders why the aliens were not there to greet them.  This ship is supposed to be 65 million years old.  Would anyone rally remember this ship was out there?

They climb a nearby hill to determine the lay of the land, although it is clearly the girl who looks like Nancy Allen.  It is a pretty nice series of shots that shows their reaction to the unseen sight before them.  Then we see the ruins of the Golden Gate Bridge.  Hope says, “Oh my God, we’re home.” ^[1]  

They fortuitously find a food wrapper that has an expiration date of May 2267.  So, unless it was a Twinkie, they merely went about 269 years into the future. ^[2]  There are no people here, though.  They find a massive graveyard with a marker blaming their vanity in “trying to control nature.”  So, trying to stop Global Warming was the cause, I guess.

They conclude they were sent here to repopulate the planet.  Someone says, “There’s only seven of us.  We don’t have enough genetic diversity to repopulate” even though one of them is a brunette.  They go back to the ship and a nursery full of babies is revealed.  The ship somehow tweaked their DNA to provide the diversity needed to safely repopulate.

Dr. Nodel and son reappear as a hologram.  They explain that the aliens were humans million of years in the future that left the ship on Earth to give the planet another chance.  That raises more questions, but that might just be because it is 2:15 am.

The big grave-site and the low disk space message that pops up every 5 goddamn minutes.

There are a few cheats and padding — clearly, there was never supposed to be a Part 2.  The characters are pretty generic.  I can only name Hope and a guy whose name I don’t know; so just Hope, I guess.

Still, I’m a sucker for such derivative, high-concept stories.  Plus, it has the benefit of following Science Fiction Theater and Tales of Tomorrow.  I would never watch it again, but it gets an OK.

Other Stuff:

• ^[1] Suspiciously close to “Oh my God, I’m back, I’m home” from Planet of the Apes.  However, Hope does not start name-calling and blaspheming.
• ^[2] Joe Miller Jokebook, circa 1739.