1.49 --- Profile in Silver

Directed by : John Hancock Written by : J. Neil Schulman Starring : Lane Smith, Andrew Robinson, Louis Giambalvo First aired : 7th of March, 1986. Dr. Joseph Fitzgerald (Lane Smith, My Cousin Vinnie, Air America), a Harvard professor, is upon first sight a very ordinary person living in the 60s. But, the reality is completely different - dr. Fitzgerald is a historian from the future, who travelled back in time in order to research his celebrated ancestor John F. Kennedy, including his assasination in Dallas. Joseph teleports himself to Dallas in order to shoot the incident on camera, but emotions overwhelm him and he manages to prevent the murder, yelling towards the president to duck. President Kennedy (Andrew Robinson, Dirty Harry, Hellraiser), thankful that he's still alive, invites Joseph for a dinner at the White House - they are escorted by the secret service agent Livingstone (Louis Giambalvo, Bonfire of Vanities). However, things turn out to be rougher than anticipated. While on board Airforce One, the president receives information that the Soviets invaded Berlin and are holding all the westerners hostage. Joseph can't believe Khruschev would do such a thing, and president informs him that he didn't - he was assasinated today. Realizing what he has done, Joe retrieves an old silver coin with JFK on it, piece of family memorabilia, and starts randomly flipping it in order to calm himself. His clumsiness and nerves make him lose the coin, and Livingstone catches it, immediately smelling foul play after seeing what for a coin is it. At the White House, Livingstone informs the president about the coin and a rather odd camera he also found within Joseph's belongings, and Joseph is soon cornered by the two of them, urged to give an explanation. He tells them that he is from future, and that the president was intended to die today - all the events which are happening now would not happen if Kennedy indeed got killed in Dallas. Considering the fact that, according to calculations from the future, an all-out war would ravage Earth for centuries if the Kennedy administration is not immediately terminated, the president decides to "rewind" the time with Joseph's help and sacrifice himself. Joseph agrees, but his idea is of different kind - he assumes the role of president and gets shot, while the real JFK returns to the future. *** Time travel is an interesting subject to explore, if not an overly easy one to deal with - in other words, it's very easy to screw up what could have been an interesting concept and botch the whole episode (or film) because of one slight miscalculation. Profile in Silver, thankfully, is one of the stronger time travel efforts I've seen - J. Neil Schulman's script is high on interesting material, and low on plotholes, so this episode is a success. Contributing to it are above-average special effects (for this series at least) and impressive set pieces, with the Kennedy murder immaculately recreated for the occasion. Andrew Robinson, a legit hi-profile name, gives an inspiring turn as the late president, and Lane Smith, who recently passed away, is also pretty good in his role. Recommended viewing, but the ending could have been stronger, and there was no explicit need for yet another liberal plug towards the end (Smith's quip how war, poverty and so on have been eliminated in the future). I'm no conservative myself mind you, it's just that you have to have some measure with your agendas on a show which is non-political by nature. Also worth noting that time travel in order to prevent a presidental suicide is a rehashed topic within the Twilight Zone - Back There (13th of January, 1961.) dealt with a man from "our" time trying to save Abe Lincoln. TZ Trivia : Barbara Baxley, here playing dr. Fitzgerald's colleague from the future, is a returning TZoner, having already appeared in a classic TZ episode Mute (31st of January, 1963.) LBJ Trivia : actor Jeff Hardin, who briefly cameos here as Lyndon B. Johnson, actually played in a LBJ biopic later in his career, a made-for-TV feature called LBJ : The Early Years, starring Randy Quaid as the former president. Hardin became famous only years later though, with his portrayal of The X Files' shadowy figure Deep Throat. Go ahead punk, make my trivia : as many of you might know, Andrew Robinson was on the receiving end of Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry persona in Harry's first cinematic venture, playing the villainous Scorpio. He is, however, not the only Dirty Harry veteran in this episode - Louis Giambalvo would later appear in the very last Dirty Harry movie, The Dead Pool.