"Jaunt, Part 2"
Episode 301
(aired the week of 9/27/1998)
Case # 89-8750
Log line: After splitting up due to professional and personal differences, the O.S.I.R. team unites when a scientist who vanished into the Arch reappears, giving them hope that another colleague may also still be alive.
Synopsis: As the third season begins, physicist Peter Axon is the only remaining member of the OSIR investigative team. His colleague, Dr. Anton Hendricks, is apparently dead, having disappeared into a mysterious apportation device known as the Arch, case manager Matt Praeger has tendered his resignation after differences with OSIR head Frank Elsinger and senior data analyst Lindsay Donner has left the team after running afoul of Praeger and revealing confidential information.
Meeting with Axon, Elsinger tells him he will accept Praeger's resignation if Axon will take over as case manager. Axon refuses, telling Elsinger that while he'd love the job, he won't accept it at someone else's expense. Frustrated, Elsinger nonetheless asks Axon to work as the physicist in the investigation of the Arch. Axon accepts.
Axon and Curtis Rollins, the case manager assigned to the Arch case, take their investigation to a remote area of northern Quebec after an RCMP officer finds a woman wandering alone in the sub-tundra. Appearing out of nowhere, the woman was taken to the police outpost infirmary for treatment of severe frostbite that has taken six of her fingers and half her foot. It turns out the woman is Dr. Joanne Bester, a scientist who, like Hendricks, had vanished into the Arch--then re-appeared 2,000 miles away! She begs Axon and Rollins to take her back to the Arch, a place where she apparently had an experience so euphoric that she will do anything to return. They refuse, telling her they won't move her anywhere until they know more about what's going on.
Axon hopes that Dr. Pester's appearance means there's a chance that Hendricks may still be alive. With Rollins and the RCMP officer, he returns to the site where Dr. Bester was found. Further investigation reveals high electromagnetic activity consistent with some sort of radio transmitter. Axon suggests that perhaps there is some sort of receiver in the area--a receiver for signals sent from the Arch. Their discussion is cut short, though, as two hooded men riding all- terrain vehicles, swoop down on them with guns blazing. Axon manages to knock one of the men off his vehicle but the other escapes. They take the man Axon apprehended into custody.
Axon begins to suspect that perhaps he was responsible for releasing Dr. Bester from the Arch, inadvertently doing so during his tests on the device. He decides to take Dr. Bester back to the Arch. With Rollins, Axon returns to the infirmary at the police station where they find the officer semi-conscious on the floor and the prisoner still in his cell, but there is no sign of Dr. Bester.
Returning to the area where Dr. Bester had been found, Axon begins excavations and uncovers a second Arch. He decides to take it back to the location of the first Arch so the team can examine the two enigmas side by side. Rollins chooses to remain and continue the search for Dr. Bester. In need of a senior data analyst to help with the investigation, Axon not surprisingly turns to Lindsay Donner. She is reluctant at first but when he tells her that Hendricks may still be alive, she agrees to rejoin the team. Her priority is to determine the location of Dr. Bester. As the only person to have survived the Arch so far, she is invaluable to the OSIR team. Donner also finds information on the man who remains in custody up north, a Finnish Army veteran who calls himself a Hunter or "Sami." As Donner explains, "Samis" are a rare religious sect thought to have vanished years ago. Reputed as a non-violent people, the "Sami" were said to have simply disappeared in times of war when their homeland was threatened. Donner suspects this may have something to do with why the two Hunters were so active at the site of the second Arch. Through phone records, Donner is able to track Dr. Bester's movements. She is clearly making her way back to the Arch.
Suddenly, Matt Praeger walks back into the OSIR lab--three months after tendering his resignation. He reassumes his role as case manager, taking over what has become a full-fledged search for a way to recover Hendricks from the Arch. During Axon's test of the two Arches, Dr. Bester suddenly appears, hobbling into view on a crutch. Following a medical examination by Dr. Claire Davison, who at first finds no heartbeat in her patient, Dr. Bester says she remembers seeing Hendricks in the Arch when she was there. The team accepts her offer to return to the Arch and lead him out.
Back at the police outpost, Rollins is warned by the Hunter to beware of Dr. Bester. The man says she will stop at nothing to return to the Arch and will take others with her if she must. Elsinger stubbornly refuses Rollins' request to call off the tests. Rollins then notices the other Hunter peering in the window at him. He dashes outside to confront the man but he is gone. Returning inside, he discovers that the first Hunter has vanished from his cell--which remains locked!
The test at the lab proceeds, with Donner accompanying Dr. Bester toward the Arches. The devices fire up, engulfing the two women in a whirlwind of light. As Donner tries to hang onto Dr. Bester, she asks her if she can see Hendricks in the Arch. Dr. Bester admits that she had never seen Hendricks there at all, then escapes Donner's grasp and disappears into the Arch.Two thousand miles away, Rollins thinks he sees Dr. Bester off in the distance, hobbling on her crutch across a barren stretch of land. He races out to her but when he gets there she is gone. All that remains is her crutch.
Starring:
Matt Frewer - Case Manager Matt Praeger
Barclay Hope - Peter Axon
Nancy Anne Sakovich - Lindsay Donner
Colin Fox - Dr. Anton Hendricks
Dan Aykroyd - Host
Guest Stars:
Maurice Dean Wint - Curtis Rollins
Peter Keleghan - RCMP officer
Janet-Laine Green - Dr. Joanne Bester
Written by: James Nadler
Directed by: John Bell