Tesseract
Days at Blake Holsey
High
Walking on the walls.
What the button does...
- Original airdate: September 2, 2004 in the UK on Fox Kids.
- TNBC/DCKids original air date: October 2, 2004
- Australia original air date: September 2, 2004
- Writers: Jeffrey Alan Schechter
- Director: Ron Murphy
| Guest Stars: | |
| Actor's name | Character played |
| Steve Jackson | Professor Middleton |
The students are getting picked up by their rides for a weekend vacation. Principal Durst coordinates the departures with a clipboard. Lucas is staying at the school though. Marshall finds it odd since Lucas and his father were planning to go fishing for months and it was suddenly cancelled by his father who apparently can’t get off work. Pulling Lucas aside, Josie asks Lucas if arranged for himself to stay behind to look into some theory about Vaughn. Lucas tells her that he heard Victor talking to someone or something important to Victor’s plans was going to do something this weekend, probably in Professor Z’s office, and he’s going to check it out. Josie informs Lucas that Vaughn left with Victor an hour ago to go fishing, she personally saw them leave. Josie will be spending the weekend with her mother and refuses to help Lucas. Josie believes Lucas’s theory about Vaughn working with his father is completely wrong while Lucas believes that Josie’s trust of Vaughn is a mistake. Lucas tells Josie that he isn’t really going to do anything and she doesn’t have to be concerned, taking back what he said about wanting to investigate his theory. Principal Durst calls for Corrine, saying that Corrine’s parents have arrived. Corrine offers for Lucas come with her. Josie thinks it is a great idea but Lucas turns down the invitation. Marshall says good-bye to Lucas, giving him a hug, and joins Corrine and Josie over at Corrine’s parent’s car. Lucas thinks to himself about how they think he is crazy.
That night, thunder rolls in the sky. Lucas sneaks around the school, the lights are out, with a flashlight. Coming down the stairs and into the main hall, Professor Z walks out from a room behind Lucas, scaring Lucas. Professor Z invites Lucas to join him in the teacher’s lounge but Lucas declines. Professor Z asks Lucas what he is up to. Lucas confesses that he is setting up surveillance equipment to catch Victor and Vaughn in the act for if they come back early from their trip. Lucas asks if he can set it up in Professor Z’s office but Professor Z says he does not want Lucas to. Professor Z goes off to the teacher’s lounge but Lucas heads to Professor Z’s office anyway.
Inside Prof Z's office, Lucas is on one of the counters against the wall. He places the camera on a bookshelf and the sound dish on a cabinet above it. As he struggles to reach, his fingers grip the edge of the counter. Under the counter’s rim, Lucas’s fingers slip across a red button. At the bottom of the counter, a secret compartment slides open, revealing a pyramid shaped object, a red button at its top. Lucas jumps down from the counter and snatches the object, placing it on a textbook on Professor Z’s desk. He figures that it is what Victor is looking for. Lucas pushes the red button and stands back. From each side, a prong pops up and the object builds up energy, firing it at the floor and opening the wormhole. Lucas pulls himself along the counters and to the door, avoiding getting sucked into the wormhole. Opening the door, Lucas enters the teacher’s lounge. Professor Z asks Lucas if there’s something that Lucas wants and tells Lucas that he felt a tremor. Lucas, bewildered, steps back through the doorway and into Professor Z’s office then back into the teacher’s lounge.
“No…” - Professor Z.
“It is now.” - Lucas
Lucas tries to convince Professor Z that his office has moved and is now connected to the teacher’s lounge. Lucas pulls Professor Z up from his chair and out the door. They move into the hallway however, not Professor Z’s office. Professor Z does not believe Lucas. Professor Z asks Lucas if Lucas came from Professor Z’s office. Lucas admits it and Professor Z is disappointed. Walking back into the teacher’s lounge, Professor Z tells Lucas is pumped up with built up energy from the adrenalin that is being released by his body due to the seismic tremor. Lucas denies that and pulls Professor Z back out the door. They still move into the hallway. Professor Z tells Lucas to go to bed and returns to the teacher’s lounge.
Walking up the stairs, Lucas debates with himself if the event actually occurred. Getting to his room, Lucas opens the door and walks back into the teacher’s lounge. Professor Z looks at him, asking if Lucas has forgotten something. Lucas pulls Professor Z out of the chair and into the hallway. Professor Z is annoyed with Lucas as Lucas drags him up the stairs and into his bedroom. Lucas is bewildered that his bedroom is actually his bedroom and not the teacher’s lounge. Professor Z is still won’t consider Lucas’ theory that the geography of the school is messed up. He tells Lucas to go to sleep and that they will try to test some ideas in the morning. Professor Z walks out. However, he emerges in the kitchen. Astonished, Professor Z walks back through the doorway, into Lucas’ room. Now believing Lucas, Lucas and Professor Z exit the room and end up in the Science room.
“No” - Lucas
“It is now.” - Professor Z
To explain the phenomenon, Professor Z tells Lucas that he believes Blake Holsey High has become a tesseract, the equivalent to a four-dimensional cube. Professor Z brings out a box and fiddles with some folding cube figures. Putting some together he shows Lucas an unfolded model of what a tesseract would resemble. Going over to a laptop computer, Professor Z runs a program which demonstrates how a tesseract would fold up. Lucas asks how Blake Holsey would fold up without fracturing. Professor Z answers that with three dimensions it isn’t possible but a fourth dimension would allow it. If they don’t escape, they’ll be squashed inside.
To Professor Z’s office, Lucas, walking with the flashlight, explains to Professor Z about the device that he found and what it did. Turning into his office, Professor Z is now outside and it is now day time. Professor Z explains that Blake Holsey is folding up in space and time so that is not to be unexpected. Lucas asks how they will get to Professor Z’s office but Professor Z tells Lucas that he’d need the computer to calculate the math required. Lucas pulls out his cell phone and calls Corrine, telling Professor Z that if anyone can do such calculations, that one would have to be Corrine. Corrine answers the phone where she is. Her mom calls to her that they are about to leave and Corrine responds that she won’t take long. Lucas asks her if she knows anything about tesseracts. Immediately following, from inside, they hear a girl screaming. Lucas and Professor Z run back inside. In the main hallway stands Corrine.
Corrine approaches Lucas and Professor Z. She thinks she is dreaming and orders Lucas to pinch her on her arm. Lucas doesn’t at first but then chooses to. Feeling the pinch which hurt, Corrine shoves Lucas back. She then realizes that this is not any dream.
Professor Z explains that, when Lucas called Corrine, a space-time connection was created that sucked Corrine into the tesseract.
Trying to solve the tesseract, Corrine asks them to map out which rooms have been connecting. So far, it has been:
To work out the information, they try to go back into the Science room to fetch a pen and paper.
Opening the door, they see a hallway of the basement which has been slanted 90 degrees, now horizontal against their vertical position. Shifting themselves as they go through the door, they stumble into alignment with the hallway leading through the basement. Lucas closes the door behind them. Professor Z points out that they should be alright as long as the door remains behind them but the door suddenly disappears and is replaced by a wall. Turning forward, another wall is before them. The two walls begin to move together. Professor Z tells them that, hypothetically, there is not a way to escape a tesseract collapsing in on itself. It being only hypothetical, they try to slow the walls down, which are not moving very fast, by connecting several pipes. Lucas confesses that it was really him that cancelled the trip between him and his dad and that if he had not, none of them would be in this situation. As Professor Z is about to respond, he disappears into the wall behind them. Above them appears a door to an office, Professor Middleton’s office.
Lucas recalls that the tesseract is running through time as well as space. He points out a poster on the bulletin board next to the door. It is for the Spring fair, the date on it reading “April 1st, 2001.” Lucas says that it is the date that Professor Middleton disappeared. He realizes that professor Middleton may be their last chance to escape the tesseract as debris falls from above them. The walls continue to close in on them while Corrine computes how to get to Professor Middleton. Pointing to an air vent close to the floor on a wall, she tells Lucas that there is high probability that it will lead to Professor Middleton’s office. However, it could also send Lucas into a different galaxy. With that caution, Lucas tells Corrine that she should stay behind. Lucas goes through the vent. The walls continue their advancement and Corrine places the pipe between the walls. The pipe begins to bend.
Inside professor Middleton’s office, there is a dragged out scream as Lucas falls from the ceiling to the floor. Professor Middleton panics until he realizes that it is only Lucas. He asks Lucas if Lucas is there to turn in his science paper. Lucas replies that he is in trouble. Professor Middleton, a bit nervous, inquires to what kind of trouble. Lucas asks Prof Middleton if it is possible to escape a collapsing tesseract. Professor Middleton becomes intrigued. He tells Lucas that he has spent a great deal of time studying tesseracts. He tells Lucas that there is no way out. However, a pulse of electromagnetic energy in conjunction with a surge of hyperdimensional energy may, in theory, unfold the tesseract. There is a knock on the door, someone on the other side, calls for professor Middleton.
Professor Middleton cracks open the door. Lucas, on the other side of the door, makes an attempt to turn in his science paper. Lucas, inside Professor Middleton’s office, remembers the event. Professor Middleton accepts the paper and swiftly closes the door. Turning back to Lucas, he is excited. Professor Middleton says that his theory is correct since there are two Lucases. Before Lucas can get an answer as to what theory Professor Middleton is talking about, Professor Middleton pushes the red button on the underside of the counter, revealing the compartment with the tesseract device. He tells Lucas that he must leave. Before pushing the button on the tesseract device, Professor Middleton tells Lucas that Lucas must be watchful of Victor and others, telling Lucas that “the apple never falls far from the tree.” Professor Middleton pushes the button on the tesseract device and the four prongs snap up, releasing a bolt of energy into the floor and opening the wormhole. Professor Middleton is sucked into the wormhole as Lucas clings to the counter. Time begins to flow backwards as Lucas screams.
Outside, Lucas is standing in front of Josie, screaming. They are in the front of the school about to leave for vacation. Frantic, he calls for Corrine, asking her if she is alright. She walks over to him, telling Lucas that she is fine. Josie asks Lucas if he is staying behind on purpose to check out his theory about Victor and Vaughn. As Lucas is about to tell them of the tesseract device, Principal Durst calls for Corrine, telling her that her parents have arrived. Corrine invites Lucas to come with her but Lucas turns down the invitation. As Josie, Corrine, and Marshall walk to the car, Lucas changes his mind, telling Corrine that he would like to go that he will call his dad to see if his dad can change his plans. But first, there is something that Lucas wants to show.
In Professor Z’s office, Lucas tells Marshall, Corrine, Josie, and Professor Z of the tesseract device. He adds that Professor Middleton warned him about Victor and Vaughn, saying that they can’t be trusted. Josie does not believe Lucas though. Professor Z asks where the hidden compartment is, he has never seen it. Lucas pushes the small button and the compartment pops open. Marshall is surprised but Josie seems unimpressed with the discovery. However, there is nothing in it. Without the evidence of the tesseract device itself, Josie does not believe Lucas’s story.
In the janitor’s residence, the janitor sits at a table. He taps a silver cube which unfolds itself and places the tesseract device onto it. Taping it again, the flat cube folds up again. Using his finger, the janitor opens a portal and tosses the cube into it.
Episode notes:
- Janitor's secret message: “Jealousy leads to disarray. The same mistake will not be made twice. He who was lost returns.”
I personally thought this episode was more of a filler episode but others disagree. For the most part, everything we are told in this episode we already knew. Only Lucas gained any knowledge from the experience but he already knew everything that was confirmed and no one else believes what he tells them about the experience. It was pointed out to me that this episode shows us that the wormhole can be controlled though. Overall, the episode added little to the main plot (my own opinion).
On the note of believing Lucas, Lucas proved the hidden compartment's existence yet Josie does not believe his story. Well, the compartment is there and it isn't logical to think Lucas created it for the purpose of enforcing a fabrication. That part of the episode doesn't seem to make sense. It makes me believe that Josie is trying to protect Vaughn even if it means ignoring facts.
Professor Middleton is really far out there. I wonder how he taught effectively.
The poster contained some inconsistencies. Before anyone gets excited that professor Middleton disappeared on April Fool's day, he really didn't. Professor Middleton disappeared at midnight, meaning he actually disappeared April 2nd. We know this because the day that Josie arrived, there was no fair. Therefore, Lucas was trying to finish his report while or after the Spring fair. If the production crew was trying to be ironic, the joke didn't work.
April 1st in 2001 was a Sunday. Some will ask "Why was Lucas turning in his paper on a Sunday?" I personally can say that I, who attends public school, have been required to turn in papers on days which the class was not held. It is an irritating feeling. A bigger arguement comes into play when you remember that in Wormhole and this episode, April 2nd is a Tuesday. Lucas's paper was due Monday, April 1st, which is not possible according to the calender.
Rating: 5/10