A publisher, Glenn Howard (
Gene Barry), while driving and dictating a memo to the President regarding the saving of the environment, finds himself suddenly plunged 46 years into the future only to learn that the people of Los Angeles are living underground to escape the
pollution which has made living on the surface no longer possible. A fascist America is run like a corporation with a number of vice-presidents. The police department of the subterranean Los Angeles is led / managed by psychiatrists. His identity is discovered and he's asked to join the government by re-starting his publication as propaganda. He considers, then refuses when he discovers that the corporations are still emitting pollutants into the air, further destroying the atmosphere. At the end, Howard wakes up to discover a police officer leaning over him holding a breathing mask he had just administered oxygen through; he asks Howard if he is okay, and able to drive. Howard responds that he is recovered. Evidently the previous episode was all a dream: Howard passed out in his car after inhaling carbon monoxide leaking out through his car's dash vents; luckily with no other consequences. At the end of the final scene, he starts his
Chrysler 300 and the camera focuses on the smoky exhaust spewing out its tailpipe. As he drives away the camera pans to a final image of a dead bird, that forebodes a troubled future. ==Cast==