Michael Moriarty returns in a guest role in Starfire, though not as the same character as last time. This time, his character is called Seti, and he claims he’s an alien from another planet. He’s befriended a young girl, Amber (Angela Goethals), who he entrusts with a strange device and tells her if something happens to protect it and find help.

Written by Robert Eisele this episode was first broadcast on 13 April, 1989.

Amber seeks out help for her friend, and reaches out to McCall (Edward Woodward) who is less than thrilled by the story Seti is spouting, but some leads McCall and Mickey (Keith Szarabajka) uncover reveal that Seti may be an aerospace engineer named Wayne. It seems Wayne was working on a top-secret government/industrial project and is now being hunted by Company assassins.

So, McCall realizes, Seti may not be an alien, but he is a man in a lot of trouble who may have suffered a terrible trauma. While Mickey and McCall tug at the threads of Wayne’s story, hunting down those involved in the project, Wolff (Wendell Pierce) returns to see over Wayne/Seti.

McCall is able to get Wayne to where he needs to be to reveal the truth about the project he was involved in, and though the man is a little troubled and unconnected the reveals bring justice and may help Wayne recover in the long run.

Moriarty plays it straight, but honestly, it’s not as good an episode as those that have preceded it and seems to have misstepped an opportunity to really tackle mental illness.

And of course, there’s just a hint at the end that there may be something more going on with Seti/Wayne after all.

Hey look, Scott (William Zabka) is back!! Just in time for the end-run toward the series finale. Time Present, Time Past was penned by Tom Towler and aired on 20 April, 1989, and sees the character beginning to make a decision about his future that will see him following in his father’s footsteps.

When Scott and his friend, Harold (Brian Beford) are kidnapped, McCall is furious. It seems the Company helped Harold defect a number of years ago, and as time has passed he’s opened a classical music/record store that Scott frequents.

He just chose to frequent it on the wrong day. The day when Yorgi Kostov (Dennis Boutsikaris) walked in to seize Harold.

Scott is eventually able to escape the embassy safe house he is being held in, and argues with his father to allow him to join the rescue team when they go back in for him. So McCall throws Scott into the fire, having him train with Mickey, and Carter (Joe Morton) to instill fear, and some skills in him so that he can be prepared for what’s to come.

Things are complicated for McCall when Scott’s mother, Kay (Shirley Knight) shows up and they bring up the horrors of their past, losing their daughter, the trials of McCall’s work. And during the op, what if it’s discovered that Harold doesn’t want to be rescued? And when one of the team falls, will Scott take a life to stop an execution?

A solid episode and it’s great to see Scott back before the series ends.