"In Harm's Way" is the tenth installment of the Adventures in Odyssey video series, released in March 1997.
One day, Dylan and Doug Harding are having a bicycle race down a steep hill called Suicide Hill. Despite some twists and turns, Dylan seems to have an edge over Doug. However, at the finish line, Elliot, the lonely new kid in town, suddenly wanders onto the track while chasing a butterfly. Elliot doesn't seem to hear Dylan shouting at him to get out of the way, causing Dylan to end up having an accident and lose the race. Furious, Dylan yells at Elliot for not listening and later has to get Doug a root beer float at Whit's End.
At Whit's End, Dylan laments that he would have won if not for Elliot. As he is saying this, Elliot himself comes in to forgive and forget and accidentally spills Doug's float onto Doug's shirt. A fight between Dylan and Doug nearly ensues until Whit comes in to break it up and send Doug away once Elliot explains what happened. Doug leaves swearing revenge on the two. Although Dylan ended up saving Elliot from being slugged, he is still frustrated with Elliot for costing him the race and refuses the small boy's invitation to check out his bug collection. Elliot sadly leaves Whit's End after this, and Dylan ends up feeling like a heel once he realizes he hurt Elliot's feelings. He pours out his frustrations to Whit; talking about how although he genuinely tries to be nice to Elliot and knows that Elliot means well, he overall finds Elliot to be an annoying little weirdo klutz he wants little to do with. Meanwhile, outside, Elliot ends up bumping into Doug again, but Doug claims to have forgiven Elliot and lets Elliot sadly pour out his troubles over not feeling like he fits in to him. It's made pretty clear, however, that Doug is abusing Elliot's naive nature and desire for friendship to get Elliot in trouble.
Whit leads Dylan to the Imagination Station in order to help Dylan figure out his problem with Elliot. Upon getting inside, Dylan is transported to Victorian Era England. He is discovered by a circus ringmaster who claims he was out looking for Dylan to bring him back to a carnival. Upon being told that he is the star attraction, an intrigued Dylan goes along with him. Upon getting there, however, Dylan is shocked when he ends up locked in a cage, and is told that he is the hideous-in-appearance "Elephant Man" that people are paying money hand-over-foot to gawk at. Dylan protests that there's nothing wrong with his face, but the ringmaster won't listen and leaves. Shortly after, though, a street urchin enters the tent and springs Dylan loose from the cage. Dylan believes that the fellow means to rescue him, but it turns out that he too only wants to make profit off of Dylan's allegedly hideous appearance like the ringmaster, making his street urchin buddies pay for a "private showing" of the Elephant Man. Dylan manages to escape and tries to get help from anyone he can find, but everyone Dylan meets is repulsed by him and either flees or calls for help to escape from the "monster". Eventually, Dylan ends up being chased by an angry mob through town into an alleyway. All the while, Dylan protests that he is not ugly like everyone claims to be. Eventually, though, he catches his reflection in a puddle and sees a repulsive-looking face staring back at him. Dylan breaks down as he repeatedly insists to the approaching mob that he's a normal person just like them.
At this point, the Imagination Station adventure ends, to Dylan's relief. Whit reveals to Dylan that the adventure was based on the life of Joseph Merrick, the real-life "Elephant Man", who was born with a debilitating bone disease that caused him to have a very unusual appearance. People spent so much time being repulsed by or ridiculing Merrick's outward appearance that they never stopped to realize that Merrick was still just as human as everyone else. Whit compares this treatment to how Dylan has been treating Elliot; as a annoying klutzy nuisance without actually taking the time to get to know Elliot. Whit also tells Dylan more about Elliot, revealing that Elliot is deaf (explaining why Elliot did not hear Dylan telling him to move out of his way at the bike race and why Elliot talks kind of funny), was often bullied by other kids over his deafness in the big city he used to live in, and that he and his family moved from the city to Odyssey to allow Elliot to grow up in a much smaller and nicer community that is generally kinder to strangers of all shapes and sizes. Dylan feels awful about the way he has been treating Elliot and realizes he needs to apologize to the poor kid ASAP. Dylan asks Whit how Elliot still seemed to be able to respond to everything Dylan and the others said to him at the ice cream fountain earlier. Before Whit can explain, however, Holly suddenly rushes in to inform them that Doug has convinced Elliot to ride his bike down Suicide Hill. Whit, Dylan, and Eugene speed out of Whit's End to come to Elliot's rescue.
At Suicide Hill, Elliot is too nervous to ride down the hill on the very old bike lent to him by Doug, but Doug ends up shoving Elliot down the hill anyway, sending Elliot rocketing down the hill on a bike with broken brakes. Dylan and the others arrive too late to stop Doug or Elliot, and Dylan gives chase on Eugene's bike while Whit and Eugene follow overhead in the Strata-Flyer. After a close-call, the boys end up bailing off their bikes to jump onto a passing train and avoid a semi-truck. Dylan and Elliot make their way to the engine and try to get the engineer's help in pulling them safely aboard, but Dylan accidentally pulls the engineer out of the engine trying to open the engine's door and sends him landing (luckily unharmed) in the river below. Now both of the boys are stuck in an out-of-control train that is on a direct course to rear-end a passenger train waiting at the Odyssey train station. Whit calls the Odyssey Department of Transportation to report the problem and they give Whit instructions on how to stop the train. Whit attempts to relay the instructions to Dylan via telephone, but Dylan inadvertently breaks the train's phone's cord trying to keep listening to Whit. With all options exhausted, Whit flies the Strata-Flyer close to the train and specifies that Elliot watch him. Despite seemingly not being able to hear the directions Whit is shouting at them, Elliot seems to know exactly what to do and applies the measures in order to stop the train. Dylan and Elliot throw the brakes and the train stops just short of slamming into the other train at the train station, averting disaster just in the nick of time.
After everything has calmed back down, Dylan learns how Elliot was able to follow the procedures in stopping the train despite not being able to hear Whit: He's learned how to read lips, so he was able to decipher what Whit was telling him, to Dylan's fascination. Doug then arrives to mock Elliot over the incident Doug got him into, but Dylan now stands up for Elliot and lays into Doug for getting Elliot into a situation that could have killed him. Doug shoots back that Dylan isn't blameless in how he treated Elliot either and tries to force Dylan to admit to also being unkind to Elliot, but at this point a fed-up Whit scolds Doug and tells him to go home, noting that he will be informing his parents about the mess his little "prank" nearly caused today (to Doug's chagrin). Dylan acknowledges that he was mean anyway and asks for Elliot's forgiveness. Elliot forgives Dylan, grateful that Dylan stood up for him, and invites Dylan over to his house to check out his bug collection. The boys head off to do just that as Whit and Eugene note that a great friendship has begun.
This episode of the show provides examples of:
- Another Man's Terror: A variation; Whit, concerned about the way Dylan is treating Elliot, sends Dylan on an Imagination Station adventure which is modeled after the life of Joseph Merrick, aka the Elephant Man. Dylan has to experience being used by others and have them being afraid of him, despite the fact that he's just a human being like them — which was the point of the exercise.
- Chekhov's Skill: Played with; Dylan is incredulous when Whit tells him that Elliot is deaf, given that the other boy was perfectly able to talk to him and the others at Whit's End. Whit is about to explain how he managed it when Holly comes racing in, yelling that Doug talked Elliot into riding down Suicide Hill. Later, during the climax, Elliot can tell what Whit is saying despite the train's noise and he uses the information to save the day. After everything has calmed down, Elliot tells Dylan that he can read people's lips.
- Covers Always Lie: The engineer falling out of the train is not nearly played as seriously in the actual episode as the episode's VHS and DVD covers
◊ seem to depict it as. The covers makes it almost look as though the man is falling to his death as Dylan futilely reaches out for him; the episode itself plays the scene in which this happens for laughs and we are shown the engineer survived his fall without apparent injury. - Deadly Prank: Doug seems to view sending Elliot down Suicide Hill on a broken bike as a practical joke and finds it hilarious. Dylan immediately snaps that it wasn't funny; Doug nearly killed him and Elliot.
- Disproportionate Retribution: All that Elliot did to Doug was spill Doug's root beer float, and for this Doug sends the deaf Elliot down a dangerous hill with intent to hurt (or possibly even kill) him.
- Disney Death: For a brief moment it appears as though Dylan and Elliot just rode head on into a truck, to Whit's horror. Luckily, Dylan and Elliot jumped out of the way just in time.
- Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: Elliot speaks with rhotacism. Justified since he's deaf.
- Kids Are Cruel: Doug Harding is at his worst in this episode; after Elliot provokes him, Doug exploits Elliot's loneliness and naivete to send the boy down Suicide Hill on a broken bicycle. Even after disaster has been averted, Doug refuses to take responsibility for what his actions almost caused until Whit informs him that he'll be calling Doug's parents.
- Loud Gulp: Doug stops laughing and gulps audibly when Whit sternly informs him that he'll be telling Doug's parents about the little stunt he pulled today.
- Plot Hole: An oversight from the climax: Before the engineer falls out of the train's engine, Whit attempts to get the engineer's by trying to tell him to stop the train from the Strata-Flyer, to no avail. Later, however, it's shown that the train has a phone installed inside and Whit is able to call Dylan and Elliot through it from a phone in the Strata-Flyer. Why didn't Whit just call the engineer through the train's phone in the first place?
- Reading Lips: Elliot has learned how to read lips, which comes in handy at the climax.
- Runaway Train: The setting of the climax.
