The story is told by entries in a diary. In Journey To The Center Of The Earth, Jeremy London plays Jonas Lytton, and the diary is Jonas’. Jeremy is a brilliant young scientist and mathematician. The year is 1876. Jeremy’s promising future lies before him. A life of research and teaching at a great university in Boston, and his impending marriage to Helen, a proper, well-bred young woman.

By nature Jeremy (as Jason) is not a passionate person, nor is he a risk taker. He is content to see his future in the most conservative of terms. No expeditions abroad to seek out scientific discoveries – his is a life of the mind.

One day, Jeremy joins his uncle Theodore, played by Treat Williams, in presenting a lecture to Boston’s scientific elite. The lecture they give is a controversial one.

Jeremy as Jason Lytton, and Treat Williams as Theodore Lytton.

Uncle Theo presents a case dangerously close to the forbidden theories of Charles Darwin. Jeremy and Theo are booed, and the lecture is broken up. But the theory Uncle Theo is presenting presages what the entire miniseries is about. That beneath the earth there may exist flora and fauna unimaginable to those of us who live on the surface of the earth.

Suddenly a beautiful young woman approaches Uncle Theo; her name is Alice Hastings. She makes him an irresistible offer. Seven years ago, her husband, Casper Hastings, had left on a prospecting trip to New Zealand. He never returned. Would Theo accept payment to journey in search of her missing husband? In doing so, he would have the opportunity to study the geology and ethnology of New Zealand. Jeremy stands by listening to their conversation. That evening, Uncle Theo asks Jeremy to join him on the expedition. At first, it’s unthinkable, a voyage half way around the earth, and then down below, leaving his fiancée behind. The idea is completely alien to Jeremy’s nature. But Theo is persuasive, and Jeremy resolves to join his uncle in the adventure.

From left to right, Jeremy, Tushka Bergen as Alice, Treat Williams, and Hugh Keays-Byrne as McNiff.

We best know Jeremy London, of course, as Griffin in Party of Five. His on-again off-again relationship with Neve Campbell’s character, Julia, is the subject of international analysis, discussion, dissection and debate. Jeremy has also appeared in the films Mallrats and The Babysitter. Jeremy was in the very fine NBC series I’ll Fly Away. He’s appeared in several made-for-television movies: A Season of Hope, A Mother’s Gift, Breaking Free and The Defenders. Jeremy is definitely one of Hollywood’s rising young stars.