The excellent Martin Landau returns to the Zone in one of the last entries, having been in the third story, 'Mr Denton On Doomsday'. He plays a pursued defector from Russia in a cat and mouse game with a commissar. All played out intriguingly, but the subject matter has dated. The DVD commentary by Landau is interesting (as is his 'Denton On Doomsday' commentary) but I especially like his line at the end when the theme music begins.
It would not be giving too much away to say that the usual mystical frontiers of TZ don't concern this tale. There's no magical stopwatch, camera, shoes, piano, car, television, love potion, mystic seer, book, doll, phantom ship, airplane, train or aliens, parallel universe, fourth dimension, time travel, gremlins, voodoo, witchcraft, necromancy, little people, giant people, gremlins, the devil, angels, ghosts, youth elixirs, advanced physics, androids, telepathy, kinetic powers, genies of the lamp - I think you get the point.