A wealthy American developer tries to modernize Avonlea and reinvent it in the style of a town he built in Pennsylvania. Opinions in the town are mixed; Clara Potts and Olivia take up the case for modernization but Hetty is firmly against it. Meanwhile, Sarah convinces her trust fund (by impersonating Hetty over the telephone) to buy an Edison motion picture camera and send it to Jasper Dale, under the impression that he is to do experiments in frame rate with it for the Edison company. Eventually, Hetty decides to use footage Jasper filmed with his camera to show a visual record of Avonlea, as part of an emotional appeal against the radical rebuilding of the town.