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The Time Tunnel

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The Time Tunnel was a 1966-1967 U.S. color science fiction TV series produced by Irwin Allen that lasted for one season and 30 episodes. It was produced by 20th Century Fox for the US ABC television network.

"Two American scientists are lost in the swirling maze of past and future ages, during the first experiments on America's greatest and most secret project, the Time Tunnel. Tony Newman and Doug Phillips now tumble helplessly toward a new fantastic adventure, somewhere along the infinite corridors of time."
Contents

The series

The premise of the program is based on the existence of Project Tic-Toc, a top secret U.S. government effort to build an experimental time machine known as "the Time Tunnel". With the costs of the project approaching those of the entire U.S. space program, a young physicist, Dr. Tony Newman (James Darren) turns the machine on and sends himself back in time in an attempt to prove that the Time Tunnel project funds were not wasted. In so doing, Newman becomes "lost in time". In an attempt to rescue his younger friend, Tic-Toc scientist Dr. Doug Phillips (Robert Colbert) enters the Time Tunnel as well. But the time machine was not built to handle two people travelling in time; it malfunctions, making Newman and Phillips' return impossible until repairs are effected. As the series progresses, the two time travellers are swung from one period in history to another, allowing episodes to be set in the past and future -- but always ending in a cliffhanger as a preview of the next episode. The final episode ends with no resolution.

The principal characters were:

Time Tunnel co-stars, Dr. Tony Newman and Dr. Doug Philips.
Enlarge
Time Tunnel co-stars, Dr. Tony Newman and Dr. Doug Philips.

By luck (or lack thereof) the travellers, Tony and Doug, frequently found themselves thrown onto the precipice of major historical events: onboard the Titanic before it hits the iceberg, in Pearl Harbor before the Japanese attack, on Krakatoa before it erupts, and so forth. They would try to warn people about the event, or try to prevent it from happening, while the Time Tunnel crew (led by two scientists and a military general), who once gaining a "fix" can view through the Tunnel the action taking place in the different timeframe, would try to rescue the travellers before the historical calamity befell them too.

The series never really established a consistent time travel model, but for the most part it seemed that while these major historical events could not be altered or prevented (although Tony and Doug rarely stopped trying), the lives of individual people caught up in those events could indeed be changed by the actions of the travellers or the Time Tunnel crew.

The base for Project Tic-Toc was huge and located underground in the desert, with no visible entry, as was the Krel machine in the movie Forbidden Planet -- some shots in the first episode introducing the facility match those in the movie. It easily provided Doug's period clothes and a copy of the newspaper showing the sinking of the Titanic for the first episode. Further, the date at which it was operating was stated as 1968 -- which would have been in the near future (two years) as far as the initial audience was concerned.

The production basis of the show was the large number of period dramas made by the 20th Century Fox film company. Even black-and-white shots of the Titanic sinking were tinted to fit them into this color production. Only a few actors were costumed for a given episode, interspersed with cuts of great masses of people similarly dressed from the original features. The plots were not noted for historical accuracy, but then neither were the original films.

Certain episodes featured aliens who wore costumes and carried props originally created for other Irwin Allen television and movie productions. Prop sets were similarly re-used. These were fewer than it appears, since these episodes were later re-run often on secondary market. Only in episodes 18, 24, 28, 29, and 30 did aliens appear; only the second and third of these were set in the far future.

The Titanic–based premiere episode, "Rendezvous with Yesterday" (based on the series pilot), was well written, and featured good production values, albeit with a major error in that the Captain Smith of the Titanic was called "Malcolm" rather than "Edward" or "EJ". Given that Walter Lord's excellent book A Night to Remember was freely available one can only wonder how this occurred. [link]

The quality of subsequent episodes varied considerably. However, some particularly memorable aspects were:

The Time Tunnel was not really a commercial failure, as it received higher viewer ratings than many other shows of the network. It was picked up for the next year, and 4 episodes for season 2 were falsely rumored to have been filmed before an abrupt cancellation - after the cast "renewal party" had already been held. A loosely based novelization was written by Murray Leinster, who would later also novelize Land of the Giants.

The series won an Emmy Award in 1967, for its Individual Achievements in Cinematography. The award went to L.B. "Bill" Abbott, for his Photographic Special Effects.

After the original run

Nevertheless, the number of websites and fan reminiscences attest to the series having made an impression on its audience despite only being on the air for one year.

The series was re-shown on American television in the early-mid 1990s, and it was re-shown on British television after the success of the 1997 Titanic movie due to the Titanic-related content of the first episode. It was also parodied by Alexei Sayle as Drunk in Time on British television. In the U.S., it can now be seen on the Encore Action cable network at various times.

In 2002 Fox showed interest in remaking this series. The storyline, setting, and cast roles were updated to reflect recent times. A pilot episode, in which a government team goes back in time through a time tunnel (represented by a series of huge metallic rings) to World War II in order to retrieve a medieval monk misplaced by a time storm, was filmed but later turned down due to similarities to Stargate SG-1.

The first 15 episodes were released on DVD in North America on January 24, 2006. The second volume, containing the final fifteen episodes, was released June 6th, 2006. It also includes the unaired 2002 pilot and the made-for-tv film The Time Travelers as special features.

SciFi (US cable channel), announced April 13 2005, that it was going to create a new pilot for its 2006/07 season. Two of the producers of the FOX project, Kevin Burns and Jon Jashni, are executive producing Sci Fi's pilot along with Allen's wife, Sheila. John Turman ("Hulk") is writing the script.

Episodes

  1. Rendezvous With Yesterday
  2. One Way To The Moon
  3. End Of The World
  4. The Day The Sky Fell Down
  5. The Last Patrol
  6. The Crack Of Doom
  7. Revenge Of The Gods
  8. Massacre
  9. Devil's Island
  10. Reign Of Terror
  11. Secret Weapon
  12. The Death Trap
  13. The Alamo
  14. The Night Of The Long Knives
  15. Invasion
  16. The Revenge Of Robin Hood
  17. Kill Two By Two
  18. Visitors From Beyond The Stars
  19. The Ghost Of Nero
  20. The Walls Of Jericho
  21. Idol Of Death
  22. Billy The Kid
  23. Pirates Of Deadman's Island
  24. Chase Through Time
  25. The Death Merchant
  26. Attack Of The Barbarians
  27. Merlin The Magician
  28. The Kidnappers
  29. Raiders From Outer Space
  30. Town Of Terror

Feature-length film

In 1967, a feature length film, Aliens from Another Planet, was produced using a compilation of three of the TV episodes. [link]

Movies excerpted

External links

 

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