The Time Tunnel is a science fiction television show that aired between 1966-1967. "The Time Tunnel" was released by 20th Century Fox and broadcast on ABC. The show ran for one season of 30 episodes. A pilot for a new series was produced in 2002, although the pilot was not picked up.
Cast
- James Darren as Tony Newman
- Robert Colbert - Doug Phillips
- Whit Bissell - General Heywood Kirk
- Lee Meriwether - Dr. Ann McGregor
- John Zaremba - Dr. Raymond Swain
About the Show
Project Tic-toc is a top secret government effort to build a time machine known as the "Time Tunnel". When the costs of Project Tic-Toc reach an extreme level, United States Senator Leroy Clark (Gary Merrill) begins to examine the project. After deciding that the costs of the project were to high, the senator wants to shut down the Time Tunnel because it was a waste of time and money. Tony Newman, a scientist who helped develop the Time Tunnel, sends himself into the past in an effort to prove that the Time Tunnel is not a waste of the government resources. The people at the Tic-Toc base learn that Tony was sent back in time to the Titanic. To try and save his friend, fellow scientist Doug Phillips travels to the Titanic. The people at the Time Tunnel base were never able to bring Tony and Doug into their own time; instead they just travled from one period of time to another.
== The series ==
The Time Tunnel,although created by Irwin Allen,was somewhat simiar to two or three other existing movies.The Time Travellers,made 1861,World Without End and Journey to the Center of Time.The sets appear to imatate in someways,the sets of the movie Forbidden Planet
===Summary===
Project Tic-Toc is a top secret U.S. government effort to build an experimental time machine known as "the Time Tunnel". When the costs of the project approach those of the entire U.S. space program, a United States Senator Leroy Clark (Gary Merrill) launches an investigation of the project. The Senator thinks that the tunnel has cost too much money for too little reward.All the scientst have say it works is a few lab mice and monkeies dissappear into the Time Tunnel. At his request the Senator is allowed to visit the project base and be given a tour. Once he reaches the central control room the Senator explains his complaints to the project heads. The Senator then says that he wishes to close down the project as a waste of time and money that has not worked.
Key Time Tunnel scientist, 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". The Time Tunnel top personnel can see through the Tunnel that Tony Newman is aboard the soon to sink Titanic. They can also see that he cannot escape before the sinking, and they cannot retrieve him.
In an attempt to rescue his younger friend, another key Tic-Toc scientist Dr. Doug Phillips (Robert Colbert) enters the Time Tunnel as well, carrying a newspaper describing the sinking to occur. Unconvinced, the captain of the Titanic threw the newspaper overboard.
However, the system was still being developed and tunnel operations was never able to bring them home. As the series progresses, the two time travelers are swung from one period in history to another, allowing episodes to be set in the past and future. Each episode begins with the following narration:
:"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."
By luck (or lack thereof) the travelers, Tony and Doug, frequently found themselves thrown onto the precipice of major historical events: on board 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 time, would try to rescue the travelers before the historical calamity befell them too. Sometimes, when rescue was impossible at the time, the Time Tunnel scientists would often try to help Tony and Doug in other ways or, in some cases, communicate with them whenever possible. The final episode provides no resolution, as the series was initially scheduled to continue into a second season.
The series used a precursor to the Novikov self-consistency principle as its time travel model. Recorded history could not be altered because all attempts to do so were destined to fail. In other words, they will not change history because they haven't already changed it. However, sometimes Doug and Tony’s actions were essential to cause history to unfold as recorded. The lives of individual people could be influenced by the actions of the travelers or the Time Tunnel scientists.
It was in someways a forerunners to later tv series like Quantum Leap, Stargate SG1, and Sliders, although one did not directly deal with time travel on a weekly basis, it employ time travel episodes and concepts.
The base for Project Tic-Toc was huge and located underground in the Arizona desert, with no visible entry. The only way in was a very big secret panel that when it opened a car could quickly go through the entrance. Once the panel closed all any one could see was ordinary desert. Tic-Toc base was a futuristic series of complexes 800 floors deep and employing over 36,000 people ("12 thousand people in each of those complexes"). It was under the command of General Heywood Kirk (Whit Bissell). The center of the base was The Time Tunnel control room where the tunnel was located. In charge of operating the Tunnel were Dr. Ann McGregor (Lee Meriwether) and Dr. Raymond Swain (John Zaremba). The date at which it was operating was stated as 1968, which was two years into the future for the initial TV audience.<ref>The Time Tunnel: Volume One and The Time Tunnel: Volume Two DVD sets</ref>
=== Production ===
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.
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. 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 premier episode, "Rendezvous with Yesterday" (based on the original series pilot<ref>Original, unaired pilot</ref>), was well written, and featured good production values, albeit with an error in that the Captain Smith of the Titanic was called "Malcolm" rather than "Edward" or "EJ". The names of the secondary officers are also fictitious and do not reflect the actual officers of the Titanic, though Walter Lord's best-selling book A Night to Remember had been available for nine years.
The prop computer looked realistic because it was actually an array of memory modules from the Air Force's recently-decommissioned SAGE computer.
The soundtrack for The Time Tunnel was composed by John Williams (credited as "Johnny Williams"), who would go on to become one of film's most celebrated composers.
The series won an Emmy Award in 1967, for Individual Achievements in Cinematography. The award went to L.B. "Bill" Abbott, for his photographic special effects.Template:Citation needed
The Time Tunnel was not a commercial failure, as it received higher viewer ratings than many other shows of the network. It was picked up for the following year, and four episodes for season 2 were scripted (and falsely rumored to have been filmed) before an abrupt cancellation - after the "cast renewal party" had been held. Template:Citation needed
=== Recurring themes, mistakes, and cliches ===
Themes particularly characteristic of this show include:
* The colorful, dynamic opening credits sequence.
* A short "teaser" from next week's episode was shown at the end of each episode, as Tony and Doug arrived at their next destination.
* The impressive introduction to the scale of the project (over 36,000 people and huge underground buildings) is never seen after the first episode except for two clips (used over and over) of the giant power generator flashing, and Tunnel Security running across a walkway.
* At the end of every episode, Tony and Doug always magically reverted to the same cleaned, pressed clothes: a green turtleneck sweater and a pair of gray slacks for Tony, and a conservative Norfolk suit for Doug. Doug never takes off his tie (although he loosens it occasionally). Doug's clothes were originally meant for the 1912 Titanic, but the suit somehow changes to being contemporary style in future episodes.
* Frequently, when something is wrong with the tunnel, we see Dr. Swain (a man) pushing Dr. MacGregor (a woman) away from her control panel so he can do her job himself.
* Aliens are always hostile, and the existence of other intelligent life in the universe never seems remarkable to anyone.
* The studio set uses forced perspective to make the tunnel look infinite. Occasionally an actor walks too far into it, forcing him to bend over lest he hit his head against the top of the supposedly-huge Tunnel.
* In more than two out of every three episodes, Tony and Doug's random placement in time landed them right before an important historical event, and right where the event was about to occur (D-Day, the attack on Pearl Harbor, Biblical events, Custer's last stand, Krakatoa exploding, the Titanic sinking, Lincoln's attempted assassination in 1861 (not the 1865 one which killed him, although that one is briefly glimpsed), etc.
* Sometimes the stock footage didn't match very well with what was filmed for the show. Costumes were not always consistent with the stock footage.
* The tunnel frequently sent objects and people back to help Doug and Tony, and even brought other people from the past, but it never could retrieve Doug and Tony themselves.
* Wild historical mishmashes, such as Niccolò Machiavelli getting involved in the Battle of Gettysburg. And the explanation of why he can't be killed - he has already been dead for centuries - would make Tony and Doug similarly indestructible in the future episodes, yet they clearly fear death in those ones.
* Mixing history and sometimes inaccurate mythology,such as with the Greek Gods,who had Roman Mythology and Roman Gods names mixed together with Greek Mythology in the Trojan War episode or such as Robin Hood being involved with the signing of the Magna Carta, and Merlin the Magician appearing in the tunnel forcing Tony and Doug to help a Young Arthur, etc.
* No matter what they did, they never changed history even though they had opportunities to, such as killing John Wilkes Booth.
* Tony and Doug almost always appeared somewhere in their past. When they did travel to the future, it was, with two exceptions (both in 1978), hundreds of years into an unrecognizable future.
* Aliens and people from the future all dressed identically, often in aluminum foil, as seen in other Irwin Allen TV series at the time.
* Classic 1960s "action" sequences, such as hand-to-hand fighting in which the protagonists fall onto their backs and kick-flip their adversaries over them.Template:Citation needed
* No matter when or where Tony and Doug materialized, they were immediately attacked or taken prisoner.
* Doug and Tony knew they were being monitored by their colleagues, but rarely spoke to them or asked for help.
* At the end of every episode but the first, Doug and Tony were safe. However the tunnel scientists always transferred them to another dangerous, random place and time for no reason when they could have waited until they had sufficient power to bring them back to 1968.
* When people are hit on the head they get amnesia, and it's always temporary.
* A guest character decides that he has nothing left in 1968 and agrees to enter the past to help Tony and Doug, knowing that he will spend the rest of his life there.
* Implausible physics. For instance, in episode two ("One Way To The Moon"), Doug and Tony did not experience the Moon's one-sixth gravity. Also, a loud explosion in a lunar fuel depot ignites a massive fire, but in the silent vacuum of the moon there could be no combustion, an explosion would make no noise, and a fireball would not rise vertically.
* Everyone everywhere, in every time period, spoke 20th-century American English. French and German characters have a stereotypical accent, while British, Greek and Afghani characters do not - yet Tony and Doug are still surprised when they find Native Americans who speak English in the Custer episode.
* No explanation is given for the frequent computer glitches which spontaneously show scenes far from Doug and Tony but which are related to the storyline. The characters themselves even noticed this, wondering aloud if the computer is trying to show them something.
Episodes