Earlier this year, after a collection of Gold Key’s short-lived (two issue) comic book series based on Irwin’s Allen’s TV show The Time Tunnel was solicited, I asked about the show itself with an eye toward maybe watching it on DVD in conjunction with reading the comic book. Commander Benson was able to answer all my questions about the show and I decided to wait to read the comics first, then to decide whether or not to buy the first of two DVD sets collecting the one-season show in its entirety. I read the collection just last night and now I want to watch the TV show more than ever, not because of the comics themselves, necessarily, but because of the introduction written by Alan J. Porter. It’s not that I think The Time Tunnel is great science fiction or anything like that, but it sounds like a (pretty cheesy) show I’d really enjoy. Refreshingly, these time travelers do try to change history, willy-nilly, with no thought as to how history might be affected!
The Gold Key comic book stories are centered around: the assassination of President Lincoln; the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii; the first space flight to Mars in 1980; the rise of the Fourth Reich in 2068; and Custer’s Last Stand.
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I know a couple of the shows have already done this one, but the ultimate television time-travel epic would have to be Doug Phillips and Tony Newman (The Time Tunnel), the Doctor and his sidekick (Doctor Who), Phineas Bogg and Jeffrey Jones (Voyagers!), and Sam Beckett (Quantum Leap) all landing on the deck of the Titanic.
"Captain Smith, sir?"
"Yes, what is it, now?"
"I'm afraid it's two more people who insist that the ship will sink to-night, sir."
"Ye gods, man! That makes it, what, six?"
"I believe, seven, sir."
"Must be the full moon. Tell me these two, at least, aren't as preposterous as that fellow who called himself a doctor and that bitchy woman."
"Well, sir, this time, the big one is dressed like a pirate, and he's got a kid with him."
I know a couple of the shows have already done this one, but the ultimate television time-travel epic would have to be Doug Phillips and Tony Newman (The Time Tunnel), the Doctor and his sidekick (Doctor Who), Phineas Bogg and Jeffrey Jones (Voyagers!), and Sam Beckett (Quantum Leap) all landing on the deck of the Titanic.
"Captain Smith, sir?"
"Yes, what is it, now?"
"I'm afraid it's two more people who insist that the ship will sink to-night, sir."
"Ye gods, man! That makes it, what, six?"
"I believe, seven, sir."
"Must be the full moon. Tell me these two, at least, aren't as preposterous as that fellow who called himself a doctor and that bitchy woman."
"Well, sir, this time, the big one is dressed like a pirate, and he's got a kid with him."
I'm tempted to take another look at Time Tunnel, myself. I remember watching it when I was really little, but have no memory of any individual episodes.
I think this is the paragraph of Alan Porter’s introduction that convinced me to try the show: “The two protagonists, Drs. Tony Newman and Doug Phillips, thought nothing of trying to alter history, even if they ultimately failed, such as trying to stop the sinking of the Titanic, or halting the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. They were also pretty free about telling anyone who would listen about what would happen in the future, something that became a fundamental breach of time travel etiquette in future shows and movies. In the aforementioned Pearl Harbor episode they tried to convince the Japanese attaché on Hawaii to call off the attack by giving him a rundown of all the events of World War 2, including D-Day landings and the atomic bombs, in order to convince him that the Japanese would lose anyway. This same episode broke yet another basic tenet of time travel, that the traveler should never interact with his younger self. Yet, despite all these flaws this particular episode is one of the most fondly remembered amongst the series fans. The idea of a temporal anachronism was also apparently lost on the show’s writers as the Tunnel HQ staff often sent present day objects back into the past to help the stranded travelers; the one that sticks in my mind is them sending hand genades and a sub-machine gun to the battle of Troy!”
I don’t know, but that sounds like my kind of show! :P
And speaking of crossovers… I can easily see the Time Lords of Gallifrey sending the Doctor on a mission to shut these bozos down! Maybe that’s the untold story of why The Time Tunnel lasted only one season!
I know a couple of the shows have already done this one, but the ultimate television time-travel epic would have to be Doug Phillips and Tony Newman (The Time Tunnel), the Doctor and his sidekick (Doctor Who), Phineas Bogg and Jeffrey Jones (Voyagers!), and Sam Beckett (Quantum Leap) all landing on the deck of the Titanic. "Captain Smith, sir?""Yes, what is it, now?"
"I'm afraid it's two more people who insist that the ship will sink to-night, sir."
"Ye gods, man! That makes it, what, six?"
"I believe, seven, sir."
"Must be the full moon. Tell me these two, at least, aren't as preposterous as that fellow who called himself a doctor and that bitchy woman."
"Well, sir, this time, the big one is dressed like a pirate, and he's got a kid with him."
"Bloody hell."
I once read a science-fiction short story along that line ... a time-traveler goes to Elizabethan England to meet his idol, William Shakespeare, offering a gift of a handsomely leather-bound volume of his works ...
and when he gets there, finds that Shakespeare gets visits from time travelers about every 10 minutes, and he's got more swag than he knows what to do with ...
I know a couple of the shows have already done this one, but the ultimate television time-travel epic would have to be Doug Phillips and Tony Newman (The Time Tunnel), the Doctor and his sidekick (Doctor Who), Phineas Bogg and Jeffrey Jones (Voyagers!), and Sam Beckett (Quantum Leap) all landing on the deck of the Titanic.
"Captain Smith, sir?"...
If he'd just listened to the kid and the dog in the bow tie he could've lived to a ripe old age.
I know a couple of the shows have already done this one, but the ultimate television time-travel epic would have to be Doug Phillips and Tony Newman (The Time Tunnel), the Doctor and his sidekick (Doctor Who), Phineas Bogg and Jeffrey Jones (Voyagers!), and Sam Beckett (Quantum Leap) all landing on the deck of the Titanic.
"Captain Smith, sir?"...
If he'd just listened to the kid and the dog in the bow tie he could've lived to a ripe old age.
Replies
There's a fanfic waiting to be written by a better man than me - the Time Tunnelers running into the Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble...
"Captain Smith, sir?"
"Yes, what is it, now?"
"I'm afraid it's two more people who insist that the ship will sink to-night, sir."
"Ye gods, man! That makes it, what, six?"
"I believe, seven, sir."
"Must be the full moon. Tell me these two, at least, aren't as preposterous as that fellow who called himself a doctor and that bitchy woman."
"Well, sir, this time, the big one is dressed like a pirate, and he's got a kid with him."
"Bloody hell."
Awesome.
I don’t know, but that sounds like my kind of show! :P
And speaking of crossovers… I can easily see the Time Lords of Gallifrey sending the Doctor on a mission to shut these bozos down! Maybe that’s the untold story of why The Time Tunnel lasted only one season!
I once read a science-fiction short story along that line ... a time-traveler goes to Elizabethan England to meet his idol, William Shakespeare, offering a gift of a handsomely leather-bound volume of his works ...
and when he gets there, finds that Shakespeare gets visits from time travelers about every 10 minutes, and he's got more swag than he knows what to do with ...
If he'd just listened to the kid and the dog in the bow tie he could've lived to a ripe old age.
YES!
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