The Time Tunnel Volume One (2006): Robert Colbert, James Darren, Lee Meriwether, Whit Bissell – PopM

2006-01-24

It’s one of the genre’s most overused and abused clichés, and yet science fiction would be hopelessly hobbled without time travel. As a concept, it opens up a world of plot possibilities. As a narrative device, it is often utilized to clean up a lack of imagination or a limited internal scope. Got a problem in the present? Travel back in time and fix it before it happens. Need some information that only future generations would know? Hop on your temporal teleportation device and ransack the available databanks. The heyday of this fictional facet was the ’50s and ’60s, when moving through the space-time continuum seemed as presciently possible as traveling to another planet — or even walking on one.

With the success of the series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (based on his film of the same name) producer/director Irwin Allen called on this formulaic facet to brainstorm a show about a pair of scientists tapped in a time machine. He sent Dr. Doug Phillips (Robert Colbert) and Dr. Tony Newman (James Darren) on a fantastic voyage through the eons, all part of a secret government experiment gone horribly wrong. Along with Voyage and Land of the Giants, this new series represented Allen’s attempt to bring serious action and adventure to the small screen. Yet for some reason, it didn’t click. Of all the shows he put on the air (including Lost in Space and a mid-70s revamp of Swiss Family Robinson) The Time Tunnel remains the shortest-lived series of his career, lasting only a single season.

Now available on DVD in a Volume 1 presentation (half of the series is offered here) The Time Tunnel has been revived and is ready for reevaluation. Clearly, Allen was avoiding the camp and kitsch of Space while maintaining a tonal integrity to his narrative (something Voyage often forgot). He devised a premise that would allow for a continuing story arc (two scientists lost in the flux of time trek from historic milestone to milestone) within individual weekly adventures. Inside all the pseudo-science speak and set design delights are facts about such fateful events as D-Day, Pearl Harbor, the Little Bighorn and the sinking of the Titanic. This is TV as teaching; an overriding desire to educate ever-present in drama. Our heroes travel to ancient Troy, hang out at the Alamo, and meet Rudyard Kipling during “The Night of Long Knives”. The Vol. 1 DVD only takes us through the first 15 episodes. Vol. 2 (if and when it’s released) holds such historical delights as a meeting with Robin Hood, Billy the Kid, and an encounter with Joshua near . . . you guessed it, the Walls of Jericho.

Still, the show did not succeed, and it’s hard to understand why when viewed through the prism of present day standards. The Time Tunnel is terrific; a series loaded with melodrama, intrigue and excellent effect works. Sure, the set design is very dated, and the tech specs just reek of a pre-Intel era in computing power. But with its impressive props, attention to detail, and desire to delve deeper into famous events than your typical TV show usually would, there is something endearing — even epic — in this program’s presentation.

The acting here is wonderful. At the center are the two stars. Leads Robert Colbert and James Darren definitely chew the scenery with mad abandon, but such histrionics are excusable in a showcase like this. Even the ancillary characters, including a scientist played by former Miss America Lee Meriwether and Tinsel Town stalwart Whit Bissell (as a concerned general) generate their own level of reality, adding authenticity to a show that appears to be a single scene away from imploding . Due to the limits of small screen budget, many of the big ideas the series strived to illustrate often became minor in scope, and almost laughable in execution.

Yet the restraint of realism is not Time Tunnel’s main problem. Indeed, if there is one irritating aspect of the show, it’s the lack of cohesive sci-fi rules. Under literary law, nothing takes you out of a fantasy setting quicker than the realization that your understanding of a situation is being marred by forces “outside” the story (read: the writer). Sometimes, Time Tunnel‘s ruse is purely practical. When Tony and Doug end up in a coal mining disaster, they manage to escape the fate that hundreds fall victim to, and end up moving about more or less freely during the impending dig. And they are always logistically lucky. They arrive nine hours before the battle for the Alamo, and get the opportunity to talk to both sides of the skirmish before the Little Big Horn turns into a mindless massacre. Yet they can never affect the events they happen upon. Even if they want to, it seems that everything that will happen is fated to fall that way.

It is here, in the realm of history hopping, where most of the deception occurs. Time travel supposedly holds untold dangers for the very fabric of existence. Sadly, this aspect of the series is wildly under-developed. When Tony runs into his younger self after the pair lands at Pearl Harbor, we expect scientific fireworks. But nothing major happens – no deconstruction of the space time continuum, no tear in the fabric of existence. At the center of the serials are always the two stars. Whenever our heroes need to be rescued, the scientists standing by dutifully watchfully in the present day conveniently find a way to “lock in” on their position and draw them out of harms way. But when other potential danger looms (hopefully creating ratings drawing drama), the time computers malfunction, or fail to find their cosmic mark. This happens all the time. The notion that these scientists are bouncing around like Billy Pilgrim from era to era is intriguing, but there is so much manipulation of their path by those on the outside that Calvinists are jealous of the levels of predestination.

While the lack of firm internal logic and cliffhanger-style day saving may seem like major stumbling blocks, these are really very minor quibbles when compared to the level of imagination on display. Allen was a stickler for spectacle, and he tried everything to heighten the science fiction shimmer of the series. The pilot is populated with an 800 story underground barracks (a miniature), huge nuclear power reactors (ditto) and the tunnel itself is a forced perspective masterwork. All throughout the series, stock footage is used to fill in gaps in scope, and inventive cheats are used to flesh out a company of many into a literal cast of thousands. Not every episode is effective — “Ring of Terror” revolves around the French Revolution and is kind of corny in its realization — but there are more successes than failures. On the other hand, “The End of the World” dealing with a mine cave-in and a prediction of Doomsday related to Haley’s Comet is wonderful tight and filled with suspense. Even better, “Invasion”‘s pre D-Day scenario is well written and expertly realized, from the littlest detail to the narrative’s overriding sense of foreboding. The 15 installments here represent the series discovering its strengths and weaknesses, and yet they also hold together on a cohesive, collective level. We are instantly drawn in to Doug and Tony’s dilemma, and will follow it where and when it takes them — and us.

So why did The Time Tunnel wilt and quickly fade away? Well, for one thing, there was no kid-friendly character to hang humor onto. Jonathan Harris may have been a well-trained thespian, but his Dr. Smith on Lost in Space is an effete force of campy comedy unmatched by any other ’60s sci-fi show. And as Star Trek would prove that same year (1966), even the most expertly penned speculative fiction could fail to reach an audience if it wasn’t geared to the right, kid-friendly demographic. Maybe with the gang over on the Enterprise as a counterpoint, travels in inner space seemed far less interesting than charting untold galaxies and going where no man has . . . you know the rest. Whatever the reason, The Time Tunnel deserves another chance at success. Stripped of its ’60s setting, it’s a nicely nostalgic look back at when TV tried to be both educational as well as entertaining. If there is a lesson to be learned from this failed experiment in time travel, it is that one should probably never mix history with hullabaloo. It only confuses an already skeptical audience.