Voyagers! (1982–1983)

A member of a league of time travelers and a boy travel through time repairing errors in world history.

Creator:

James D. Parriott

Stars:

Jon-Erik Hexum, Meeno Peluce, Stephen Liska

1 nomination.

Cast

Complete series cast summary:
Jon-Erik Hexum	...	Phineas Bogg (20 episodes, 1982-1983)
Meeno Peluce	...	Jeffrey Jones (20 episodes, 1982-1983)

Storyline

Phineas Bogg is a member of a group people called Voyagers. They help history along. Give it a push where it's needed. He is a regular human that was living as a pirate a few hundred years ago, when he was chosen to be a voyager. He travels by way of a gold pocket watch like device called an omni. When the light is flashing red, it means history is wrong. His job is to fix it. In the pilot episode, Bogg ends up in 1982 when his omni malfunctions. (He is only supposed to be able to go as far as 1970.) He ends up in the apartment where 12 year old Jeffrey Jones and his aunt and uncle live. (Jones parents were recently killed in an accident.) While there, Jeffrey's dog grabs hold of Bogg's guide book (basically a history book.) Bogg being a pretty inept history person has no clue what to do without his book. One thing leads to another and Jeffrey falls out of the building's window. The only way to save him is for Bogg to jump out after him and travel through time. Now Bogg is stuck in ...

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Plot Keywords:

boy | surrealism | historical fiction | historical event | time travel | 

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Genres:

Adventure | Family | Sci-Fi

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

3 October 1982 (USA)

Also Known As:

Die Zeitreisenden

Filming Locations:

Colonial Street, Backlot, Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

James D. Parriott Productions, Scholastic Productions, Universal TV

Technical Specs

Runtime:

60 min 60 min (20 episodes)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Similar to TV series Quantum Leap where both contain time travelers who have to set history on the right path.

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Quotes

[repeated line]
Phineas Bogg: Bat's breath!

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Crazy Credits

During the credits, we hear Meeno Peluce, one of the cast members, say, "If you would like to learn more about [names of three famous things pertaining to the episode], take a voyage down to your public library. It's all in books."

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Connections

Edited from The Buccaneer (1958)

User Reviews

Historic In Many Ways...

There are several things to note about "Voyagers!" The first is that this was a part of a master plan by NBC Program chief Brandon Tartikoff to merge entertainment with education, and to provide kids with intelligent programming, not the usual dreck that seemed so prevalent in the 1980s.

The concept of the show was deceptively simple. There are a team of men and women who keep track of "history." These "voyagers" each have a hand-held device called an "Omni" which gives them their location, the date and a signal if history is "wrong." They all go back and forward through time to correct any "mistakes" that may have occurred in time and keep the world on track.

One voyager is named Phineas Bogg (an obvious play on Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg from "Around The World In 80 Days"). However this particular voyager didn't pass his history exam and landed on the windowsill of Jeffrey, who just happened to be a whiz kid in history. Together, they became "Voyagers!"

The serious problem the program had was in its construction. In one episode, Germany had somehow won World War I. The voyagers traveled back in time and discovered that famed flying ace Eddie Rickenbacher had nothing to do. That's because the Wright Brothers hadn't invented the airplane. So they had to travel again and discovered Orville and Wilbur were arguing over a girl in their bicycle shop instead of working on their flying machine. So the Voyagers had to set them back on track.

It had to have been extremely difficult to write such elaborate plots that both were well known enough for an audience to relate to and yet capable of making sense in the plot of the show. As brilliant as some of these episodes were, the question is how many related subplots could there be for any moment in history, before you get into material that isn't in the library? With such a limitation, with production costs being what they were for an early 1980s s/f program and with ratings being lower than desired, "Voyagers!" was not viable for more than a year. Looking at the series now, it would have made for a brilliant "Harry Potter" style string of films, since there really aren't enough historic events to have made it to the famed 100 episode level.