Though this fizzles a bit at the end, it is really engaging most of the way. A young man, played by John Cryer of "Two and a Half Men," depressed and nearly broke, leaves his wife to get a bottle of Champagne on New Year's Eve in the early Fifties. On the trip home, he is blinded by an intense light and crashes his car. When he arrives home, his wife is ten years older and furious for his having left her that evening many years back. This leads to a series of ten year leaps into the future. His loved ones, including the man his wife has now married, become aware of his dilemma. In actuality, he is only around for a week or so, while everyone else ages thirty to forty years. The new husband, who is a psychologist, tries his best to get a handle on the situation but can only engage in theory. Cryer's son, who was conceived during that one night on his first return, becomes important to him as he gets an opportunity to latch of to a piece of normalcy. Cryer has moments of peace that are interrupted by the invasion of the light. He is quickly cast into some kind of alien swamp where he faces off against monstrous forces then light and movement another ten years. Cryer does a nice job in this role and plays it with pain and emotion. This would have made a pretty decent movie.
6 Reviews
Feels like an Outer Limits, Twilight Zone and Star Trek episode combined
bgaiv30 October 2021
Very nice episode and Cryer is perfect here.
An awesome mini movie that subverts expectations for this series in pleasant ways which makes it feel like the best parts of really early TNG. Particularly with respect to one character you immediately have suspicions about.
Cryer is great, as are all the actors, and the different eras are well depicted.
An awesome mini movie that subverts expectations for this series in pleasant ways which makes it feel like the best parts of really early TNG. Particularly with respect to one character you immediately have suspicions about.
Cryer is great, as are all the actors, and the different eras are well depicted.
Interesting time travel story
IngleMike26 August 2009
Warning: Spoilers
I'm usually not a big fan of time travel because of the logic issues or of Jon Cryer. But I enjoyed this, there where no time travel paradoxes that I could detect and Cryer was well suited in this role.
It was interesting to see how life goes on without you, and how small things can have large impacts on the future (Chaos theory). My first child was a complete accident, that I can trace back to my mother breaking her arm. This relates to this story as the time traveller has a son during his first stop, then later the son tries to help his father. Eventually the father is able to return to his original time, thus eliminating his son's birth.
It was interesting to see how life goes on without you, and how small things can have large impacts on the future (Chaos theory). My first child was a complete accident, that I can trace back to my mother breaking her arm. This relates to this story as the time traveller has a son during his first stop, then later the son tries to help his father. Eventually the father is able to return to his original time, thus eliminating his son's birth.
Wormholes in Time
kapelusznik1824 October 2016
Warning: Spoilers
***SPOILERS*** Going out to the liquor store on New Year's eve 1950 to buy a bottle of champagne to celebrate Trevor Mchee, Jon "Cry Baby" Cryer,is forced off the road by a blinding beam of light that knocks him out cold. Waking up the next morning and hitching a ride from Ray Carter, Dean McDermott, back home he fond out that ten years have passed with his wife Teresa, Jessica Lundy, feeling that he deserted her and ran off with another woman! Making up with Teresa and spending the night with her Trevor then is swallowed up in a wormhole and is taken ten more years into the future to 1969 where he finds that Teresa is now married to the now hippie and flower child Ray Carter who's adopted his son Mark, Richard Ian Cox, that was the result of the one night stand he had with Teresa ten years ago.
This ten year jump in time goes on from some 20 more years with Trevor now in his 60's jumping or traveling in time to the years 1990 with Mark now 30 years old and Ray having passed away from lung cancer, from smoking too much pot and hashes, and his by now senior citizen wife Teresa waiting for him. By now Trevor as well as Teresa and Mark understand what Trevor has been going through all these some 40 years and just take his once in ten year appearances for granted but this time around the march of time for him has taken an abrupt U-turn.
***SPOILERS*** The film ends where it started with Trevor recovering from his car crash but in the year 1950 not 1959! Going back home to Teresa Trevor can now look forward to life knowing what the future holds for him That in him knowing what the future will bring as well as what stocks to invest in. As well as what sports teams boxing matches presidential elections-even those there are rigged- and race horse to bet on. That in the end, or at least up to 1990, will make him and his family both rich and well cared for the next some 40 years into the future.
This ten year jump in time goes on from some 20 more years with Trevor now in his 60's jumping or traveling in time to the years 1990 with Mark now 30 years old and Ray having passed away from lung cancer, from smoking too much pot and hashes, and his by now senior citizen wife Teresa waiting for him. By now Trevor as well as Teresa and Mark understand what Trevor has been going through all these some 40 years and just take his once in ten year appearances for granted but this time around the march of time for him has taken an abrupt U-turn.
***SPOILERS*** The film ends where it started with Trevor recovering from his car crash but in the year 1950 not 1959! Going back home to Teresa Trevor can now look forward to life knowing what the future holds for him That in him knowing what the future will bring as well as what stocks to invest in. As well as what sports teams boxing matches presidential elections-even those there are rigged- and race horse to bet on. That in the end, or at least up to 1990, will make him and his family both rich and well cared for the next some 40 years into the future.
Corny unrealistic schmaltz
videopotamus7 August 2023
Warning: Spoilers
News Year night, Jon Cryer tells his wife he's going out to pick up a bottle of champagne so they can celebrate the new year, kisses her goodbye and drives off down the road where a bright light causes his car to crash in the woods. And he vanishes.
10 years later he wakes up in the same car, all rusted exactly where it crashed, wearing the same clothes and with no recollection of the past 10 years.
He makes his way home, his wife opens the door and.................immediately accuses him of running off with some girl.
Whaaaaat????
So his wife never even bothered to call the police or look for him or for his car that is still crashed into a tree right down the road from their house - just sitting there rusting for 10 years, which she probably has to drive past everyday, but she never sees it and no one else ever sees it, and he when he left that night he didn't take all his other clothes and stuff from the house - nothing to indicate anything other than he was going to do exactly why he said, but when Cryer comes home still in the same exact clothes he left in, not having age a day, and even carrying the bottle of champagne he went out for, his wife opens the door and immediately accuses him of running off with some girl.
It's laughable. And the rest of it is just as hokey.
The premise has the potential to make for a good story - all of it up to the part he comes home draws you in, but then they just didn't handle it well at all. Part of the issue is that this is only an hour long show, 45 minutes after commercials, so everything is rushed and exposition used liberally to get to his next time leap.
If they had more time to allow for plausible reactions from characters and for a deeper dive into the science fiction of what was happening to Cryer this could have been rather good, but as it stands it is severely lacking, even for the Outer Limits, which I already give a bunch of leeway too as it is, understanding that the show was made on a limited budget, but this episode is just a bridge too far.
10 years later he wakes up in the same car, all rusted exactly where it crashed, wearing the same clothes and with no recollection of the past 10 years.
He makes his way home, his wife opens the door and.................immediately accuses him of running off with some girl.
Whaaaaat????
So his wife never even bothered to call the police or look for him or for his car that is still crashed into a tree right down the road from their house - just sitting there rusting for 10 years, which she probably has to drive past everyday, but she never sees it and no one else ever sees it, and he when he left that night he didn't take all his other clothes and stuff from the house - nothing to indicate anything other than he was going to do exactly why he said, but when Cryer comes home still in the same exact clothes he left in, not having age a day, and even carrying the bottle of champagne he went out for, his wife opens the door and immediately accuses him of running off with some girl.
It's laughable. And the rest of it is just as hokey.
The premise has the potential to make for a good story - all of it up to the part he comes home draws you in, but then they just didn't handle it well at all. Part of the issue is that this is only an hour long show, 45 minutes after commercials, so everything is rushed and exposition used liberally to get to his next time leap.
If they had more time to allow for plausible reactions from characters and for a deeper dive into the science fiction of what was happening to Cryer this could have been rather good, but as it stands it is severely lacking, even for the Outer Limits, which I already give a bunch of leeway too as it is, understanding that the show was made on a limited budget, but this episode is just a bridge too far.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
