The Toynbee Convector (26 Oct. 1990)
"The Ray Bradbury Theater" The Toynbee Convector (original title)

Craig Bennett Stiles travels 100 years into the future to bring hope back for his dying present. Now a hundred years have passed and he prepares to meet his past self as the world looks on.

Director:

John Laing

Writers:

Ray Bradbury (screenplay), Ray Bradbury (story)

Stars:

Ray Bradbury, James Whitmore, Michael Hurst

Cast

Episode cast overview:
Ray Bradbury	...	Himself - Introduction
James Whitmore	...	Craig Bennett Stiles
Michael Hurst	...	Roger Shumway
Perry Piercy	...	Sam
Michael Galvin	...	Assistant

Storyline

When Earth is threatened with overpopulation and pollution, architect Craig Bennett Stiles built a time machine and traveled 100 years into the future. He then returned to the present with a vision of hope, of humanity united together. Now reporter Roger Shumway comes to him for an interview as the world prepares to celebrate the past Stiles' arrival, but Stiles has a secret to reveal.

---

Genres:

Drama | Fantasy | Sci-Fi | Thriller

---

Details

Release Date:

26 October 1990 (France)

Company Credits

User Reviews

An epidemical spiritual placebo swallowed whole and without salt

James Whitmore (Black Like Me, 1964) plays respected scientist and venerable pathfinder Craig Bennett Stiles, a man 135 years old, who has summoned a member of the media, an Australian bloke by the name of Roger Shumway (Michael Hurst; The Long Rain, 1992), he of 35 years of age, so as to "make a major announcement to the peoples of the world."

Roger Shumway is all excited to meet the legendary scientist for himself, since the inhabitants of the world view Mr. Stiles both as a torchbearer and somewhat of a savior. At the very least, a bringer of hope at a time when it was sorely needed.

As is evidenced by the television reporter's panegyric opening address to the citizens of the world:

"Burning rain forests, smog alerts, gridlock'd cities, seabirds caked with oil. That's how it was, ladies and gentleman, as we entered the '90s. And, with few exceptions, things became even more bleak. It seemed we were doomed. Until 100 years ago, in the year 2000, when Craig Bennett Stiles became the first, and only, man to travel through time. What he said and showed us upon his return has changed the history of the world."

All eyes and ears, worldwide, are on Roger Shumway's soon-to-be international interview with this well-thought-of messiah, who, upon his return to Earth, a century ago, had for some strange reason gone into reclusion. What has Mr. Stiles been up to all this time? What of major significance has the scientist to say, enough to call this televised exclusive?

"Tell me," asks Shumway to his guarded interviewee, "how do you think you're going to feel, at 4 o'clock, today, when your younger self arrives from the past? For a brief moment, you're going to exist as two people: The man you are, and the man you were when your time-machine came into the year 2,100."

This special day, the 100th anniversary of Mr. Stiles' trip into the future.

As I write this there are some among humankind that are eagerly anticipating the year 2012, in particularly, the date of December 21, which is when, they believe, something positively momentous will occur that will revolutionize the world. After all, it is only human nature to want something without having to do anything to get it...

Mr. Stiles, ever the visionary, understood this. And merely went about – via a bit of expressed indirection – trying to do something to rectify this human trend; in the end, for the betterment of his species.

James Whitmore plays a man of pensive disposition and soft countenance of whom we can't help but be drawn to his character, an idealist sage in the truest sense of the word.

As for the episode's title, it's eponymously derived from the real-life English historian, Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975). As Mr. Stiles remarks: "It was Toynbee who said, if a people, a civilization, does not rush to meet the future, the future will plow them under, kill and bury them."

Here we have Mr. Stiles who went about deceiving his fellow human beings, and yet his motive for doing so was pure, as he had their best interest at heart.

The irony in it is that, by means of the scientist's innocuous fabrication, the people of the planet Earth went about transforming their home to the point where it stands now – of it back to being in balance with Nature, instead of out of whack. The thing is, Mr. Stiles, in my mind, needn't have had to told a lie to help achieve these ends. Would not a frank and sobering 'this-is-how-it-is' have stirred the planet's inhabitants and brought about the same results?

The Toynbee Convector also touches on the issue of how easily people can be deceived by those in positions of either power, reverence, or esteem. Don't forget, that Mr. Stiles ended up tricking the entire world into believing he had time-traveled into the future, by means of the simple use of "smoke and mirrors."

The lesson here: That hoaxes needn't always be perpetrated by those who, according to our estimation, appear more liable of committing them. And very rarely, neither does deception necessarily have to consist of a negative intent (as evidenced perhaps by the teachings of the world's major religious figures, which although being potentially positively life-transforming may very well be nothing more than 'Toynbee convectors' themselves).