"The Time Tunnel" Rendezvous with Yesterday (1966)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

Director:

Irwin Allen

Writers:

Irwin Allen (creator)
Irwin Allen (story)

TV Series:

"The Time Tunnel" (1966)

Original Air Date:

9 September 1966 (Season 1, Episode 1)

Genre:

Action | Sci-Fi

Plot:

Unaired Original Pilot for "The Time Tunnel". Dr. Tony Newman is forced to use the experimental Time...

Plot Keywords:

Titanic | Historical | Cult Favorite | Cult TV | 1910s

Cast

James Darren	...	Tony Newman
Robert Colbert	...	Doug Phillips
Michael Rennie	...	Capt. Malcolm Smith
Susan Hampshire	...	Althea Hall
Gary Merrill	...	Senator Leroy Clark
Lee Meriwether	...	Dr. Ann MacGregor
Wesley Lau	...	Master Sgt. Jiggs
John Zaremba	...	Dr. Raymond Swain
Whit Bissell	...	General Heywood Kirk
Don Knight	...	Grainger
Jean-Michel Michenaud	...	Marcel (as Gerard Michenaud)
Michael Haynes	...	The Soldier
John Winston	...	The Guard
Brett Parker	...	Countdown Technician

Runtime:

60 min

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Filming Locations:

20th Century Fox Studios - 10201 Pico Blvd., Century City, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

20th Century Fox Television

Goofs:

Factual errors: In the wireless room a photograph of the Titanic can be seen. This picture was taken by a private photographer and not released until after the sinking.

Movie Connections:

Edited from Titanic (1953)

The Beginning of a Fantastic Series

In 1968, Senator Leroy Clark lands in the desert in the middle of nowhere. Then a car arrives with Dr. Doug Phillips that brings him to an awesome underground facility with 12,000 personnel and 800 floors deep. Senator Clark intends to cut the funds to the research of time travel, unless Dr. Phillips can prove that can indeed send a man back or forth in time and return him safe. However the state-of-art technology is not ready yet to risk human life and the scientist will have to shutdown the project. In desperation, Dr. Tony Newman decides to test the time tunnel sending himself through time to prove that it works. He travels to Saturday, 13 April 1912, and arrives on board of the Titanic in the eve of the tragic accident. He befriends the British passenger Althea Hall and unsuccessfully tries to convince Captain Malcolm Smith to change the course of the Titanic, telling that he has come from the future. The captain locks the stowaway in a cabin and the time tunnel personnel can not retrieve him; his partner Doug Phillips decides to travel to help Tony to leave the cabin that is located in the damaged area of the doomed vessel.

I have just bought the two volumes of "The Time Tunnel" on DVD and while watching this fantastic episode, I felt like traveling in time to my adolescence when "The Time Tunnel" together with "Star Trek" and "Lost in Space" were my favorite shows in the Brazilian black & white television (color TV was introduced in Brazil in 1970, and only years later I could afford to buy one). Nostalgia apart, it is impressive to see how this series was ahead of time and the time tunnel facility is still amazing and the story is not dated. Well, this episode is created, written and directed by Irwin Allen and I believe this statement is enough to indicate its high-quality. I do not recall how this series ends but now I have the complete set of episode to delight along the next days. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "O Túnel do Tempo" ("The Time Tunnel")