The Time Tunnel... - Timeless (2016) Discussion

[–] darkavenger77 8 years ago

Does anyone remember this show in 1966?

Based upon thread titles of the relatively few threads here, I'd say this member:
Remake of the ORIGINAL "The Time Tunnel...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5511582/board/nest/260502991

and this one:
Time Tunnel?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5511582/board/nest/258923413

and this one:
So Time Tunnel or
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5511582/board/nest/259004264

all do. I suspect there are others that mentioned it in the bodies of their posts.

Reading used to be fundamental. Now it is a lost art.

Ignoring politics doesn't mean politics will ignore you.
-Pericles paraphrased in <100 characters

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[–] Sloputtputt 8 years ago

and why are you making such a big issue about it??? No big deal.

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[–] darkavenger77 8 years ago

and why are you making such a big issue about it??? No big deal.

It's in the eye of the reader. Making the same topic over & over plugs up message boards, but that is par for the course in a short-attention span world.

Ignoring politics doesn't mean politics will ignore you.
-Pericles paraphrased in <100 characters

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[–] Sloputtputt 8 years ago

Que sera sera....

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[–] snagswolf 8 years ago

It's available on DVD. Borrowed it from my library a while back, and it holds up pretty well.

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[–] hardseasailor 8 years ago

it was one of my best must see shows that year but I guess history didn't sell and it got the boot, it may happen to this series to, journey man was also a great show that got canned time travel series have a hard time getting viewers it sucks for people like me who love historic time travel series and movies.

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[–] haldurgz 8 years ago

Part of the problem was that Science fiction in general, was not a popular genre on TV or in the movies, until a bit later. Certainly, there was the odd successful SF show, such as "Star Trek", "The Outer Limits" (much underrated) and the all-too-rare science fictional episode of "The Twilight Zone". And "The Time Tunnel" really was not very good compared with those three shows.

The reasons for that are many, but mostly SF was not seen as a serious genre. Certain writers would change that eventually (Kurt Vonnegutt Jr and Ray Bradbury, although they each actually did not write that much science fiction, were among the first writers to be labeled as "Science Fiction" and to be seen as 'respectable'). Science Fiction was seen as a childish pursuit -- My dad's mom threw away his collection of science fiction magazines and comic books when he went away to college. And that was an incredibly common story -- I've heard similar stories from a lot of people of my dad's generation. Even back in the 19700s when I was in High School, I had an English teacher who thought the same way (and that's in the time of both Bradbury and Vonnegut). Science Fiction was seen as equivalent to pornography -- not respectable.

So what that has to do with "The Time Tunnel" is that it didn't get great writers or great actors. It didn't get much of an audience. But it wasn't horrible, and the concept was not like anything else on TV. It has a certain nostalgic quality to it. If you ever watched it as a kid, you probably have vague memories of it, because it was so different. But yeah, it wasn't great.

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[–] Sloputtputt 8 years ago

Science fiction in general, was not a popular genre on TV or in the movies, until a bit later.

For the sci-fi movies today, they are popular because they have great special effects. Without it, I don't think people would bother to watch them.

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[–] haldurgz 8 years ago

You are talking about blockbusters, not science fiction films specifically. People didn't go to see "Brazil" because of the special effects -- they went for the writing. They didn't see "The Martian", "Ex Machina", or "Her", or "Moon" because of their special effects. The same with earlier films like "Gattaca", or "Strange Days", or "Time and Again", or "Back to the Future" 1, 2 or 3, or a dozen other films I could name. You are confusing genres. Certainly there is some overlap, but good science fiction all too often is the opposite of a blockbuster, because action and explosions is all too often used as a poor man's substitute for good writing and intetresting ideas. And a lot of the best science fiction is about ideas. It's what people who are actually science fiction fans, as opposed to blockbuster fans are actually looking for. Don't confuse the genres.

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[–] Sloputtputt 8 years ago

There are some who like to watch a movie that is well scripted and have great performance whereas, there are those who watch a movie solely for the purpose of watching the special effects and they could care less the quality of the film. What I was referring was sci-fi movies that have special effects will attract most, but without the the special effects, I don't think it would have much an impact. I am not getting confused between the genres.

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[–] haldurgz 8 years ago

As I said, blockbusters. But those kinds of movies HAVE to make tons of cash or they are failures, because they are very expensive to make. Only the biggest studios can afford to make them. But everyone is making the less expensive SF films. There's been an explosion of them. And people like them. It's not a contest to see who gets the most viewers, it's who can actually make a profit. There is an audience for smart SF, unlike back when Time Tunnel was on the air. Hence why it was so dumb. For every Terminator: Genisys, and Independence Day: Resurgence, there's an Ex Machina and a Moon, and a Pi, and so on. Not every movie is going to do well, but a movie with a smaller budget doesn't need to do quite as well. (BTW, I never went to see Terminator: GEnisys or Independence Day: Resurgendce, nor will I watch them on-line. But I did go to see all those other films. And enough other people did also to make them successful. I think I did better by not seeing them than others did by paying money for them.

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[–] DeepFriedJello 8 years ago

They've had Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants on early early Sunday morning on MeTV and I've been enjoying those for the first time since I was 11 years old. When I read the synopses for Timeless I thought it's same idea with an added female time traveler. Both seem to go back to historically important times such as the sinking of the Titanic. I guess I'm watching this in 90 minutes.

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[–] haldurgz 8 years ago

I didn't care for the trailer for Timeless, but I suppose I will check it out anyway. I could be wrong about it.

The problem that I usually have with time travel stories, as done for TV or the movies, is that I invariably compare them with some of the smarter literary time travel stories (the ones that actually seem logically plausible). For example, I always thought that James Hogan's "The Proteus Operation" to be incredibly smart in that it's almost impossible to poke holes in it logically. But at the same time, it's an incredibly exciting story -- it manages to balance both. It posits that you cannot change your past, but you can create alternate universes by the attempt. Time travel to the past is probably impossible. But at least, it should not make you cringe (and most time travel stories, at least in the movies and on TV, do make me cringe by how illogical they are).

So, for example, if you went back in time and killed Hitler, you wouldn't change anything for the people who you left back from where you came -- they'd still live in a timeline where Hitler came to power. But you just created a separate timeline where he did not. So, logically, only the people who were sent back in time could possibly benefit from it. And by changing the past, you would not make that other timeline disappear. You can't actually save anyone, nor make anyone disappear by anything you do in the past. Cut yourself in the past, it will not make a scar magically appear on your present-selfs hand.

Similarly, you could travel back in time and kill one of your own ancestors, and not create a paradox -- you'd just create a separate timeline in which you or your siblings were never born. You would not suddenly disappear like in Looper. And whoever thought that made sense ought to be sentenced to take a course on basic logic and causality.

I'm just saying that there are intelligent ways of handling time travel, just that most people who write for TV tend to prefer ones that no person with a logical thinking mind should ever accept.

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[–] zaphod-53 8 years ago

You should pick up James P Hogan's book 'Thrice Upon a Time.' That was the first of his books that I read, and it is based on the same temporal theories.

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[–] maxthepupp 8 years ago

I LOVED Brazil...went & saw it when it came out...but I was one of the few who went.

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[–] CharlesTheBold 8 years ago

they are popular because they have great special effects. Without it, I don't think people would bother to watch them.
================================

I disagree. HUNGER GAMES had few special effects. It was popular because the dystopia genre was a novelty, and because it had Jennifer Lawrence and Donald Sutherland playing interesting antagonists.

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[–] Sloputtputt 8 years ago

That is one thing I am looking forward to watching Timeless and that is I love history and to see it through sci-fi, which is one of my favorite genre, makes it more interesting.

The best way to live is slow and easy...

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[–] Taylorfirst1 8 years ago

It reminds me of Time Tunnel, Legends of Tomorrow, Time Cop, and The Lost Saucer.

WE GOT MOVIE SIIIIIGN!

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[–] CharlesTheBold 8 years ago

I remember it. Two scientists go back in time and can't return home; they can only go to a different wrong time (SLIDERS used the same plot, only with parallel universes).

For some reason, everybody spoke English, no matter whether they were in Devil's Island or ancient Israel or ancient Troy or Ghengis Khan's Mongolia.

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[–] hambegran 8 years ago

First there was Star Trek: The Next Generation, then there was Lost in Space: The Next Generation (aka Star Trek: Voyager), then Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: The Next Generation (aka SeaQuest DSV), then Gilligan's Island: The Next Generation (aka Lost) and now Time Tunnel: The Next Generation.

Hollywood never throws anything away.

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