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A Matter of Time
Personal reflections on Irwin Allen’s “The Time Tunnel”
by Mark Rogers |
| | This essay first appeared in 1991, in the pages of the “Irwin Allen Tribute”, a fanzine compiled by Jeanette Georgala, Irwin Allen fan extraordinary and co-ordinator of the Irwin Allen News Network and “Giant’s Log”—The “Land of the Giants” Appreciation Society. Issued soon after the death of the legendary film and TeleVision producer, the publication was intended as a celebration of the man and his work. For this Internet presentation, I have taken the opportunity to expand and augment the original feature. | | Mark Rogers • December 2005 |
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| “Two American scientists are lost in the swirling maze of past and future ages, during the first experiments on America’s greatest and most secret project: ‘The Time Tunnel.’ Tony Newman and Doug Phillips now tumble helplessly toward a new, fantastic adventure, somewhere along the infinite corridors of time.” |
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| “The Time Tunnel”: Opening Narration |
As a child, I loved “The Time Tunnel”. I remember how delighted I was one dinnertime when, while away on vacation, my father tuned in the TeleVision set of the apartment in which we were staying, and I found myself watching “The Revenge of Robin Hood”—an episode I had never seen before. My parents’ reaction, I noted with dismay, was considerably less enthusiastic…
One of the unique strengths of Science Fiction is its inherent capacity for providing an audience with unusual and memorable images and ideas, and it was “The Time Tunnel”’s reflection of this that contributed towards my devotion to the series.
I was in awe of the structure which gave the show its name. Dwarfing the figures of the technicians who ministered to its needs, the vast and apparently endless op-art, oblate cylinder seemed to me to be more like a living entity than a machine. Glowing with an ice-blue light that pulsated to the beat of a human heart, it breathed smoke and roared like some wrathful monster as it devoured the people and objects placed in its maw…
Most chilling of all, the “Tunnel” didn’t always do as it was told. It was uncontrollable and unpredictable, often surprising its designers by fuctioning in ways it had never been designed to.
It was as if it had a mind of its own!
I was entranced, also, by the concept behind the series (taken from Science Fiction author Murray Leinster’s 1964 novel, “Time Tunnel”, and influenced along the way by the highly acclaimed Rod Serling scripted feature film, “Seven Days in May”, also released in 1964). Here, people could embark on a journey through time simply by taking a walk, and would arrive at their destination without any visible evidence of how they had got there. Is it any wonder that some of the more superstitious cultures that Tony and Doug encountered came to believe them to be gods? Imagine how the time-travellers must have appeared to an onlooker, as they condensed from the sky and tumbled, balletically, in slow motion, towards the ground (And what a simple, yet incredibly effective technique that is!). Equally supernatural in appearance was the moment of their departure, as they dissolved, like phantoms, back into the air from which they had materialised…
In reality, of course, Tony Newman and Doug Phillips were far removed from the powerful beings others assumed them to be. They were heroic figures, certainly: not just men of science, but men of principle and—above all—men of action. Time after time they demonstrated their unswerving loyalty to one another, and acquitted themselves as unselfish opponents of any injustice they encountered during their passage through history. Yet they were vulnerable, and, because of their predicament, tragic figures. | | |
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