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| A Matter of Time : 3
This, allied with “The Time Tunnel”’s reliance on employing footage from previous historical dramatisations for establishing shots and battle scenes, made the adventures of Tony and Doug less of a voyage through history and more of an almost anthological guide to the different genres of American popular cinema.
Each week, Tony, Doug, and the Time Tunnel provided a frame through which we were taken to see “Epics” (“Revenge of the Gods”, “The Walls of Jericho”), an espionage thriller (“Secret Weapon”), the occasional Science Fiction flick (“One Way to the Moon”, “Chase Through Time”), “War” pictures (“The Day the Sky Fell In”, “Invasion”, “Kill Two by Two”), and even, significantly, “Disaster” movies (“Rendezvous with Yesterday”, “End of the World”, “Crack of Doom”).
Yet, to a young mind that had limited knowledge of both history and cinema, the tales told in “The Time Tunnel” really were “new” and “fantastic”; a nail-biting roller-coaster of captures, escapes, and bare-knuckle fistfights, augmented by “Johnny” Williams’ memorable theme tune, and the breathtaking photography of Winton Hoch.
Putting aside any arguements concerning the quality of “The Time Tunnel”’s scripts, there is no question that the series is one of the most beautifully filmed productions of any era. The colours are rich, the textures vivid, and the lighting wonderfully atmospheric— to the point where the desert scenes in “Raiders from Outer Space” rival those of one of the show’s big-budget contemporaries: the feature film, “Planet of the Apes”.
Interestingly, the episodes I particularly enjoyed as a child are the ones I can still enjoy today: “Crack of Doom”, “Idol of Death”, and “Chase Through Time” to name but three. All share one link: each makes limited use of “stock” footage, enabling the story to follow its own direction, rather than accomodate contrived and unneccessary plot elements, as in “Billy The Kid”, “Night of the Long Knives”, and “Raiders from Outer Space”. They are also free of the distraction resulting from the often all too obvious contrast between the clashing hordes in the feature film-derived footage and the handful of combatants in the material shot specifically for the series.
There are gems of truth, too, to be found within the fictionalised reconstructions. “The Time Tunnel” introduced me to many historical events I might otherwise have remained ignorant of, and encouraged me to learn more about them. The series also provided me with the first sympathetic treatment of the history of Native Americans I ever encountered, in “Massacre”—which also surprised me with its condemnatory portrait of General George Armstrong Custer—a man I had previously seen depicted only as a hero.
In fact, despite Irwin Allen’s reported views on storytelling, “The Time Tunnel” was far from devoid of moments of emotional drama. Tony and Doug were rarely able to indulge in the light-hearted banter that concluded virtually every adventure of the crews of the “Seaview”, “Jupiter II”, and the “Spindrift”. Even during a story, it was unusual to see the time-travellers enjoying any humorous interlude.
“The Time Tunnel”’s resolutions are uncharacteristically downbeat for a TeleVision series of that time. The debut episode concludes with the sinking of the “Titanic”, and the implied deaths of most of the luckless passengers and crew. In “The Day the Sky Fell In”, Tony attempts to save his father from the horror of Pearl Harbour—and fails, his father dying in his arms. A British Army General—a friend of Woody’s—enters the tunnel in search of the truth about an ancestor and dies at his side on a battlefield. Finally, there is the ultimate tragedy, in that we never see Tony and Doug returned safely to their “home” in 1968…
It is well-known, now, that ABC-TV did ask for “The Time Tunnel” to return for a second season, but later reversed their decision. With this in mind, I’ve always believed that the montage of clips from “Rendezvous With Yesterday” that appeared after the final scene of the last episode to air, “Town of Terror”, was not, as Gary Gerani has suggested in “Fantastic Television” (and many have echoed since), an “ending” to the series in which our heroes are shown to be caught in a time loop. To me, this was nothing more than a trailer for the series’ batch of summer re-runs. These commenced on 14th April 1967—the week after the 7th April airing of “Town of Terror”—with the debut story, “Rendezvous With Yesterday”.
Allen had employed exactly the same technique the previous year with the “Lost in Space” reruns, and did so again with the 1966-67 season: the last original episode to air, “The Galaxy Gift”, ended with the teaser for the debut story from that season, “Blast Off into Space”—which turned out to be the first segment to be rerun the following week… | |
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