Time Tunnel: Season 1 V.1 [DVD] [1968] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

For anyone who grew up in the sixties, and was interested in TV sci-fi, the name of Irwin Allen is a familiar one. He was the American TV producer who gave us 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea'. 'Lost In Space', and this, his third TV series 'The Time Tunnel'. His shows had high amounts of Fantasy but also some serious sci-fi concepts, and rarely a week went by without one or another of his shows being aired on both sides of the Atlantic. The Time Tunnel follows the adventures of 2 scientists who are trapped in time, and each week land in an eventful moment in History. From landing on the Titanic in the first episode, the series covers many periods both past and present, as the team back home try to retrieve the 2 scientists and bring them home. The 2 lead actors are engaging enough, and the set of the Time Tunnel itself is impressive. Every episode is solidly made, with Irwin Allen's talent for stretching his production budget reaching varying degrees of success as footage from existing movies are edited into the show to give each scenario more scope. Having said that, the episodes are rarely less than entertaining and the viewer finds himself becoming hooked on the show. The stories are good adventure yarns which end on a cliffhanger that leads into the next episode. For 60's TV, this has aged quite well and is good undemanding viewing for all ages. Sadly, only 30 episodes were made even though the show, I feel, had the potential to develop further and become a genuine TV classic.This volume contains the first 15 episodes, as well as some interesting extras which take a behind the scenes look at the show and the merchandise produced at the time. Worth seeking out even though it is only available as a region One release. I have already bought the second set and am looking forward to another tumble through time...

"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."

The Time Tunnel wasn't one of Irwin Allen's most successful series - it only ran one season - but thanks to syndication it managed to gain a fairly loyal following even after its two accidental time travellers were left back where they started at the end of the final episode, so Fox's two volume remastered set of the series is certainly welcome. The show's ambitions were never really matched by its budget - although it was a costly Technicolor series (shot by the Oscar winning cinematographer of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Winton C. Hoch, no less, while The 7th Voyage of Sinbad's Nathan Juran directed several episodes and John Williams contributed the memorable title music), part of the fun would be spotting the rehashed costumes, standing sets, music (particularly Bernard Herrmann's King of the Khyber Rifles and Franz Waxman's Prince Valiant) and stock footage from films like Helen of Troy or 300 Spartans for the various historical periods Robert Colbert and James Darren would fall into while Whit Bissell, Lee Meriwether and John Zaremba tried hopelessly to bring them back to present day 1968 in the impressively designed giant underground time tunnel complex.

This first half of the 30 episode run sees the series still concentrating on the historical stories rather than the science fiction ones that took over as the ratings started to fall, but they're not recommended as history lessons. Hokum is the order of the day as they find themselves at various times stowaways on the Titanic, caught up in the Alamo, deposited on Krakatoa on the worst possible day for a visit, mistaken for emissaries of the gods in Troy, locked up in Devil's Island with Dreyfus, at the Little Big Horn with Custer, the Khyber Pass with Kipling, in France during the Revolution and on the eve of D-Day and, in perhaps the best of them, in Pearl Harbor on the day James Darren's father died. Along the way they meet the odd interesting guest star - Michael Rennie as the captain of the Titanic, Ellen Burstyn sporting a bad English accent and Nehemiah Persoff as a communist scientist who may have invented a Russian time tunnel among them in this volume - before finding themselves stranded in another time in each episode's movie-serial style cliffhanger ending.

The special effects aren't state of the art, but like the stylishly designed title sequence, they're pleasingly colourful, not least the iconic slo-mo shots of the two heroes 'trapped in the infinite corridors of time.' It's hokey, but it's still good nostalgic fun, and the remastered episodes certainly look a lot better than the ones that showed up on TV over the past couple of decades. Sadly the extras feel like elements assembled for an abandoned documentary - 67 minutes of Allen's home movies of the shoot, camera tests and stills and merchandise galleries - though it does contain the extended original pilot

"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....."
(Intro of the most fantastic TV-serial)

In the years 1971 - 1972 I could watch thirteen episodes an I wanted to see more. Unfortunately I missed the transmission of all episodes on a private german tv station in 1996/97. There was no chance to buy any Time Tunnel movie in Germany. I found out, that amazon.com demanded half of the price that amazon.uk asked for. So I ordered the two boxes with 15 episodes each, but the are coded for Regional Player Code 1 (USA, Kanada and US foreign territories. But at amazon.de I could buy the codefree "United DVD-Player 7092" and my timediving could begin....

again and again....

5 Amazonstars !