Die Zeitreisenden

I remember this show clearly from when I was in 4th grade and was quite devastated when it was cancelled. This show helped spawn a love-affair with History and learning. I so greatly wish that more shows like it were to be made....but instead we must be flooded with cr*p like, "Making the Band" and "Full House". If anyone knows when the Sci-Fi Channel plays these episodes -- please let me know!!

There are several things to note about "Voyagers!" The first is that this was a part of a master plan by NBC Program chief Brandon Tartikoff to merge entertainment with education, and to provide kids with intelligent programming, not the usual dreck that seemed so prevalent in the 1980s.

The concept of the show was deceptively simple. There are a team of men and women who keep track of "history." These "voyagers" each have a hand-held device called an "Omni" which gives them their location, the date and a signal if history is "wrong." They all go back and forward through time to correct any "mistakes" that may have occurred in time and keep the world on track.

One voyager is named Phineas Bogg (an obvious play on Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg from "Around The World In 80 Days"). However this particular voyager didn't pass his history exam and landed on the windowsill of Jeffrey, who just happened to be a whiz kid in history. Together, they became "Voyagers!"

The serious problem the program had was in its construction. In one episode, Germany had somehow won World War I. The voyagers traveled back in time and discovered that famed flying ace Eddie Rickenbacher had nothing to do. That's because the Wright Brothers hadn't invented the airplane. So they had to travel again and discovered Orville and Wilbur were arguing over a girl in their bicycle shop instead of working on their flying machine. So the Voyagers had to set them back on track.

It had to have been extremely difficult to write such elaborate plots that both were well known enough for an audience to relate to and yet capable of making sense in the plot of the show. As brilliant as some of these episodes were, the question is how many related subplots could there be for any moment in history, before you get into material that isn't in the library? With such a limitation, with production costs being what they were for an early 1980s s/f program and with ratings being lower than desired, "Voyagers!" was not viable for more than a year. Looking at the series now, it would have made for a brilliant "Harry Potter" style string of films, since there really aren't enough historic events to have made it to the famed 100 episode level.

I used to watch this show as a kid and absolutely loved it. Sci-Fi channel re-runs it from time to time and I heartily recommend you recording it for younger children to watch. It's cool and educational too.

I absolutely loved this show when I was a kid. It was one of the highlights of my week and I've never forgotten it. I was an ardent fan and viewer of this show (I was 11 years old at the time) and was so disappointed when it failed to show up on my TV screen. I didn't know at the time that it had been cancelled...all I knew was a show I loved had just disappeared.

I haven't seen this since I was 11 so all my memories of it are from childhood. I would love to see it again. Was it as good as I remember? I figured it most probably was after seeing all the other reviews from viewers who have seen it more recently. It certainly got me interested in history and the past when I was a kid. It was educational as well as being great fun. No other show I remember from childhood taught and entertained the way Voyagers did. There has been so much rubbish pumped out on our TV sets for years and it's sad that fun, educational TV like Voyagers just fall by the wayside. Sadly kids of my generation and kids today just get fed mostly pap. If it sells it's swell..long as a show is making money who cares what kind of rubbish it is...sigh....

I didn't get the chance to watch that show as a child, since it was only aired once here in 1989. However, I recently found out this show exists (I love time travelling shows) and it's still a great pleasure to watch it. It's kind of obvious that the show must have had quite a small budget, but they still managed to put a lot of details into the episodes. They even travel to Austria (where I live) once and I'm surprised at how accurate the whole scenery was (although it was doubtlessly filmed in the states). street names, signs, accents, German words. Everything perfectly right. I also love the moral values that the show brought to its viewers. Phineas Bogg - although he's a hopeless womanizer and knows practically nothing about history - repeatedly claims he doesn't drink alcohol and he doesn't want Jeffrey to play with weapons. The interaction between Jeff and Phineas is one aspect I truly love about the show. He's the perfect father (or rather big brother) figure any kid could have.

Sure, the special effects are really funny for modern viewers - but we have to admit we are spoiled by cgi effects, so it's no big deal. Let's just hope they release the show on DVD sometime. That one is really worth remembering.