Les voyageurs du temps

As a youngster, I was a fan of Irwin Allen's works. "Lost in Space" and "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" were afterschool fixtures on New York stations WNEW and WOR. To me as an adult, these shows don't hold up well. "Voyage" in particular degenerated into episode after episode of rubber-suited monsters, alien invaders, evil doubles and mind control in the later seasons, due mostly to chief writer William Welch, who also destroyed any semblance of logic in Allen's "The Time Tunnel" series.

Allen tried to revamp and revive that 1966 time travel series with this 1976 TV movie and pilot, going so far as bringing back Sam Groom as a cast member (he was a regular as the control room technician, Jerry). "Voyage" alumnus Richard Basehart likewise became a Special Guest Star. Trish Stewart later became better known to science fiction viewers as the female lead of "Salvage 1."

As it was, 1976 was a good year for television in general, and ABC reserved Friday nights for science fiction. In the doldrums before Star Wars burst onto the scene and changed the world, science fiction fans weren't very picky, but "Time Travelers" was surprisingly good. The acting wasn't Oscar caliber, but it was certainly serviceable. The plot actually made sense, unlike much of Allen's sci-fi. Also, unlike the Time Tunnel series and more recent shows, it didn't depend on a lot of action. No fistfights or car chases (or rather horse-drawn carriage chases) here. These men were thinkers, not fighters. Nevertheless, the story moves along at a snappy but not frenetic pace.

This was Allen at his best, a fine example of '70s vintage TV science fiction. There's little to no forced humor and precious little technobabble. Morton Stevens's theme is rather dated now, being very "mod" with synthesizers, but still somewhat catchy to those of us who don't care for today's bass-rich, melody-poor music.

Allen had a penchant for economizing, so there really wasn't much in the way of special effects here to distract from the story. Mostly fire footage recycled from the Fox film vaults. There were also the "modern" computers that reused panels of flashing lights, straight from the Irwin Allen warehouse. At least the set design in the period segment, with its ornate Victorian look, seems convincing enough to this layman's eyes.

As far as TV science fiction goes, you can do a lot worse. This is probably due in no small part to Rod Serling's original story. Alas, given Allen's track record, it's a foregone conclusion that this would have slipped very fast and far had the show been sold to a network. As it was, this was far superior to its ancestor, "The Time Tunnel," and also easily outshines Gene Roddenberry's failed TV pilots of the era, "Planet Earth," "Genesis II" and "Questor Tapes."

This movie was shown on the SciFi Channel occasionally, at least until recent years when the channel moved away from showing older movies. It's worth catching for anyone who's sick and tired of recent Star Trek and their "reset button" subgenre of time travel stories.

Update: This, along with the 2002 Time Tunnel pilot, is available on the last disc of the Time Tunnel series DVD box set. Finally, a chance for more people to see just how good this was.

Our beloved filmmaker Irwin Allen was obsessed by time travel as much that had draft the classic series THE TIME TUNNELL a conceptive format where the travelers never returning to starting point, always randomly jumping thru the past and future eras, in this new picture Irwin stablished a new approaching, the travelers always return after a specific task, it sounds a bit conflicting due the series had a huge complex facilities underground of desert, otherwise the small back room installation using the same high advance computers from Time Tunnel is able to a safe returning.

A Rod Serling adapted story takes place at New Orleans in 1976 when a new unknown virus spreading fast cross-country, two doctors assigned to find an immediate cure forthwith, turns out that at Chicago in 1871 a local doctor had found a medicine that proved effective to tackle the deadly virus, strangely there's no records available, thus they are send back at this period of time aiming for got the successful formula.

Although as expect the defiant Irwin Allen would not let it so easy to the adventures, they reach there on day prior the great Chicago fire and the doctor is on duty struggling against the outbreak ongoing, an old acquaintance of us in the casting with Francine York, Richard Basehart and betting in new faces as Sam Groom and Tom Hallick, let it see easy in Irwin Allen's low-profile production.

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 1989 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-Youtube / Rating: 6.5.

This film was actually based on a story written by my father, author Charles W. Byrd, not Rod Serling. My father wrote the story in the late 1950s and it without his knowledge it ended up on ABC in 1976. Immediately upon seeing the film my father knew it was actually based on his original story. After some time (and litigation), a financial settlement was reached between ABC, Irwin Allen, and others and my father was given the rights to claim it as his work. Unfortunately, the film was never re-cut to include him as the creator of the story. In retrospect these events probably doomed the pilot from becoming a series. Its a shame my father was not given his due in creating this interesting and entertaining story.

This is the second attempt by Irwin Allen to do a series about time travel. The only thing that would have been different about this proposed series is that the travelers wouldn't have been lost in time as they were in the "Time Tunnel". All in all this was a pretty decent show, too bad it never did make it to series. I would have loved to have seen what interesting stories they would have come up with.

This time travel yarn was well done. The story was compelling and the acting was fine. Sam Groom (an alumnus of the Time Tunnel) plays a doctor drafted by the government to search for a cure to a flu virus that apparently had previously presented itself around the time of the Great Chicago Fire. Research indicated that a doctor (played by Richard Basehart) back then had cured scores of people but this cure was lost to time. (It was also good to see Basehart adding gravitas to the production.) The special effects were understated and the period clothing and sets were serviceable, both were believable. My only quibble with the show was that there did not seem to much to the time travel apparatus itself. There were a few computer flats with blinking lights and a room with a staircase that lead to the past. Adequate, but not awe inspiring like the Time Tunnel. The Time Tunnel set was massive in reality and also in the terms of the show. It created a true sense of wonder. Too bad they could not have married the two concepts. Good show nonetheless.