The Time Tunnel (2006)

One of my all time favorites.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I just got to see this pilot and must say I found it amazing. I grew up staying up late to watch the original. I think this was a great remake of the series and just like Glactica's remake it has it's own identity which can separate it from the original. For instance, this show would not be restricted to English speaking era's or even earth. I was eagerly looking for the next episode. Having been piloted in 2002, I was hoping the whole series would be on DVD. I was shocked to find out that it never took off. If it means anything to anyone, please take another look at this. It has a great cast as it was first piloted but I'm sure there are other actors who can do a pretty good job for most of the characters. Please bring this back. It was a great pilot and I'm eagerly waiting to see the next episode.Cheers.

After reading the comments here on IMDb, I decided to track this pilot down. Hurray for file sharing!. The editing, direction and pacing of the pilot make SG1 look rather lethargic. The characterizations are really quite well developed for a pilot show. This really hits the ground running and doesn't let up until the end. The battle scene is really impressive for a TV show, the burning plane is a nice touch. There are a couple of minor things that could have been handled better, but it all flies by at such a pace that you really don't have time(excuse the pun) to dwell on it. Overall, this is one hell of a ride and a superior update to the 60's original. Kudos to the production company. I'm baffled as to why this wasn't picked up.

The original "Time Tunnel" series was one of Irwin Allen's less successful efforts. It lasted but a single season (although it was a 30 episode season, long in those days and impossible today) and wasn't widely syndicated in afterschool reruns like Lost in Space or Voyage to the Bottom of the sea. Which was just as well, because it became very formulaic even in that single season. Our dashing heroes (always with impeccable hair) land in a strange time, get into conflict with the denizens of the era (or, in the later episodes, often invaders from space), have a fistfight or two and save the day, then are tossed into next week's episode.This new pilot was perhaps a mish-mash of other series thrown together, but by and large, it worked. Mostly, it was due to the two lead actors playing Doug and Toni. Flynn was a little too gung ho and two-dimensional. JD was a stereotypical CIA agent with ice water in her veins and the medic was little more than strongman Willie Armitage from "Mission: Impossible." He did have potential as a character, though.Unlike the series, there was no ultra-secret, ultra-expensive, ultra-gigantic, ultra-everything government time travel project. It was simply a nuclear fusion experiment gone awry, creating the timestorm that is the source of their problems and allowing the time travel that makes their missions possible. The term "the 240," indicating the 4 hours they spent stabilizing their end of the timestorm, didn't really work. It's hard to believe it took exactly 240 minutes to do that. It might have been better to call that "T-zero," for the point from which everything else is measured.The new Time Tunnel is more impressive than the set from the series, which is to be expected given the march of, uh, time. Actually, the set from the original pilot was also fairly impressive, with additional windows overlooking the large control room, although it was simplified in the course of the series. The new Mission Control is similar to that, with the control room looking down at the tunnel through a shielded window, shades of Stargate SG-1. The CGI tunnel was certainly better than the forced perspective model where actors could only run 15 feet up the tunnel, seemingly growing as the tunnel narrowed too quickly.This remake takes some cues from "Search" aka Probe (1972), a cult series where agents from a secret agency are assigned to search for lost or stolen items. In both, the agents carry equipment that let support personnel at headquarters see and hear everything they do, as well as being able to hear advice from HQ. The implant that could monitor what they see is highly implausible, but certainly better than the God's eye view they would see suspended in mid-air in the tunnel in the original series. It is also similar to Allen's "The Time Travelers" (1976), his own failed attempt at a revival. Unlike the series, where Doug and Tony are haplessly bounced through time, they have nearly full control of the time travel aspect here and in Travelers, having the ability to return to the present at will. In fact, it's very close to Timecop, the short-lived 1997 series on ABC. The premise is almost identical. Agents are sent back in time to correct ripples in history, then return to headquarters when history is restored.Irwin Allen did not place much importance on character development. Throughout the entire run of the original show, we learned almost nothing about the backgrounds of Doug and Tony, other than Tony's father dying at Pearl Harbor. Allen liked to cut to the chase, so ten minutes into the show, Tony Newman had recklessly propelled himself into the past (with no clear reason to, I might add). This pilot spent quite a bit more time fleshing out Doug and Toni, so we can safely assume that they were meant to be the main characters again had the series been bought. The other characters are very sketchily drawn. Whether they would have even remained had the series started is anyone's guess.Alas, time travel science fiction doesn't have a very large audience and the show wasn't ordered. Timecop was the last such failure. The most successful of recent efforts was the ridiculous "Time Trax." (Also ridiculously named. A real-life example of the line from Stargate SG-1's "Wormhole X-Treme" self-parody, "Research says that shows with X in the name get higher ratings.") At the very least, this pilot should have been aired even if the show was never picked up. The production was already paid for, so why not send it over to the Sci-Fi Channel and recoup some of the expenses? It was certainly better than pilots like "Island City" or "Star Command," neither of which were picked up but which did both air on Fox. Time was, decades ago, when unsold pilots were burned off in the summertime, but today's hypercompetitive TV market has no use for anything that doesn't look like a smash hit. We lose decent TV like this because of that mindset.

By some miracle I have managed to obtain a copy of this film. While it is rough around the edges, as most pilots are, it has alot of potential. With additional character development and some good stories written by strong writers this pilot could have evolved into a very good series had it been given the chance. While this film bears little resemblence to the Irwin Allen series of the 60s, other that the brief hint of the original theme at the beginning, this contemporary version is well worth a look to scifi and time travel fans. I enjoyed it very much and it's a nice addition to my video archives.