# Blast from the Past: The Time Tunnel



## Dave

*"The Time Tunnel"*

Does anyone remember this Irwin Allen show from the sixties?

http://www.thetimetunnel.com/
http://www.iann.net/irwinallen/
http://www.geocities.com/coderedlion/Project_TIC_TOC.html

Miles beneath the surface of the Arizona desert lies Project: Tic Toc: a top secret government research complex where the U.S. military are experimenting with a massive gateway to past and future ages called THE TIME TUNNEL. Doug Phillips and Tony Newman, two of the scientists working on the project become helplessly lost in the infinite corridors of time. While their fellow scientists labour to save them, the two time travellers become involved in key moments of historical and future events.

According to Variety, both ABC and Fox are dueling over rights to a Time Tunnel remake in development at Regency Television and 20th Century Fox Television. Rand Ravich (The Astronaut's Wife) is set to write and Todd Holland (Malcolm in the Middle) will direct the pilot. Kevin Burns (various Hollywood documentaries, including The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen and Lost in Space Forever), Jon Jashni (Anna and the King) and Sheila Allen (Irwin Allen's widow) will exec produce.

I loved that show and I've been reading comments on other bulletin boards about it.

*I think this is the full transcipt from Variety: 






			'TIME' IS RIGHT FOR FOX
		
Click to expand...

*


> Fox Broadcasting Co. is finalising a deal for a remake of 1966 Irwin Allen sci-fi actioner "The Time Tunnel" -- despite ABC's best efforts to land the project.
> 
> FBC sibling Regency Television and 20th Century Fox Television are the producing studios behind the new version of "Time Tunnel," which has made FBC the front-runner to snag the skein all along (Daily Variety, Oct. 12.) Agents at Endeavor and CAA, which rep the major parties behind the project, continue to hammer out details of the pact.
> 
> FBC is expected to get "Time Tunnel" by offering at least a put pilot commitment with a hefty seven-figure penalty attached -- a huge commitment in today's development market, where few projects are getting more than script orders.
> 
> But ABC execs, led by network co-chairman Lloyd Braun, have gone to extraordinary lengths to land "Time Tunnel" for themselves. Braun took Allen's widow, Sheila, to lunch last Thursday at the Disney exec dining room. ABC also sent faxes to 20th execs Friday informing them that it was prepared to match and exceed FBC's most recent offer.
> 
> While ABC may very well have been willin to exceed FBC's offer, insiders close to the negotiations point out that money alone is never a sole factor in determining where a project lands.
> 
> Some associated with the project believe "Time Tunnel" has a better shot at becoming a series, and landing a plum slot, if it goes to FBC. What's more, the show's sci-fi bent feels at home at FBC, which has skeins such as "The X-Files" and "Dark Angel".
> 
> They point to the unpredictability involved in ABC's May scheduling process, where senior Disney execs play a key role. The Alphabet has also had some difficulty launching new dramas in recent years, though new hour "Alias" has shown some promise on Sundays this fall.
> 
> Execs at ABC, meanwhile, believe they've never had a serious shot at landing "Time Tunnel," and that vertical integration has clouded the decision-making process. News Corp. insiders point out that Disney's ABC is among the most vertically integrated of all the nets.
> 
> Scribe Rand Ravich ("The Astronauts Wife") and helmer Todd Holland ("Malcolm in the Middle"), both of whom will exec produce, are putting together the new "Time Tunnel." Holland and FBC Entertainment prexy Gail Berman worked together last when Berman ran Regency Television, the studio behind "Malcolm."
> 
> Kevin Burns and John Jashni, who have an overall deal at Fox TV Studios, will also exec produce the skein. Ravich is based at 20th, while Holland has an overall deal with Regency Television.
> 
> Burns, Jashni, Holland and the Allen estate are all repped by Endevor. Ravich is repped by CAA.



*Two points have been brought up by fans regarding a possible remake.*

Firstly, 'The Time Tunnel' was made under the assumption that the time line is fixed. Time travelers cannot change the history no matter what they do. This is contrary to what is now beleived and almost all Sci-Fi made after 'The Time Tunnel' follow parallel timeline possiblities, such as 'Sliders', 'Philadelphia Experiment', 'Timecop', 'Back to the Future'. Even some Sci-Fi which predate it do, some episodes of the original 'Outer Limits'. If they are to ressurect 'The Time Tunnel' will they alter that?

Secondily, Are they still going to rely heavily on stock footage fom old historical movies? It would be expensive to have the kind of scenes they had in the original series. But would modern audiences accept footage plundered from old movies? Would they not use CGI?


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## jsc

Believe it or not..... In the sixties a friend of mine and I watched the show... After one which I think was the Chicago Fire, we discussed the same topic but about a current show....I am glad the fans are still talking about this!  The stock footage from old movies was a hoot... we ided the movies... but the timeline was one that we believed could be changed if a character did something big but the show did not or would not...So the same arguments are current.... I love that!


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## Dave

There could be two Time Tunnel remakes appearing soon:

ABC, Fox Duel Over Time Tunnel 

ABC and Fox may fight over competing remakes of 1964 Irwin Allen SF TV series The Time Tunnel, Variety reported. ABC optioned the rights to Time Tunnel, the 1964 book by William Jenkins, published under the pen name Murray Leinster, and is now developing a script based on the book through its Touchstone Television unit, the trade paper reported.

Fox, meanwhile, partnered three months ago with sister studio 20th Century Fox TV and Regency Television to create a series based on Allen's Time Tunnel series, which ran on ABC during the 1966-'67 season.

At issue is whether the original TV show was based on Jenkins' book. The Supreme Court has ruled that owners of a book on which a filmed property is based are entitled to profits from that property should those rights expire, the trade paper reported. ABC reportedly believes that 20th's rights to the Jenkins work expired in 1992, and, since they weren't renewed, ABC believes it could have a say in how any TV series based on Time Tunnel proceeds. For its part, Fox argues the book rights were purchased only to bring Jenkins into the camp of the TV series creators and to avoid public confusion from any future Jenkins-penned Time Tunnel sequels. The actual series, Fox argues, was based on an original Allen story, the trade paper reported.

The Time Tunnel series differs in several respects from the Jenkins novel, Variety reported. Moreover, Fox sources told the trade paper that the U.S. copyright office doesn't note any similarity between the Jenkins book and the Allen series, and the Writers Guild didn't credit Jenkins for the TV series.


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## Dave

There is also an early sixties film called 'The Time Travellers' which shows remarkable similarities to 'The Time Tunnel':

1) There is no 'Tunnel', but there is a machine with a viewsceen.
2) Two scientists are lost in a 'time trap'.

 'The Time Tunnel' will celebrate its 35th anniversary in September 2002.

Anyone have any news on these possible remakes?

I would guess that the original idea was to coincide with the anniversary, but TV schedules have already been announced for the autumn/ fall season and I don't recall 'Time Tunnel' being mentioned anwhere.


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## Draco Weyr

*I loved Time Tunnel*

It was shown in repeats where i lived on a Saturday afternoon. I always loved watching it. Admittedly it did have slightly to many alien episodes for what was suppose to be a earth based show...

And the lady who played the scientist in the control room was my favorite...


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## Dave

*Re: I loved Time Tunnel*



> _Originally posted by Draco Weyr _
> *And the lady who played the scientist in the control room was my favorite... *



Lee Meriweather... she was Catwoman in one of the films based on the sixties TV show with Adam West as Batman. Other actresses played Catwoman too, but she was the best IMHO.

She didn't have much to do in 'Time Tunnel' though, just constantly 'trying to get a fix' on Doug and Tony's locations in space and time. She was always the one to have a gun held to her.

James Darren (who played Tony) was a singer contemporary with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jnr. Since he has been in 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine' as the holographic nightclub singer, Vic Fontaine, he has had something of a comeback, and has a current album of songs out.


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## littlemissattitude

*"The Time Tunnel"*

Does anyone else remember this series?  It ran for only one season, 1966-1967, and was typical mid-sixties cheesy sci-fi.  But I loved it.  It was a time-travel show, after all. 

I hadn't seen the show in years, but this morning I was channel-surfing and found an episode showing on cable, on a channel that usually shows action movies.  Put a smile on my face for the rest of the day.


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## Foxbat

*Re: "The Time Tunnel"*

I remember this one. I can't remember much about specific episodes but I do recall feeling distinctly vertiginous every time our heros entered that spiralling entrance


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## angrybuddhist

*Re: "The Time Tunnel"*

I remember it.  Encore Action has been replaying it early Saturday or Sunday mornings.  They've also been showing The Green Hornet.  Good stuff.


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## littlemissattitude

*Re: "The Time Tunnel"*



			
				angrybuddhist said:
			
		

> I remember it. Encore Action has been replaying it early Saturday or Sunday mornings. They've also been showing The Green Hornet. Good stuff.


Encore Action...that's where I saw it.  Now I'm going to have to get up early again this weekend to see it again.  Wish they (or somebody) would get really interesting and show "The Invaders" again.  Remember that one?


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## angrybuddhist

*Re: "The Time Tunnel"*



			
				littlemissattitude said:
			
		

> Encore Action...that's where I saw it.  Now I'm going to have to get up early again this weekend to see it again.  Wish they (or somebody) would get really interesting and show "The Invaders" again.  Remember that one?


With Roy Thinnes.  Now I'm showing my age.  This was one of my favorite shows when I was quite young.


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## The Master™

_"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."_

Cast:
Lee Meriwether 
Role: Dr. Ann MacGregor 
Robert Colbert 
Role: Dr. Douglas Phillips
Whit Bissell 
Role: Lt. General Heywood Kirk
Sam Groom 
Role: Jerry
James Darren 
Role: Dr. Tony Newman
John Zaremba 
Role: Dr. Raymond Swain


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## littlemissattitude

I loved this show, which was on when I was about 10 years old.  I suspect that it might have a lot to do with my love...erm, obssession...with time travel stories.


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## The Master™

But in most time travel stories, should people of the future/past spoken modern English???


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## Jeffbert

I guess the BLAST FROM THE PAST part kept me from finding this thread, but now that I have, or rather Dave has found it for me--

I think the TIME TUNNEL's sets, the ones showing the great depth & width of the complex were surely modeled upon FORBIDDEN PLANET's own complexes, & may have been reused. 

Anyway, though I suppose that kids' interest in history may have been a bit better back then, than now, this was a great way to make academics fun. I recall one titled THE NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES, & upon watching it, I was surprised not to see Ernst Rohm & his SA being eliminated, but rather a story set in India during the Heyday of the British Empire. I think this was the last one I saw.


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## Metryq

Jeffbert said:


> II think the TIME TUNNEL's sets, the ones showing the great depth & width of the complex were surely modeled upon FORBIDDEN PLANET's own complexes, & may have been reused.



_Inspired_ by the Krell machine in _Forbidden Planet_, yes. Models or matte paintings reused, I didn't see any. However, it was very impressive to see such feature film quality visual FX in use for a TV production.

The incredible size of the complex made it all the more ridiculous when the senator showed up to shut the whole operation down. The project got that far before someone asked "is the payoff worth it?" In the pilot episode we learn that mice and monkeys have been sent back, but not returned, the status of the specimens unknown. (The time viewer wasn't functional yet?) The atomic bomb wasn't built on such a sketchy foundation.

The story would have been much more compelling if the time viewer gizmo had been established first—imagine being able to look anywhere, anywhen. The intelligence community alone would go ape. Perhaps forward-looking could be used to avert a few undesirable events, a la _Seven Days_, followed by a massive scale-up in order to send physical matter through. The project would be able to alter what was, as well as steer around what is yet to be. 

If Congress was that close to shutting down Tik Tok, they certainly would have after Doug and Tony disappeared into the past. The network got to them first.


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## Jeffbert

Good point, Metryq. But if the viewer was not working yet, why send anything back or forward, because how would anyone know they had not simply disintegrated? I think the most recent season of FUTURAMA  had Prof. Farnsworth attempt to go forward by 1 minute, which should have been provable if he had synchronized his watch with the clock.


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## dask

I missed the first episode as a kid but pretty much saw all the rest as I recall. Personally I liked the show.


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## Metryq

Jeffbert said:


> But if the viewer was not working yet, why send anything back or forward, because how would anyone know they had not simply disintegrated?



Exactly! Yet this blind projection of specimens ("mice and monkeys") is what they were doing. Dr. Phillips tells the senator that the animals could not simply have disintegrated because there would be "some residue in matter." (No puff of smoke and no burn spot on the tunnel.) This still tells the crew absolutely nothing—did the specimens go anywhen in time (forward or backward and by how much), or were they projected somewhere else in space (and how far), or perhaps they were shunted into some new and unsuspected dimension, whole or atomized. This certainty that the specimens did not simply disintegrate is nonsense. ("Negative evidence.") 

The writers could have made a much more compelling story—at the cost of only a minute of screen time—to explain that the ginormous construction of the tunnel and ancillary complex was not some wild, all-or-nothing shot in the dark because they started with a viewer, and then moved up to a device just capable of sending a BB-sized mass through. The cost of the tunnel would then be a practical gamble to send living specimens and eventually men through to begin some real exploring and perhaps time re-engineering. Then it would seem more credible that the tunnel was built in the first place, and that some senator was getting itchy from a lack of progress.

Instead, we have no incremental successes, just some vanished animals that they have _no_ idea what happened to. 







> I think the most recent season of FUTURAMA  had Prof. Farnsworth attempt to go forward by 1 minute, which should have been provable if he had synchronized his watch with the clock.



Amazing how such a simple test would prove so much. Doc Brown could think of it, but not a 7.5 billion dollar government think tank project.


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## Jeffbert

But even if they had simply focused their efforts on teleportation, or just the viewing of *current* events elsewhere, the potential for spying on enemies would be invaluable. Not to mention the ultimate delivery system for bombs! They should have worked out those details long before bringing in the element of time travel, or even viewing past or future events. I just recorded THE TIME MACHINE on my DVR today, & though that guy's machine worked fine, it never moved from it starting point, except in the 4th dimension.


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## Dave

Jeffbert said:


> THE TIME MACHINE <snip> though that guy's machine worked fine, it never moved from it starting point, except in the 4th dimension.


And right there you have hit upon another problem with fictional Time Travel machines...

Any point on the Earth rotates at over 1000 miles per hour, taking 24 hours, our day, to make one rotation. The Earth also "wobbles" on its polar axis.  

The Earth revolves around the Sun, taking one year to make one revolution. This orbit is both eccentric and elliptical.

Our solar system is moving towards the constellation Hercules, and it is also currently moving upwards, at 90 degrees to the plane of the Milky Way.

At he same time our solar system revolves around the Milky Way  taking 225 million years to make one rotation around the galaxy.

Space itself is expanding and our region of Space has been moving outwards since the Big Bang.

Even if you could calculate all of this accurately, you still have the problem of pin pointing a reference point.

The TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) somehow manages to do all of this, for which it is due some little respect. 

Gregory Benfold used the idea of the Earth moving in space in time best in the novel _Timescape_, but to say more would be spoiling it.

Edit: And I forgot to calculate for Continental Drift - now I've accidently re-materialised 2ft out inside a wall!


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## Metryq

The dynamic movement of Earth, Solar system, galaxy, etc. has been brought up in many sci-fi stories, and the writer always comes up with a creative solution. For example, saying that the time machine, or displaced object, would appear out in the vacuum of space where the Earth _had been_ ignores conservation of momentum. So perhaps the object would still be in space, but shooting off at a tangent to its last contact with Earth, Solar system, etc. However, that assumes an absolute vantage point in space, which Einsteinian Relativity denies. So maybe time travelers would stay attached to their reference frame after all...

Karl Alexander's novel _Time After Time_ differs from the 1979 movie in a few details. In the novel, the time machine was an ugly, metal box, not the frilly, Victorian steam-punk bauble seen in the movie. Wells is confused to find the machine in San Francisco when he arrives in 1979. He is even more surprised (and distressed) to find the machine a rusted hulk. Then he realizes the machine actually aged the 90-or-so years of his trip, while he remained in some sort of attenuated state inside the machine, even as it was carried overseas on exhibit. If he had gone any farther, the machine would have fallen apart around him, dumping him who knows where. So somehow Wells' body followed the world-line of the machine.

The problem with the time machine as it appeared in Wells' novel and the 1960 and 2002 movies is that it invokes a second dimension of time nested within the first. That is, while the machine is rocketing over the years, the Time Traveler experiences a second, subjective dimension of time. This is why some sci-fi writers prefer "temporal displacement" to "time travel"—the first term suggests a teleportation-like discontinuity taking no time at all. But there are problems with that idea as well.


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## Jeffbert

Too much!  I just watched the G. Pal film the other day, & it depicted the time machine in a, for the lack of a better term, *PROTECTIVE BUBBLE*, while around him, a solid wall of clay or earth piled up. He even stated that he would have been killed by the war if he had stopped moving through time. All too convenient, if you ask me. 

But then, if he had been truly able to move to any arbitrary time, he could have returned to the same time as when he had left, rather than a week later.


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## Metryq

Jeffbert said:


> But then, if he had been truly able to move to any arbitrary time, he could have returned to the same time as when he had left, rather than a week later.



True, but for some reason, Wells didn't think of that when writing the novel. Some time travel stories maintain a 1:1 relationship between two time periods once a bridge is made. Some authors explain it, some don't. 

As for the "protective bubble," that's your interpretation of the limited visuals of the movie. The Time Traveler's voice-over states, "Only my speed through time saved me from being roasted alive and encased in stone forever." The book is more detailed:



> And so my mind came around to the business of stopping.
> 
> The peculiar risk lay in the possibility of my finding some substance in the space which I, or the machine, occupied. So long as I traveled at a high velocity through time, this scarcely mattered: I was, so to speak, attenuated—was slipping like a vapor through the interstices of intervening substances! But to come to a stop involved the jamming of myself, molecule by molecule, into whatever lay in my way: meant bringing my atoms into such intimate contact with those of the obstacle that a profound chemical reaction—possibly a far-reaching explosion—would result, and blow myself and my apparatus out of all possible dimensions—into the Unknown.



Perhaps George Pal and his VFX artists considered a double-exposure, but rejected the idea as looking too much like a cheap camera effect. 

If you've seen the 2002 "remake," you wouldn't be complaining about the 1960 production. The 2002 version shows a definite "bubble," and on two occasions solid matter passes that boundary as easily as an object projecting into water. On one occasion, the offending object is the übermorlock clinging to the machine while the indicator dials race by in a blur—meaning that the morlock survived for many thousands of years, instead of vanishing beyond the bubble in a flash. (But this was hardly the only thing wrong with that movie.)

It is possible that the "bubble" would be unbreachable. In one _Doctor Who_ episode ("The Face of Evil" with Tom Baker) an impenetrable "wall" was created by shifting a volume of space slightly out of sync with the rest of the world around it—maybe advancing it a fraction of a second ahead in time. Only a time traveling device would be able to breach such a wall.

Doc Brown's time machines in the _Back to the Future_ movies had no protective bubble because they "displaced" instantly from one time to another, blowing any obstacles out of the way with an explosive shockwave.


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## Jeffbert

Thanks, Metryq; I did see the 2002 version, but the details have escaped me. But, even the air itself should be disruptive to his molecules whether he was time traveling, or teleporting.  Hmm, this editor's spell check fails to recognize *teleport*.


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## tangaloomababe

Very vague memories of this one, I can recall the start quite well.  There was an hour glass but actual episodes are forgotten,  Was it any good?

I guess many of these old shows stand a chance of being remade, It would have been from the same era as Twilight Zone, Lost in Space and Land of the Giants.  Some probably should not be resurrected.


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## Jeffbert

That is a question of personal taste. I myself think that it comes off as rather silly (see my previous posts), but I still enjoy it. I am in the midst of watching the series on HULU.COM; though only about 1 episode per month.


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## Metryq

Jeffbert said:


> Thanks, Metryq; I did see the 2002 version, but the details have escaped me.



(I know I replied to this one already. But I either fell asleep over my keyboard before clicking the "Submit" button, or the Chrons server is trying to throw me into a Monty Python "deja vu" skit.)

I guess this shows how memorable the 2002 movie was. The biggest mistake was killing off Sienna Guillory in the first act. The movie went downhill rapidly after that. For example, the writers confused paradox with fate.



> But, even the air itself should be disruptive to his molecules whether he was time traveling, or teleporting.



I've run into several stories where a lone explorer—without the proper facilities to record and study his adventures—has worried about "merging" with air while teleporting or time traveling. After multiple jumps without any ill effects, such as the "bends," the adventurer brushed the matter aside and stopped worrying about it. 

Since no one has ever time traveled or teleported, writers are free to make up anything they wish. Some explanation can help with suspension of disbelief, but saying "too much" can also be a problem. Does the teleporter/time traveler exchange places with any obstructing matter, or does the offending matter get pushed aside, thus making teleporting/time traveling similar to more conventional movement? Doc Brown's time machine in the _Back to the Future_ movies pushed obstacles out of the way with a blast wave. I've also read stories where a teleporter/time traveler bounces off an obstacle either through elaborate safety circuits, or like any solid objects colliding.


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## Dave

Metryq said:


> I've also read stories where a teleporter/time traveler bounces off an obstacle either through elaborate safety circuits, or like any solid objects colliding.


Which might explain why (in _The Time Tunnel_) Doug and Tony always seemed to arrive as if they had been propelled there - or were they meant to be falling into the particular era? (Falling does give more of a sense of it being an uncontrolled journey.)


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## Jeffbert

I think that their falling or tumbling as though they had materialized in mid-air was used rather than simply appearing just as they suddenly vanish, or being faded-in, because that would add to production costs. They materialize off-screen simply to save money, & if they had merely walked on-screen, it just would seem rather unconvincing, so, they tumble.


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## Snowdog

I used to dislike Land Of The Giants but loved Time Tunnel. After a while, though, it got a bit boring because whatever they did, they couldn't alter the past, so you knew how it was going to end in each episode, if not how they'd get there.


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