The Time Tunnel - The Nightmare Begins
Just finished listening to "The Time Tunnel - The Nightmare Begins" released by Big Finish Productions.
Now according to Garry Russell, who directed all three episodes in this first release - he also wrote the opening episode: "The Shudder: November 14, 2025" - Legendary, which owns the rights to the late Irving Allen's television/movie catalogue, about doing a continuation of "The Time Tunnel" - a science-fiction series that lasted for only one season on the air before it was cancelled.
"The Time Tunnel" followed the adventures of American scientists Tony Newman and Doug Phillips, who were lost in time. In some ways, "The Time Tunnel" was the percussor to "Quantum Leap," though Tony and Doug really weren't trying to fix what went wrong.
The premise of the "The Time Tunnel" was that Project Tic-Toc is a top-secret U.S. government effort to build an experimental time machine, known as "The Time Tunnel" due to its appearance as an elliptical passageway. The base for Project Tic-Toc is a huge, hidden underground complex in Arizona, 800 floors deep and employing more than 12,000 specialized personnel. The directors of the project are Dr. Douglas Phillips, Dr. Anthony Newman , and Lt. General Heywood Kirk. The specialists assisting them are Dr. Raymond Swain, a foremost expert in electronics, and Dr. Ann MacGregor, an electrobiologist supervising the unit that determines how much force and heat a time traveler is able to withstand.
Now what makes "The Time Tunnel" stand out against other Irving Allen's science fiction shows is that there was actually a final episode written where the Doug and Tony are returned safely home, but ABC cancelled the show before that episode could even be filmed, and to the best of my knowledge, it has never been adapted to any other medium, unlike the few written Season Four "Lost In Space" episodes were adapted into comics.
Russell decided to approach the series by assuming that Doug and Tony never made it home because Project Tic-Toc was shut down.
In 1979, 20 years after it was set up, Project Tic-Toc was shut down by the American authorities. All hope of retrieving scientists Tony Newman and Doug Phillips, lost in the Time Tunnel in 1968, had been abandoned.
In 2025, four people are brought together by a need to reopen the Arizona base and reactivate the Time Tunnel in secret. From there, they must try to find Doug or Tony because something they have done in the past has changed the present - and not for the better. The world is now under the power of Rakervia, which now rules the world in an iron grip. Yet, the team place the blame solely on Tony and Doug, without even considering that other forces may be behind the time-changing events of "The Shudder" - which changed history.
"The Time Tunnel - The Nightmare Begins" is a faithful continuation of the series, which Russell described as a "mini-series" so there is at least one more set planned and will be released in November 2025 - the day of the fictional "Shudder."
It will be interesting to see if the do manage to "fix" time and finally manage to bring Tony and Doug home.
Strongly Recommended.
Five Stars.
https://bigfinish.com/releases/v/irwi...
Now according to Garry Russell, who directed all three episodes in this first release - he also wrote the opening episode: "The Shudder: November 14, 2025" - Legendary, which owns the rights to the late Irving Allen's television/movie catalogue, about doing a continuation of "The Time Tunnel" - a science-fiction series that lasted for only one season on the air before it was cancelled.
"The Time Tunnel" followed the adventures of American scientists Tony Newman and Doug Phillips, who were lost in time. In some ways, "The Time Tunnel" was the percussor to "Quantum Leap," though Tony and Doug really weren't trying to fix what went wrong.
The premise of the "The Time Tunnel" was that Project Tic-Toc is a top-secret U.S. government effort to build an experimental time machine, known as "The Time Tunnel" due to its appearance as an elliptical passageway. The base for Project Tic-Toc is a huge, hidden underground complex in Arizona, 800 floors deep and employing more than 12,000 specialized personnel. The directors of the project are Dr. Douglas Phillips, Dr. Anthony Newman , and Lt. General Heywood Kirk. The specialists assisting them are Dr. Raymond Swain, a foremost expert in electronics, and Dr. Ann MacGregor, an electrobiologist supervising the unit that determines how much force and heat a time traveler is able to withstand.
Now what makes "The Time Tunnel" stand out against other Irving Allen's science fiction shows is that there was actually a final episode written where the Doug and Tony are returned safely home, but ABC cancelled the show before that episode could even be filmed, and to the best of my knowledge, it has never been adapted to any other medium, unlike the few written Season Four "Lost In Space" episodes were adapted into comics.
Russell decided to approach the series by assuming that Doug and Tony never made it home because Project Tic-Toc was shut down.
In 1979, 20 years after it was set up, Project Tic-Toc was shut down by the American authorities. All hope of retrieving scientists Tony Newman and Doug Phillips, lost in the Time Tunnel in 1968, had been abandoned.
In 2025, four people are brought together by a need to reopen the Arizona base and reactivate the Time Tunnel in secret. From there, they must try to find Doug or Tony because something they have done in the past has changed the present - and not for the better. The world is now under the power of Rakervia, which now rules the world in an iron grip. Yet, the team place the blame solely on Tony and Doug, without even considering that other forces may be behind the time-changing events of "The Shudder" - which changed history.
"The Time Tunnel - The Nightmare Begins" is a faithful continuation of the series, which Russell described as a "mini-series" so there is at least one more set planned and will be released in November 2025 - the day of the fictional "Shudder."
It will be interesting to see if the do manage to "fix" time and finally manage to bring Tony and Doug home.
Strongly Recommended.
Five Stars.
https://bigfinish.com/releases/v/irwi...
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