“Think of us as FEMA, Agent Phillips. We don’t send a team in for a rain shower. We send a team in for a hurricane.”

Justin’s rating: If only in another universe…

Justin’s review: Growing up as a Gen X geek, I gladly consumed any older scifi I could find, even if it was before my time. This included the O.G. Battlestar Galactica, Johnny Quest, Tom Swift, the classic Star Trek series, and even a smattering of Doctor Who. For whatever reason, however, I never did brush up against the 1966 Time Tunnel and its single-season adventure across the corridors of history.

But there was another Time Tunnel that I did see, an unaired pilot that Fox booted in favor of Firefly (probably a wise choice). At least Fox later made this pilot it available for the legions* of Time Tunnel fans out there.

As far as time travel premises go, this one is actually fairly innovative. The US Department of Energy turns on its first-ever fusion reactor deep, deep underground only to create a “time storm” that goes out of control for four hours, changing world history and the current landscape (for example, the USA now has only 49 states, traffic lights look different, and the Ruskies beat us to the moon). While the DOE gets the time storm under control from their end, on the other end of the tunnel, the storm is still whipping around out of control and doing damage.

Thus, a team is formed to enter the time tunnel and go to wherever the storm currently rages, attempting to Quantum Leap this puppy — to put right what once was wrong. In this case, a monk from the 1500s is yanked out of his time and plopped down in the middle of a key World War II battle. But the team has to operate under extreme restraints, as unauthorized changes to the past will further damage the present.

In the pilot, time travel virgin Doug (David Conrad) is pulled into the project thanks to his expertise in WWII history. With not a little similarity to how Stargate’s titular ring functioned, the Time Tunnel boots up and sends this team across decades in a few steps. But that’s not until Doug meets the rest of this team, gets his universal translator, and dresses the part.

This being 2002, the time transition includes a lot of industrial techno and a bit of funky-bad CGI. I love this. It’s about the only moment in this episode where the show lets itself have some honest fun and not take itself overly serious.

A bulk of the pilot is spent in the battle of Hurtgen Forest, which is actually well-done (melodramatic score aside). Doug helps the team figure out where the 1500s man might’ve gone, but he also bumps into his grandfather whom he knows dies in the fight. Oh, and there’s an incoming Allied airstrike in an hour, requiring them to work fast and get back to the present.

As this is happening, the DOE operators back home monitor all of the team members via a chip in their head, watching the action and analyzing what’s happening on the fly. They can also translate languages and figure out historical details, which is important to know when you’re on the ground. I thought the idea of a support crew was an inspired one.

Doug does get a crash course in why you don’t monkey around with history. Apparently, the people near the Time Tunnel during “The 240” are the only ones who remember how the world used to be. As such, they experienced the trauma of mass changes — including one team member who shares how all of her brothers and sisters were erased from existence during those four hours. That makes the paradoxes and causalities and other time travel hijinks feel significantly more weighty.

This pilot is actually good, guys. Good enough that I wish it had been made into a series, especially with all of the questions about The 240 changes and the endless potential for stories across time. Good enough that I can honestly feel it’s a shame that Fox didn’t take a chance on this as well as Firefly.

*I presume. I’m not going to do any research, though.

Intermission!

• This guy is really bad at “two truths and a lie”
• “I love my job.” “Yeah, me too.”
• 49 states of America?
• “It’s not where, Doug, it’s when.”
• All big tunnels come with their own Middle East soundtrack
• Four hours of changes = “The 240”
• “You too can speak German in one simple injection.”
• “Let’s go for a walk.”
• Yeah maybe don’t reach out to grab a bullet in mid-flight
• Dang, having all of your siblings erased from history is harsh
• That is one heck of a bowl cut
• This is a really weird time to get naked for a costume change
• The Colonel Klink reference
• “We have to inoculate Nazis?”
• Doug’s bombshell discovery makes him not want to change time