fdixon-3

***** SPOILER ALERT ******* This made for TV movie, while modestly produced, was well executed. Robert Hays suffers over the death of his brother in Viet Nam. He meets up with Sam Wanamaker, the inventor of a time machine. (I guess you have to suspend your disbelief over time travel, but then again over a professor in the basement of a university science building concocting a working time machine.) Hays goes back to 1963 to stop Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating JFK. I suppose this is based on the Oliver Stone premise that Kennedy would not have escalated the war in Viet Nam. A very debatable point. It is a good dramatic point;however, just as good the one used in the Time Tunnel Titanic episode. If only a few things had changed to prevent each tragedy. Gene Roddenberry had unsuccessfully tried to advance such an idea for the Star Trek movie series. He envisioned the Enterprise going back to 1963 as well. After several unsuccessful trips back to 1963, Hayes finds that history unfolded correctly in the first place. Except he managed to change just enough to save his brother's life.

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.

This TV movie / pilot was very interesting. Adding Sir John Gielgud to the cast gave it more gravitas. The diamond caper with the Nazi angle was fairly clever. When the show became a series, Hugh O'Brian (of "Wyatt Earp" fame) did not want to do a full time series. Unfortunately, the temperamental Tony Franciosa and the untalented Doug McClure were drafted to form a three agent "wheel". Each took turns every week. The series may have succeeded with the commanding presence of O'Brian, but it was watered down by Franciosa and McClure and faltered. The concept was great: having an agent jacked into to a mission control center that could advise and assist him in real time through a surgically implanted audio communication system and a miniature video camera that could be mounted on a ring or worn on a necklace. TV movie was fun, the series was a turkey.