Television series

The Time Tunnel

Name: The Time Tunnel
Genre: Adventure, Science Fiction
Released: 1966
Cast: James Darren, Robert Colbert

Irwin Allen's 1966 time-travel romp straps two scientists into a machine that flings them, uncontrollably, into history's worst days — Pearl Harbor, the Titanic, the Alamo — with barely a breath between disasters before their colleagues scramble to bring them home. It's cheap-looking, cheerful, stock-footage-heavy pulp: comfort food for anyone who wants earnest Saturday-morning peril over logic or depth.

TVMaze rating

3.9

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love a premise that keeps dropping its characters into famous historical moments, and you enjoy the old-fashioned pleasure of a sturdy adventure built on a clever gimmick rather than deep serial plotting.

Skip it if you want continuing story arcs or a show that builds toward a payoff, since each hour is largely self-contained and the wobbly 1960s effects and earnest dialogue can feel quaint.

What it asks of you: Sixty minutes an episode, one season of thirty, so you can dip in and out without commitment. Expect brisk, episodic hours where the stakes reset each week rather than accumulate.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Quantum Leap1989

This is what The Time Tunnel wanted to grow up to be: a lone traveler leaping into strangers' lives each week, righting small historical wrongs with wit, heart, and a hologram sidekick.

But The moralizing can get syrupy, and the 'quantum leap' science makes even less sense than a tunnel.

Voyagers!1982

A history-obsessed adventurer and his streetwise sidekick jump through time via pocket watch, fixing accidents so history happens correctly — the same globe-trotting, kid-friendly spirit as Tony and Doug's tunnel-hopping.

But It's aimed squarely at children, and the educational bent occasionally overwhelms the fun of the chase.

Timeless2016

A modern reboot of the exact same engine — three people in a machine, dropped into pivotal historical moments, racing to stop a villain from rewriting the past before they're stranded forever.

But Cancelled and revived and cancelled again, so the story ends more abruptly than you'd like.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Time Tunnel

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

La Jetée1962

Same engine as Tony and Doug's tunnel — a man sent involuntarily through time to relive historical catastrophe — but treated as tragedy and memory instead of Saturday-morning peril.

Twenty-eight minutes of black-and-white photographs and narration tell a time-travel story with more emotional weight than a hundred hours of tunnel-hopping — proof the same premise can break your heart instead of thrill you.

But It's a silent-film-adjacent art piece with almost no motion; if you want spectacle, this isn't it.

Sliders1995

Swap centuries for parallel Earths and you've got the same premise: a group flung somewhere unfamiliar every week, racing a countdown to get home. Same anxious rhythm, wilder ideas.

But The special effects and scripts get shakier as the budgets shrink across its five seasons.

DC's Legends of Tomorrow2016

Superheroes hijack the time-travel-anthology format and turn it gloriously silly — every episode a new era, a new disaster, a new excuse for chaos. Time Tunnel's pulpy spirit dialed up to eleven.

But It's a superhero show first, so you'll need patience for capes and comic-book plotting.

Land of the Giants1968

Irwin Allen's other stranded-travelers show, made right after this one, with the same low-budget charm and cliffhanger structure — swap centuries for scale as a crew is marooned among giants.

But The giant-perspective effects were ambitious for 1968 and look it; patience for creaky visuals required.

Irwin Allen's Lost in Space1965

Another Irwin Allen family stuck somewhere they can't get home from, one danger-of-the-week at a time. Same production house, same earnest camp, same robot-and-rocket innocence.

But The tone swings wildly from serious peril to campy slapstick, especially once Dr. Smith takes over.

Star Trek1966

Time Tunnel's exact contemporary, airing the same year, proving 1966 was obsessed with sending people somewhere they didn't belong. Trek did it with more ambition and philosophy, less pure disaster-of-the-week thrill.

But It's more talky and cerebral than Time Tunnel's breathless historical-catastrophe formula, with fewer explosions per episode.

Doctor Who2005

The granddaddy of time-travel adventure television, already three years old when Time Tunnel launched. Wobbly sets, big ideas, and a hero who solves problems with wit instead of muscle.

But Decades of continuity and wildly uneven production quality make the classic era a real commitment.

Time Bandits1981

Structurally identical — strangers dropped into one famous historical moment after another — but swaps earnest sci-fi rescue plots for Monty Python-adjacent fantasy mischief and a genuinely unsettling final act.

A gang of dwarves and one kid steal a map of holes in time and go looting through history — Napoleon, Robin Hood, the Titanic — with the same episodic historical hopscotch as Time Tunnel, played for anarchic comedy.

But Terry Gilliam's chaos and dark fairy-tale ending aren't for everyone, especially anyone expecting straightforward adventure.

People

Cast

Directing

Fred R. SimpsonAssistant Director
Les WarnerAssistant Director
Steve BernhardtAssistant Director
Ted ButcherAssistant Director

Writing

Irwin AllenCreator
Arthur WeissStory Editor
William WelchStory Editor

Production

Jerry BriskinAssociate Producer
Irwin AllenProducer