TIME TUNNEL! - Where Are You? (1 Viewer)

[David_Blackwell]

I received volume 2 yesterday. The 2002 unaired pilot looks like the version I watched before (the 51 minute version) and it is in 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen. I'm going to take a look at the set this weekend.

 

[Harry-N]

[inserted to avoid confusion:]
Reading the above, and being thoroughly confused about which set David was writing about, I wrote:

Caution: Depending on how your TV and DVD player are set up, they may be "fooled" into thinking that the TIME TUNNEL programs are anamorphic widescreen.

What I've discovered about this set is that the menus are anamorphic widescreen, but the programs themselves are standard 4:3. It's possible that the menus are fooling your system and setting them into a widescreen mode.

Just for the heck of it, I've watched some portions of the shows in the zoom mode to fill a 1.78:1 screen. It usually results in some heads being chopped a bit - particularly Whit Bissell's, who nearly always stood up in Tic Toc Control, while John Zaremba and Lee Meriwether sat at the control consoles.

Double-check your settings and make sure your system isn't fooled by the anamorphic menus - and enjoy the series!

Harry

 

[David_Blackwell]

Harry, read my post again. I said the unaired 2002 pilot is in Anamorphic Widescreen. Everthing else (The Time Tunnel epsidoes and The Time Travellers movie) is in 1.33:1 full frame.

 

[Harry-N]

I'm sorry I misunderstood, David. Your post didn't mention WHICH set you got, and there is after all, an un-aired pilot in the first volume.

But it's good to hear about Volume 2, just days away now.

Harry

 

[Mark_TS]

boy what would really be great is the book by L.B. Abbott-who did all of Allens spfx and most of FOX's..
Called "Rubber Bands Paperclips and Masking Tape" or somethig like that.

 

[Bill>Moore]

There are a couple of things coming out soon that I want to pick up - looking forward to this one.

 

[brian MC]

How did you manage to get vol.2,its not out until next week,i am so jealous.I have two episodes to go on vol 1 so i am eagerly awaiting the last 15 and the 2002 unaired pilot.
Its a pity an episode wasn't made that wrapped up the story,i.e. Tony and Doug finally get back to the Time Tunnel in their own time (1968)

 

[Randall Cyrenne]

I picked up the first volumes of both Time Tunnel and VTBOS with the recent Amazon deal, and had to say thanks to everyone on the boards for speaking so highly of the shows and the sets. I'm enjoying the heck out of both of them!

 

[Mark_TS]

anyone ever seen blueprints of the Tunnel or the control area?

I still think the show would have been better had some of the episodes taken place in the vast number of unknown rooms, labs and areas of the complex itself-not just in front of the tunnel or with Davey Crockett/Silver painted spacemen in the old west.

I do know that for the first few episodes the tunnel went back into the soundstage next door. after that it ended at the wall of its own sound stage, and they simply painted a receding-into-infinity group of concentric ovals-you could often see the technicians shadows on it.

 

[Harry-N]

From looking at various pictures and stills, and studying the 'Home Movies" section of the Volume 1 DVDs, it can be gathered that the main portion of the Tunnel itself went back around nine or ten oval sections. In the pilot episode, there's a view from there looking out toward the main control consoles.

The next portion must have been an extension that would add about another sixteen rings to the tunnel's length. I believe that section was barely able to hold an actor heading through the tunnel. There is a scene where Doug first enters in the pilot where he manages to get pretty far into the tunnel.

The final piece is what stuck into the next soundstage when used. It would have been a conical-shaped "infinity" section that allowed the forced perspective to make you believe it really did extend to inifinity.

I've seen discussions about whether that final portion could have been substituted for by a flat 2D rendering of concentric ovals so as to avoid using the next soundstage. There are behind-the-scenes pictures floating around the Internet of camera equipment back there. A 2D version of the infinity section might look "off" when filmed from different angles; perhaps there were multiple versions for multiple angles.

Most episodes stuck to the formula of following Tony and Doug on their adventures, with a small piece of the story back at the control center. It would have been nice had they managed to get some stories onto different sets back at the lab. Perhaps a second season might have done just that. Unfortunately we'll never know.

 

[brian MC]

I am waiting for vol 2 to arrive and i would like to know other peoples opinion,who have already got it?

 

[Mark_TS]

Yeah, I beleive that the perspective would not change like it should, if it was a painted wall or whatever-which could explain the same old camera set-ups and blocking after the first couple episodes...camera in front of console looking back, camera in front of (or in back of) console looking straight in at tunnel.
Though as a little knocker watching this, I could see that it still didnt look quite right at times.
And then after the first 2 episodes, we never see that long-shot side view of the tunnel that stretches on forever-a matte painting almost in tribute to FORBIDDEN PLANET-as were the scenes on the walkway bridges looking down.

 

[Harry-N]

This is the view that Mark_TS is referring to:



It was used in the pilot episode just as the senator gets his first view of the tunnel. After a shot of the senator with Doug and Kirk, we see them enter from the left of the screen and head across the bridge to the mouth of the tunnel.

In the second episode, another long shot like this is used - and it was lifted from the pilot. You can see the senator with his hands on his hips just the way he appears in the closer shot in the pilot.

This long shot was used at least once more in the series, much later on. I'm drawing a blank as to which episode, but it's also still got the senator visible near the tunnel, so it also came from the pilot's footage. After I get the second volume, my memory will be much better refreshed!

The above screen capture was lifted a while ago by me from the FANTASY WORLDS OF IRWIN ALLEN DVD. A much cleaner version can be had from the new DVDs - I just never got around to uploading it.

Harry

 

[Michael_Sim]

The first review of The Time Tunnel Vol 2 is out on DVD Talk -

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=22009

Michael

 

[Mark_TS]

IT LOOKS like some kind of magnetic flux condenser coil that wraps around the tunnel-though you never see it in the actual front of tunnel shots...
$7 billion dollars-it looks more to be a Trillion dollar project ...

 

[Harry-N]

...invented by Doc Brown in 1955?...

Another inconsistency between the matte painting above and the actual standing set, particularly in the pilot is the missing consoles to the left of the Tunnel. When the senator is getting ready to leave, we see him with the main Tunnel crew over there and there are some consoles in view over there, yet on the above picture, it's just a bridge wall-partition. I always wondered why when the senator arrived, he came in from that side entrance, yet every one else throughout the series always used the rear entrance. Of course, I realize that it was just a set and that there WAS no side entrance, but fans do wonder about these things...

Harry
..awaiting delivery of TIME TUNNEL VOLUME 2...

 

[Harry-N]

Well, Mr. Postman delivered my TIME TUNNEL VOLUME 2 set in yesterday's mail.

The first thing we did was view the 2002 Pilot - and both the wife and I were favorably impressed. Though it wasn't the same old comfortable TIME TUNNEL that we'd loved all these years, it was interesting enough that we would have watched it as a series. A few elements remained from the original - some character names, the tunnel itself (though not quite as impressive as the '60s version), and even a snippet of the original John Williams theme. The way this show would have dealt with time paradoxes is much more in-depth than anything the original ever did. This modern pilot, as mentioned before, is anamorphically enhanced for widescreen TVs and has only 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround for a sound choice. (Hehe! Imagine that - an "extra" that's anamorphically enhanced!)

Next we sampled the first episode in this set, "The Revenge Of Robin Hood." Like the first set, the colors were vivid, and the mono sound was sharp and clear, looking better than this show was ever capable of looking back in 1966.

I peeked ahead to the next episode, "Kill Two By Two", to check on a puzzling anomaly that's occured over the years with this episode. When TIME TUNNEL hit syndication in the '90s on SciFi, fans began to question something in this episode. Early on, Tony injures his left leg. Shortly thereafter, he's seen limping on his right leg, and then later, back to his left leg. Another Irwin Allen show inconsistency?

I recall reading on the net somewhere in TIME TUNNEL fandom about this strange reversal, and it turns out that there's a section of actual film that's reversed in the syndication prints of this episode. Just inside the shack, as the Mako character shoots toward Tony, seated at a table, the film in this syndication print reverses. It remains that way to the commercial break. When it returns, all is normal.

Here are two screenshots:





The top picture is from the SciFi channel. You can see the logo bug in the lower right corner - and notice Tony's right foot is bandaged.

The bottom picture is from the new DVD, obviously reversed from the above, and now with the correct left foot bandaged.

I cannot imagine the circumstances under which that syndication print got reversed. It seems a near impossibility to be a mistake, and yet a deliberate mirror-image flip? For what purpose?

Thankfully, it's corrected now. So far, another beautiful job by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. Bravo, guys and gals!

Harry

 

[phil*]

"Well, Mr. Postman delivered my TIME TUNNEL VOLUME 2 set in yesterday's mail."

That's incredible,Harry!! You mean you actually get mail delivered to you on a Saturday?

 

[Jeff Willis]

Harry, which online store did you buy Vol 2?

 

[Harry-N]

Yes, we get mail on Saturday. Doesn't everyone?

As for which online source? Suffice it to say that I support this forum's sponsors. Wink, wink.

Harry