The Time Tunnel

The Time Tunnel
Created by	Irwin Allen
Starring	James Darren Robert Colbert Whit Bissell John Zaremba Lee Meriwether
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	30
Production
Running time	approx. 50 minutes
Production company(s)	Irwin Allen Productions Kent Productions 20th Century Fox Television
Release
Original network	ABC
Original release	September 9, 1966 – April 7, 1967

The Time Tunnel is a 1966–1967 U.S. color science fiction TV series, written around a theme of time travel adventure and starring James Darren and Robert Colbert. The show was inspired by the 1964 movie The Time Travelers (AIP/Dobil), and was creator-producer Irwin Allen's third science fiction television series, released by 20th Century Fox Television and broadcast on ABC. The show ran for one season of 30 episodes. A pilot for a new series was produced in 2002 but did not proceed to a series.

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 a cylindrical hallway. The base for Project Tic-Toc is a huge, hidden underground complex in Arizona, 800 floors deep and employing over 36,000 people. The directors of the project are Dr. Douglas Phillips (Robert Colbert), Dr. Anthony Newman (James Darren), and Lt. General Heywood Kirk (Whit Bissell). The specialists assisting them are Dr. Raymond Swain (John Zaremba), a foremost expert in electronics, and Dr. Ann MacGregor (Lee Meriwether), an electro-biologist supervising the unit that determines how much force and heat a time traveler is able to withstand. The series is set in 1968, two years into the future of the actual broadcast season, 1966-67.

Project Tic-Toc is in its tenth year when United States Senator Leroy Clark (Gary Merrill) comes to investigate in order to determine whether the project, which has cost 7.5 billion dollars (57 billion 2015 dollars), is worth continuing. Senator Clark feels the project is a waste of government funds. When speaking to Phillips, Kirk, and Newman in front of the Time Tunnel, he delivers an ultimatum: either they send someone into time and return him during the course of his visit or their funding will cease. Tony volunteers for this endeavor, but he is turned down by project director Doug Phillips. Defying this decision, Tony sends himself into time. Doug follows shortly after to rescue him, but they both continue to be lost in time. Senator Clark returns to Washington with the promise that funding will not be cut off to the project, leaving General Kirk in charge.

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Wikipedia