The characters in this episode have been seen before. I didn't realize that there was a possibility that the organization portrayed may have been a pilot for a new series. I guess it never worked out. As with almost any time travel offering, this pushes the envelope, including the disappearance of one of the characters. It has to do with the recruiting of a really tiresome young woman who has been given the opportunity of a lifetime (actually, she is saved from the reaper by these people) and has no interest in playing by the rules. Also, the idiot young man who allows this woman to run free so he can impress her should have been left behind. There are some scenes from the counterculture of the sixties which is the landscape for this. The young woman gets it in her head that she can rescue her father who was killed during a demonstration (and thought to be coward) and she ignores the fact that she could be ripping the continuum. I am less enthusiastic about this than some because it has a kind of slickness that makes it look cheap.
4 Reviews
The Outer Limits - Time to Time
Scarecrow-8826 August 2016
Warning: Spoilers
A grad student (Kristin Lehman) is chosen by a time traveler (Paul Popowich) as a possible candidate to serve the same Time Travel organization which passes often backwards to change the lives of certain people in history but not without caution and discretion. But Lehman is granted a chance to go to a period in the 60s when before her father (a radical, anti-war protester) is killed in a ROTC building explosion on a college campus. She will attempt to prevent his death while Popowich had to eventually answer for taking her to that time when his superior (Alex Diakun) realizes one of their Time Travel scientists ceases to exist because certain events in the 60s didn't happen due to Lehman's interference. Can Popowich and Lehman correct what has already been lost? Also Diakun explains to Popowich that in order for thousands to live Lehman must not stop her father from interfering with a bomb that would have killed them (revolutionaries believing an explosion to get attention for their anti-war cause are responsible for the bomb's planting). Popowich and Lehman have wonderful chemistry, particularly when the former tries as he might to get the latter to return from the 60s and she resists (even punching him at one point when he insists they go back!) and function as the harmlessly quarrelling duo. It is because Lehman is an independent woman who is stubborn and impulsive, but when offered a chance to spend some time with the father she never knew it is easy to understand why she can't help herself. Not above saving some budget, clips from a previous episode (featuring Diakun) are used to convey a time trip to a Nazi prison camp. I enjoy a good time traveling story and this one is fun primarily thanks to the cast. Lehman is a firecracker who doesn't follow orders well, while Popowich is the affable, pleasant fellow trying to get her to understand why precaution is necessary when traveling back in time. The idea of "time travel recruitment" amuses me.
Lorelle now has the chance to change a tragic event in her past, But there is a price!
Little-Mikey5 June 2007
Warning: Spoilers
This has to be one of my favorite episodes! I could watch it over and over again and it still gives me a rush. This episode was intended to bait the networks to pick up on a time travel series spin-off from THE OUTER LIMITS after its cancellation. (Too bad none of the networks bit the bait.) Nicholas Prentice had already appeared as a mysterious time traveler in two other episodes, GETTYSBURG and JUDGEMENT and in both episodes, little was known about him except that he came from the future on a mission to correct the past.
In TIME TO TIME, we learn that the mysterious Prentice comes from the year 2059 where (or shall we say "when") he heads the Chromatics Institute, "time travel for hire".
Prentice's chromatics team members are all from different times, each "recruited" (rescued) just seconds before what would had been his or her untimely death.
But each jump to the past must be screened by the Council to insure that the changes to the past do not disrupt the time line and here is where it gets very risky!
Travis was sent to 1989 to recruit Lorelle Palmer, History Major, but there are problems. When they meet on the college campus, she takes an instant dislike towards him. Later that night, just seconds before her car crashes, she gets transported 70 years into the future. But when she wakes up, she doesn't believe the story that she was rescued within seconds of an untimely death from a highway mishap. The newspaper article doesn't convince her and now she takes a dislike towards Prentice (along with the rest of the team members she's met). She also makes it clear that she is no team player and she demands that they send her back to 1989.
To convince her that all this is real, and to convince her to join the team, Travis invites her to pick a time and place that they could jump back to. She picks "Berkley College, April 14, 1969". He sees an open window so they jump back to that time, which just happens to be the day Lorelle's father got killed by a bomb that exploded prematurely in the ROTC building.
Now she can save her father. But there is a price to pay if she does. And there is also a price to pay if she doesn't! So she is now forced to make a choice! What will she do?
This episode was so well done. Right from the start, there is something somewhat mysterious about Travis as he shows up on campus and again, later on that night.
The atmosphere on the college in April 1969 is very authentic, like the hippie counter culture and the unrest over the war in Viet Nam, that seems to permeate the air, along with styles of the time.
In spite of all the work and research done to create such a perfect likeness of 1969, there are still a few bloopers.
For starters, back at the Chromatics Institute in 2059, one of the team members, Satchko, was taken from the 22nd century which is odd since anything done in 2059 or prior would drastically affect her time line.
In 1989, the 25 year old Lorelle has blue eyes. But her 5 year old self from 1969, has brown eyes.
It was April 14, 1969 and it was "Smothers Brothers night." Problem was that April 14, 1969 fell on a Monday, so there could be no "Smothers Brothers Night" on TV since THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS was on Sunday night (until CBS canceled that show in March 1969). One of the reasons for the cancellation was that the Smothers Brothers refused to let the network censure their show before airing it. So there was a major falling out between CBS and the Smothers Brothers.
On Monday night (in 1968/9), the show that everybody watched was LAUGH-IN (NBC) which competed against THE LUCY SHOW and GUNSMOKE (both on CBS).
Other than those minor bloopers, this episode ranks right up there as a must see for those who love sci-fi.
In TIME TO TIME, we learn that the mysterious Prentice comes from the year 2059 where (or shall we say "when") he heads the Chromatics Institute, "time travel for hire".
Prentice's chromatics team members are all from different times, each "recruited" (rescued) just seconds before what would had been his or her untimely death.
But each jump to the past must be screened by the Council to insure that the changes to the past do not disrupt the time line and here is where it gets very risky!
Travis was sent to 1989 to recruit Lorelle Palmer, History Major, but there are problems. When they meet on the college campus, she takes an instant dislike towards him. Later that night, just seconds before her car crashes, she gets transported 70 years into the future. But when she wakes up, she doesn't believe the story that she was rescued within seconds of an untimely death from a highway mishap. The newspaper article doesn't convince her and now she takes a dislike towards Prentice (along with the rest of the team members she's met). She also makes it clear that she is no team player and she demands that they send her back to 1989.
To convince her that all this is real, and to convince her to join the team, Travis invites her to pick a time and place that they could jump back to. She picks "Berkley College, April 14, 1969". He sees an open window so they jump back to that time, which just happens to be the day Lorelle's father got killed by a bomb that exploded prematurely in the ROTC building.
Now she can save her father. But there is a price to pay if she does. And there is also a price to pay if she doesn't! So she is now forced to make a choice! What will she do?
This episode was so well done. Right from the start, there is something somewhat mysterious about Travis as he shows up on campus and again, later on that night.
The atmosphere on the college in April 1969 is very authentic, like the hippie counter culture and the unrest over the war in Viet Nam, that seems to permeate the air, along with styles of the time.
In spite of all the work and research done to create such a perfect likeness of 1969, there are still a few bloopers.
For starters, back at the Chromatics Institute in 2059, one of the team members, Satchko, was taken from the 22nd century which is odd since anything done in 2059 or prior would drastically affect her time line.
In 1989, the 25 year old Lorelle has blue eyes. But her 5 year old self from 1969, has brown eyes.
It was April 14, 1969 and it was "Smothers Brothers night." Problem was that April 14, 1969 fell on a Monday, so there could be no "Smothers Brothers Night" on TV since THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS was on Sunday night (until CBS canceled that show in March 1969). One of the reasons for the cancellation was that the Smothers Brothers refused to let the network censure their show before airing it. So there was a major falling out between CBS and the Smothers Brothers.
On Monday night (in 1968/9), the show that everybody watched was LAUGH-IN (NBC) which competed against THE LUCY SHOW and GUNSMOKE (both on CBS).
Other than those minor bloopers, this episode ranks right up there as a must see for those who love sci-fi.
One of my favorite stories from the entire repertoire of movies and television
tombrody13 May 2014
TIME TO TIME is one of my favorite stories from the entire repertoire of movies and television. The characters include a college student (Kristin Lehman), her mother, her father, and several employees of a time traveling agency called, CHRONONICS.
FIRST SCENE AND SECOND SCENE. In the first scene, Kristin is studying outside on a college campus, working on her master's thesis. A stranger tries to make small talk, and they quiz each other about American history from the 1960s. The dialogue is clever and magnificently crafted, as is the dialogue from the entire story. The pair engages in a lively exchange of trivia questions about names of astronauts, names of Academy Award winners, and names of politicians. The first really clever line, is when the stranger asks her, "What was most popular country music country music song on the charts in 1967." Kristin responds, "I don't listen to country music," momentarily showing a brief scowl of disgust. Then, the stranger spills coffee on her notebook, and Kristin reaches over to wipe off the coffee, and the stranger reaches down too, and his ring scrapes on her hand, and a sharp feature of the ring takes a blood sample. The ring acquires the blood sample, and relays the results of DNA analysis to a small computer. The small computer confirms the fact that the woman (Kristin) is the right person for transporting to the future. Kristin's mother is a manager of an apartment building. In the next scene, the mother seems to have a minor illness, but she has been in bed all day, and seems to be emotionally depressed. The mother repeatedly ignores a complaint from one of the tenants who needs a simple repair. Then, Kristin goes off for a drive, swerves to avoid a truck, and plummets off of an embankment to meet certain death. However, a millisecond before striking the ground, Kristin vanishes, and materializes some 50 years in the future, where she finds herself in a time-traveling company. "Where am I," she asks, when she rises from a couch, somewhat dazed. "Not where . . . WHEN," responds an older man, who explains that she is in a facility called, CHRONONICS-TIME TRAVEL FOR HIRE.
SPECIAL EFFECTS. The special effects are excellent, and on par with those in any of the Star Wars movies. The interior of CHRONONICS reminds me, somewhat, of the interior of the floating city in GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, a science fiction movie starring Mary Steenbergen and Ted Danson. The operation of the time machine has plenty of gee-whiz power. Most of the TIME AFTER TIME takes place on the campus of University of California at Berkeley, one day in 1969. Although reconstruction of U.C. Berkeley is not exactly a "special effect," they did a very good job at reconstructing the lingo and period garb from that era. The only major mistake was part of the dialogue referring to a part of the campus called, "The Quad." There never existed any part of the U.C. Berkeley campus called, "The Quad." I should know. I was a student at U.C. Berkeley from the years 1969 to 1980 (undergrad school plus graduate school).
EMOTIONAL IMPACT. There are two kinds of time travel stories. One is where the emphasis is on the whiz-bang nature of time travel and of the associated equipment needed for time travel, such as the stories in the TIME TUNNEL series, and the film, THE TIME MACHINE, starring Guy Pearce. The other kind of time travel movie is that where the emphasis is on a deep-seated nostalgia, and a longing to connect with a time in the past, and to connect with loved ones in the past. TIME TO TIME is the second type of time travel story. Other examples of the second type include Twilight Zone episodes WALKING DISTANCE and A STOP AT WILLOUGHBY, and the full-length film, THE PHILADEPHIA EXPERIMENT. TIME TO TIME is about nostalgia for one's parents (mother and father) in an earlier era, when one's parents were still in their twentys. Regarding the dialogue and acting, I don't see how it is humanly possible to have dialogue that is more clever, razor-sharp, and yet entirely natural. The accompanying facial expressions, those of rubber-faced Kristin Lehman, are a delight throughout the entire story.
FIRST SCENE AND SECOND SCENE. In the first scene, Kristin is studying outside on a college campus, working on her master's thesis. A stranger tries to make small talk, and they quiz each other about American history from the 1960s. The dialogue is clever and magnificently crafted, as is the dialogue from the entire story. The pair engages in a lively exchange of trivia questions about names of astronauts, names of Academy Award winners, and names of politicians. The first really clever line, is when the stranger asks her, "What was most popular country music country music song on the charts in 1967." Kristin responds, "I don't listen to country music," momentarily showing a brief scowl of disgust. Then, the stranger spills coffee on her notebook, and Kristin reaches over to wipe off the coffee, and the stranger reaches down too, and his ring scrapes on her hand, and a sharp feature of the ring takes a blood sample. The ring acquires the blood sample, and relays the results of DNA analysis to a small computer. The small computer confirms the fact that the woman (Kristin) is the right person for transporting to the future. Kristin's mother is a manager of an apartment building. In the next scene, the mother seems to have a minor illness, but she has been in bed all day, and seems to be emotionally depressed. The mother repeatedly ignores a complaint from one of the tenants who needs a simple repair. Then, Kristin goes off for a drive, swerves to avoid a truck, and plummets off of an embankment to meet certain death. However, a millisecond before striking the ground, Kristin vanishes, and materializes some 50 years in the future, where she finds herself in a time-traveling company. "Where am I," she asks, when she rises from a couch, somewhat dazed. "Not where . . . WHEN," responds an older man, who explains that she is in a facility called, CHRONONICS-TIME TRAVEL FOR HIRE.
SPECIAL EFFECTS. The special effects are excellent, and on par with those in any of the Star Wars movies. The interior of CHRONONICS reminds me, somewhat, of the interior of the floating city in GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, a science fiction movie starring Mary Steenbergen and Ted Danson. The operation of the time machine has plenty of gee-whiz power. Most of the TIME AFTER TIME takes place on the campus of University of California at Berkeley, one day in 1969. Although reconstruction of U.C. Berkeley is not exactly a "special effect," they did a very good job at reconstructing the lingo and period garb from that era. The only major mistake was part of the dialogue referring to a part of the campus called, "The Quad." There never existed any part of the U.C. Berkeley campus called, "The Quad." I should know. I was a student at U.C. Berkeley from the years 1969 to 1980 (undergrad school plus graduate school).
EMOTIONAL IMPACT. There are two kinds of time travel stories. One is where the emphasis is on the whiz-bang nature of time travel and of the associated equipment needed for time travel, such as the stories in the TIME TUNNEL series, and the film, THE TIME MACHINE, starring Guy Pearce. The other kind of time travel movie is that where the emphasis is on a deep-seated nostalgia, and a longing to connect with a time in the past, and to connect with loved ones in the past. TIME TO TIME is the second type of time travel story. Other examples of the second type include Twilight Zone episodes WALKING DISTANCE and A STOP AT WILLOUGHBY, and the full-length film, THE PHILADEPHIA EXPERIMENT. TIME TO TIME is about nostalgia for one's parents (mother and father) in an earlier era, when one's parents were still in their twentys. Regarding the dialogue and acting, I don't see how it is humanly possible to have dialogue that is more clever, razor-sharp, and yet entirely natural. The accompanying facial expressions, those of rubber-faced Kristin Lehman, are a delight throughout the entire story.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
