Your Favorite Television Episodes Or Movies About Time Travel?

This should be an interesting topic for discussion. Let’s see how many we can come up with. I’ll start with what is generally regarded as the best episode of classic Star Trek, “The City On The Edge Of Forever.” Synopsis courtesy of Trekepedia:

Kirk and Spock go back in time to restore history. Doctor McCoy accidentally injects himself with an overdose of cordrazine. Delirious, he transports down to the planet below, to which the Enterprise has come to investigate strange ripples in time. Beaming down with a landing party, Kirk and Spock discover a living machine known as the Guardian of Forever. When McCoy leaps through the machine's portal, he vanishes into Earth's past. History is changed and the Enterprise ceases to exist. Hoping to undo the damage to history, Kirk and Spock leap through the device, into Depression-era New York City. There, Kirk meets and falls in love with Edith Keeler, a progressive social worker. Spock manages to use vintage 1930 equipment to construct a tricorder monitoring device, and while replaying footage from the machine, he discovers that Keeler has two possible futures: she will either begin a pacifist movement that will delay America's entry into World War II long enough for the Nazis to win, or she will die in a traffic accident. Kirk commits the most difficult act of his life when he prevents McCoy from saving her. Returning through space and time, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy discover they succeeded, and history has been restored.

The end of the episode is especially memorable with some fine acting by William Shatner:

@gbesq I agree that City on the Edge of Forever is a classic of classics. Add Trials and Tribble-ations (DS9) to the list of great time travel episodes in Star Trek! Really liked that one. If you haven't seen it, strongly recommend. I also liked Past Tense parts 1 & 2 (DS9) and Times Arrow 1 & 2 (TNG).
Live Die Repeat was also a really fun take on Time Travel. I really enjoyed it. One of the better movies I saw last year (I know I was late to the party on that one)

I'll nominate Castle Roogna by Piers Anthony as a great Time travel story, young adult- but in book format. I recently re-read this and had forgotten how much I enjoyed it when I was younger. I could probably bring up Connie Willis, but sticking to the format of TV/movies.... well, the two mentioned above are the ones that I've enjoyed "recently."

Look forward to what else others have to share.

Both this and the first Terminator are absolute classics that I thoroughly enjoy. I'm glad it came up!

City on the Edge of Forever deserves it's status as one of the best Star Trek episodes ever!

I'll add kinda of a twist on the concept: the Devs miniseries is about a secretive tech genius who's team builds a quantum computer so powerful that it can see forwards and backwards in time by extrapolating from data in the present.

I thought it was a really smart and heartbreaking exploration of the impacts of being able to see your own future.


Also, in a similar way, I'll also plug the movie arrival. The story is told out of order...and without giving the story away, it's sort of about how humanity would change if we could understand time on a longer scale than we currently do as we scurry about doing our daily tasks, even if the burden of that knowledge puts an incredible toll on us.


Edit: those are kind of heavy examples. I wanted to also plug the "Impossible Astronaut" story arc of Dr Who, where the good doctor has to solve his own murder. It's a terrific high concept pitch for a character who's whole schtick is time travel.

How about the Twilight Zone episode "Back There"? Plot synopsis courtesy of Wikipedia:

On April 14, 1961, young engineer Peter Corrigan, play by Russell Johnson (who also played the Professor on Gilligan's Island) is involved in a discussion with colleagues at the elite Potomac Club on the question of time travel. After bumping into William, a familiar attendant, on the way out, Corrigan feels faint. Confused by the gas lamps and horse-drawn carriages on the street, he notices that he's wearing clothes of a much older style and he walks home. He finds that his home is now a boarding house. In discussion with the strangers he meets there, he discovers that he has been transported back in time to April 14, 1865, the date of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth.

Corrigan rushes to Ford's Theatre to warn everyone but he is struck on the forehead by an employee of the theater and then arrested for disturbing the peace. Only one officer believes Corrigan, but is overruled by his superior. After he has been held in the police station a short time, a man who states he is a doctor with expertise in mental illness arrives. He introduces himself as Jonathan Wellington and persuades the police to release Corrigan into his custody. Wellington takes Corrigan to his home where he gives Corrigan an embroidered handkerchief to stop the bleeding on his forehead. He also offers Corrigan a dirnk which turns out to be drugged. Wellington leaves Corrigan in a drugged, semi-consicous state in his drawing room before leaving and locking the door. Wellington is later identified by the landlady as John Wilkes Booth, which Corrigan realizes when he looks at the handkerchief and sees that it bears the initials JWB. A crowd gathers outside as the news is spreading that the president has just been shot.

In anger, Corrigan pounds his fist on a window sill while still in Booth's drawing room and then suddenly finds himself back in 1961 pounding on the door at the Potomac Club. The club seems much the same as when Corrigan left except there is no longer an attendant named William. Back at the table with his colleagues, he finds that the scholarly discussion has moved from time travel to money, and William, instead of being an attendant, is now one of his colleagues at the table participating in the discussion. William says that his money was inherited from his great-grandfather, a policeman who had made a name for himself by predicting the assassination of Lincoln, becoming Chief of Police, then a councilman, and eventually becoming a millionaire through investing in real estate. As he is leaving the table, Corrigan reaches into his pocket and in disbelief pulls out the handkerchief which he had placed in his pocket and which still bears the initials JWB.

11-22-63
Book is better but the series was pretty good too.

Just finished Bodies on Netflix.

You knew Harlan Ellison? I have a couple of his Dangerous Visions (as editor) running around. Until you said this I had completely forgotten he was involved in the episode of TOS under discussion here.
very cool

RE: DS9, the first several seasons are very weak and as a show I don't rate it highly- but it has some of the individually best episodes- especially "In the Pale Moonlight." the mirror universe (from TOS) episodes are entertaining as well. I'd say Pale Moonlight gives The Inner Light (from TNG) a run for its money.
I have an interesting relationship with DS9 though, because as a series it definitely took some serious time to find its footing.

My wife is really into Outlander. we have a couple of the books signed by Gabaldon and she watches and re-watches the show. Definitely a solid one.