Your Favorite Television Episodes Or Movies About Time Travel?

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Slaughterhouse 5 is of course a classic, but I haven't re-read it in years- I should perhaps get on that. I haven't read Harry August. So it goes.

The Time Machine might have been one of my earliest read classic sci-fi books; I must have read it when I was 8 or 9.

But... speaking of books, two Poul Anderson classics must be named- both The High Crusade (which is really not time travel, but aliens being unfortunate enough to attempt to invade earth during one of the crusades and causing an alternate future) and Three Hearts, Three Lions (it can be argued that this is also not time travel so much as the narrator is perhaps hallucinating... or worse).

Oh, and the 1632 series- Eric Flint- I had a lot of fun reading those back in the- well in the early 2000s. and again... Connie Willis has written some pretty fantastic time-tracel stuff.

[Edit: Sorry, I am not a good reader of thread titles ... these are books! Well, Slaughterhouse-Five is also a movie, but I've never seen it.]

There are so many, this is a great topic. The classic is obviously The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells, but it's pretty dated by today's standards.

Let me mention Slaughterhouse-Five and The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (which is actually a time-loop story). Summaries are below.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
(https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/s/slaughterhousefive/book-summary)
Slaughterhouse-Five is an account of Billy Pilgrim's capture and incarceration by the Germans during the last years of World War II, and scattered throughout the narrative are episodes from Billy's life both before and after the war, and from his travels to the planet Tralfamadore (Trawl-fahm-uh-door). Billy is able to move both forwards and backwards through his lifetime in an arbitrary cycle of events. Enduring the tedious life of a 1950s optometrist in Ilium, New York, he is the lover of a former pornographic movie star on the planet Tralfamadore and simultaneously an American prisoner of war (POW) in Nazi Germany.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Fifteen_Lives_of_Harry_August)
Harry August is born in the women's washroom of Berwick-upon-Tweed station in 1919, leads an unremarkable life, and dies in hospital in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1989. He then finds himself born again back in 1919 in the same circumstances, gaining the knowledge of his earlier life at an early age. He learns he is an Ouroboran or Kalachakra and is destined to be reborn again and again. He is not alone and is soon contacted by the Cronus Club, an organization of similarly affected members, who look after him in childhood in subsequent lives.

In later lives, Harry studies biology, chemistry, and physics. With knowledge from previous lives, he easily becomes a professor of physics at the University of Cambridge, where he meets an intelligent undergraduate student named Vincent Rankis. Vincent and Harry become friends as they talk about theoretical physics and the nature of time. Eventually, Harry and Vincent both realize the other is also an Ouroboran. Other members of the Cronus Club later inform Harry that the world is ending and that with each life Harry lives, the ending is becoming closer.
 
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flw flw
BTW, how hilarious is it that so many of us Omega watch nerds are Trekkies?

Coincidence? I think not ...

Definitely not. I was just thinking something along the same lines, happy to be nerding over Star Trek while wearing a speedy. it feels right.
 
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Ah I see someone mentioned Somewhere in time. That was actually an unproduced Twilight Zone episode. The plot however was too close to another story called Time and Again. Which in turn lead to lawsuits. Still there is an Easter egg in that in the film the book Reve's character learns to time travel, is the book by Fenny.

Matheson (who also wrote for both Star Trek and Twilight Zone) Did novelize the story as Bid Time Return. (which was later adapted into Somewhere in time. The book was set at the Hotel Del Corenodo near San Diego. And while not time travel per say, The Stuntman with Peter O'Toole is probably why the location was moved to Mackinac Island, where My uncle did is medical internship as a doctor.

Wells has been adapted a lot. One of my faves is Time after Time with Malcom McDowel as HG, and Mary Steenburgen. David Warner is Jack the Ripper. The Guy Richie version on the other hand is one of the worst adaptations.

As for books the best is A Traveler in time by Allison Uttley. About a young girl who visits Elizabethan England, and attempts to save Mary Queen of Scots and her ancestor Anthony Babbington. It is the perfect time travel story.
 
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I also enjoyed the novel Time and Again because I'm a fan of the Dakota and all things historic Manhattan. (and nice meeting you, @sheepdoll in Antioch last weekend.)

Back to the Future is masterful and fun for showing alternate futures.

As for Star Trek (TOS), Assignment:Earth is a fantastic episode for cool time travel to the past. Fun logic problem when the crew thinks no problem in abducting a pilot who saw too much, but then Spock realizes the pilot's great grandchild was significant to history so they had to go even farther back in time to return him without his peek into the Enterprise future, if I remember correctly. Also Teri Garr is terrific in one of her first acting roles.

Not sure it's time travel (rather travel to an alternate present), but I love It's a Wonderful Life. Oh and A Christmas Carol, too.
Edited:
 
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Quantum Leap was a fun show. I was a kid when I watched it, though, so it was probably a bunch of nonsense.


I'll add Interstellar, but only for the forward travel through time.
 
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Predestination was an excellent, under-the-radar time travel story. Stars a pre-Succession Sarah Snook. Based on a Heinlein story.


Someone else mentioned Primer, but it should absolutely be considered. Lo-fi thinker.


There was a 1-season TV series called 'Day Break' starring Taye Diggs that I really enjoyed, it's more of a time loop thing. Kinda like Groundhog Day but a cop mystery / thriller.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_Break

Coherence was a pretty tight mindfuck of a movie, loved it


Source Code, another time loop and more of an action movie but I thought it was pretty fun


Honorable mention for Palm Springs (on Hulu), a time loop comedy that was a ton of fun too!
 
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Blast from my days as a kid…

Watch out for the Sleestacks!
 
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Movie:

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TV Series (time travel-ish)
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Did you know that TV series was based on a movie of the same name AND that it prominently featured a Speedmaster? One of my favorite movies, but I never saw the series.
 
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I’m watching the “Assignment Earth” episode of classic Star Trek right now. I think that this was among Teri Garr’s earliest TV appearances.
 
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As mentioned before

Timeline

Time Machine
Who can resist the Eloy’s and Morlocks
 
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I feel like that was a similar process to TNG, DS9, and Voyager - the first 2 seasons are very weak, but after that figure the characters and the themes out and start to have some strong episodes.

I really don't cry often at all, but the Inner Light gets me every dang time. Like, serious ugly crying.
I go back and forth on which I think was better TNG and DS9, even thought they are hard to compare due to their inherent formats. I do wish that the DS9 finale was done better
 
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There was a 1-season TV series called 'Day Break' starring Taye Diggs that I really enjoyed, it's more of a time loop thing. Kinda like Groundhog Day but a cop mystery / thriller.


This reminds me - I really enjoy these Time Loop type episodes of things. "Cause and Effect" (TNG) is a great one, as is "Window of Opportunity" (Stargate SG-1). I'll have to check out Day Break.
 
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I go back and forth on which I think was better TNG and DS9, even thought they are hard to compare due to their inherent formats. I do wish that the DS9 finale was done better

They both have their strengths and weaknesses, but I like both series. And I like a lot of what Ron Moore did after DS9 - Battlestar Galactica, For All Mankind, Outlander, etc

And, how could we ever have a vintage watch forum without this beautiful gift from DS9?

 
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What a great thread. Watched this way back during my college days. It was really a captivating movie. The protagonist could travel back to specific points in time where he has been previously, by looking a photos of the time, if I remember correctly, but only briefly after which he was transported back to the new changed present.
And the slight changes he made in the past spiraled into totally unintended big changes to his present.
Hence the name of the movie.
 
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One I remember quite vividly is a Dr Who episode ( very first season and I was but 4 or 5 years old ) where the Doctor and his niece battle an invisible monster in a cave system.
Unfortunately this is one of the missing episodes so now as I age I am likely close to the last person alive to remember it.



But on a more modern note The Peripheral series I found very good, season 1 is completed just waiting on season 2 to come out.


Like most of William Gibson's stuff (he's a watch nerd) The Peripheral is a good novel.
 
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But on a more modern note The Peripheral series I found very good, season 1 is completed just waiting on season 2 to come out
There is no season 2 of the Peripheral.
 
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I would pick: Doctor Who ( both original and new obe), Nimitz retour en enfer ( The final countdown in english ( nothing to do with Europe)).
 
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There is no season 2 of the Peripheral.

Damnit looks like I will be watching it in black and white..............print! 😁