1966 - THE TIME TUNNEL, RENDEZVOUS WITH YESTERDAY, pilot episode for the series

 One of the greatest "12 year old boy" TV shows of the mid 1960's The Time Tunnel was a series created by producer Irwin Allen, which had a couple of scientists traveling through time meeting various historical personalities and having lots of improbable adventures.  The pilot for the series Rendezvous With Yesterday has all of the good and bad traits of an Irwin Allen production.

To begin with the actual set of The Time Tunnel, the tunnel itself is very cool.  The models and miniature work for the secret base called "Operation Tic Toc," in the pilot were up to a very high standard.  Irwin Allen also cast the show with lots of character actors such as Whit Bissell, Robert Colbert, James Darren and Lee Meriwether because there always has to be a woman in a TV series.  Allen also didn't skimp on the guest stars for the pilot episode, Gary Merrill, Michael Rennie and Susan Hampshire appear.  The pilot has the two scientists traveling back to the Titanic before it sank and trying to persuade the captain to avoid the infamous iceberg that the ship hit.  It's a decent enough story for the initial episode.

 

The conceit of this series was that Irwin Allen was able to use stock footage from the 20th Century studios vault as the scientists traveled through different times.  In this way he was able to give the series a rather epic look while not spending a whole lot of money.  In the case of Rendezvous With Yesterday, it's clear Allen was using stock footage from the 1953 film Titanic.

However the real star of this series was always the Time Tunnel set itself.  Sitting in front of their control panels the cast playing scientists rattles off lots of ridiculous science talk jargon involving the "image area, radiation baths," and other silly time travel mumble jumbo.  All of this is highly entertaining.

 

As the series went on Irwin Allen's propensity to start incorporating cheaper production values and lazy storytelling finally started to catch up with the series. Some of the later episodes are truely awful.  The series only lasted one season but amazingly filmed 30 episodes.

Harold Jack Bloom wrote the script for the pilot episode and the running time is about 53 minutes.