A blast from the past through the Time Tunnel...

Ah, bless Horror channel for its revival of that gem from the 1960’s, The Time Tunnel. From the intriguing Saul Bass-type animation as the opening credits roll, to the hypnotic gyrating of that fabulous op-art tunnel, to the plausible control centre with its spinning mainframe cassettes – remember those? - to the crew of quasi-nuclear scientist operators, it strikes me how well this television series has stood the test of, well, time. Already, stars James Darren and Robert Colbert have been on board a sinking Titanic – though I could have told the set designers that the ship’s fourth funnel emitted no smoke – joined a US space flight to Mars, and convinced a remote community that the advent of a comet did not herald the end of the world – and Darren and Colbert have just landed in Japan on December 7, 1941! Here, I add how odd that a very US-definitive piece of programming should adapt a piece of Eastern bloc music, in this instance, the infectuous Sabre Dance by Aram Khachaturian – born in Armenia under Soviet rule – to synch with rolling credits, spinning tunnel, et al – but what’s a Commie or two between ad-breaks? Overall, a glorious trip to the past. I anticipate future episodes already.