My memories of "City On The Edge Of Forever"

[HGN2001]

50 years ago (1966) during an early September week, I watched two new science-fiction series: STAR TREK and THE TIME TUNNEL. The pilot for THE TIME TUNNEL won me over and THAT was the one I was going to watch every week. STAR TREK's problem was that it was up against BEWITCHED, and I just couldn't abandon that series.

And so, for the 1966-1967 season, I watched THE TIME TUNNEL each week - occasionally tuned in to see STAR TREK, but only for short segments. On the day that "City On The Edge Of Forever" was to air, the evening newspaper in town suggested that fans of THE TIME TUNNEL should check out STAR TREK with the heroes plunging back through time to save the Enterprise.

I did just that and became a forever STAR TREK fan. I'll agree that as one of the better episodes, it's gotten a lot of play over the years and as a result it's worn a little thin. But it's still up there in my estimation.

Harry

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I never thought of this before, but now it seems obvious: TCOTEOF was a knockoff of The Time Tunnel !

Harlan Ellison took an Irwin Allen concept and adapted it to Star Trek. The natural question is, why didn't he simply sell his story idea to The Time Tunnel itself. Have James Darren meet Edith Keeler. The answer is either that TTT wasn't buying, or Ellison didn't want to go there. Maybe Ellison disliked the Allen-verse for some reason.

 

[johnnybear]

I think the Edith Keeler premise was a little above Irwin's head to be honest! In The Time Tunnel he had the two scientists landing in different eras every week but there never was even a hint of them changing the reality of their landings and the flow of history! They were just there and involved instead of a "If we do anything out of character here we could change events to such a degree that we alter the future!"
JB

 

[Maurice]

I never thought of this before, but now it seems obvious: TCOTEOF was a knockoff of The Time Tunnel !

Harlan Ellison took an Irwin Allen concept and adapted it to Star Trek. The natural question is, why didn't he simply sell his story idea to The Time Tunnel itself. Have James Darren meet Edith Keeler. The answer is either that TTT wasn't buying, or Ellison didn't want to go there. Maybe Ellison disliked the Allen-verse for some reason.

Um, no. The Time Tunnel wasn't even on the air at the time Ellison was signed to write his episode. The Time Tunnel premiered the same season Trek did.

 

[HGN2001]

Um, no. The Time Tunnel wasn't even on the air at the time Ellison was signed to write his episode. The Time Tunnel premiered the same season Trek did.

This is correct. Harlan Ellison was assigned his story for STAR TREK back in March of 1966, That would be in the range of a month or two of THE TIME TUNNEL's pilot being completed, so there would have been no chance for Ellison to have sampled the Allen series beforehand.

Knowing how frugal Irwin Allen was, he wouldn't have paid a known writer to write for his shows - not at that point anyway. He did seek out a few in the early days of VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, but then cheaped out on that show too.

THE TIME TUNNEL didn't usually delve into any deeply personal territory with its shows, sticking rather with the fistfights and joining in with whatever the crisis of that time period put them into. There was one story late in the series run where James Darren's character falls in love with a woman back in the Marco Polo episode. He wanted to remain rather than be transferred out but later saw the error of his ways. It didn't have near the emotional impact of the "City On The Edge Of Forever."

A while back, I think I spotted it here on this forum, someone brilliantly made a mash-up photo of COTEOF and TIME TUNNEL:

I'd love to credit whoever it was, but sadly don't have the information - but it IS BRILLIANT!

 

[ToddPence]

The TIME TUNNEL pilot was screened at the same 1966 Ohio Science Fiction Convention at which Gene Roddenberry first screened "Where No Man Has Gone Before".

 

[Maurice]

Ellison was probably persona non grata at Irwin Allen Productions after his Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea segment fiasco in which he employed his "shoot them the bird/you fucked my script" Cordwainer Bird pseudonym because...

DID HARLAN REALLY PUNCH IRWIN ALLEN?

Never touched him. But he was in the room when it happened...

Seems Harlan was writing for _Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea_, and
Harlan, Irwin Allen, the head of ABC Network Continuity (read 'censor'), and
others were in a story conference, and the network head wanted Harlan to make
more than a few "stupid changes" in his script....

Harlan: "Those are stupid! And you're stupid for asking for those things."
Network head: "You'll make them all right."
Harlan: "You don't understand. I will _not_ make them."
Network head: "Writers are toadies. You will do as you're told."
​

Harlan became angry, leapt upon the long conference table, and ran down
the length of it at the network head, intent on kicking him in the face.
Harlan slipped and slid the rest of the way down the table, hit the guy in
the mouth, knocking him backwards out of his chair, knocking a model of the
_Seaview_ off the wall, and it broke the man's pelvis.

Irwin Allen settled out of court for the whole incident.

(Quotes from Comics Journal #53, Gary Groth, interviewer)​

SOURCE: http://harlanellison.com/text/newsfaq.txt

 

[Marsden]

They reused that story in the movie Elf!

 

[ZapBrannigan]

It still seems plausible that Harlan was in a position to know about The Time Tunnel premise long before TTT aired on television, and before he came up with the idea for TCOTEOF.

 

[HGN2001]

It's possible that Irwin Allen even gave him a tour around the set while Harlan was still on Irwin's good side.

 

[Doug Otte]

50 years ago (1966) during an early September week, I watched two new science-fiction series: STAR TREK and THE TIME TUNNEL. The pilot for THE TIME TUNNEL won me over and THAT was the one I was going to watch every week. STAR TREK's problem was that it was up against BEWITCHED, and I just couldn't abandon that series.

And so, for the 1966-1967 season, I watched THE TIME TUNNEL each week - occasionally tuned in to see STAR TREK, but only for short segments. On the day that "City On The Edge Of Forever" was to air, the evening newspaper in town suggested that fans of THE TIME TUNNEL should check out STAR TREK with the heroes plunging back through time to save the Enterprise.

I did just that and became a forever STAR TREK fan. I'll agree that as one of the better episodes, it's gotten a lot of play over the years and as a result it's worn a little thin. But it's still up there in my estimation.

Harry

Thanks for the wonderful recounting of your memories. CotEoF is indeed a haunting episode, and one that I show folks who aren't familiar with Trek. It helps dispel any misconeptions they have based upon popular media distortions of the series.

 

[Doug Otte]

Ellison was probably persona non grata at Irwin Allen Productions after his Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea segment fiasco in which he employed his "shoot them the bird/you fucked my script" Cordwainer Bird pseudonym because...

DID HARLAN REALLY PUNCH IRWIN ALLEN?

Never touched him. But he was in the room when it happened...

Seems Harlan was writing for _Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea_, and
Harlan, Irwin Allen, the head of ABC Network Continuity (read 'censor'), and
others were in a story conference, and the network head wanted Harlan to make
more than a few "stupid changes" in his script....

Harlan: "Those are stupid! And you're stupid for asking for those things."
Network head: "You'll make them all right."
Harlan: "You don't understand. I will _not_ make them."
Network head: "Writers are toadies. You will do as you're told."​

Harlan became angry, leapt upon the long conference table, and ran down
the length of it at the network head, intent on kicking him in the face.
Harlan slipped and slid the rest of the way down the table, hit the guy in
the mouth, knocking him backwards out of his chair, knocking a model of the
_Seaview_ off the wall, and it broke the man's pelvis.

Irwin Allen settled out of court for the whole incident.

(Quotes from Comics Journal #53, Gary Groth, interviewer)​

SOURCE: http://harlanellison.com/text/newsfaq.txt

Harlan can be such a brilliant comedian!

 

[Kor]

It's been a long time since I watched The Time Tunnel. My vague memories tell me that, while TTT was a fun show, Star Trek was somewhat higher-caliber science fiction (be that as it may...). It certainly had more involvement with literary SF authors.

Anyway, CotEoF in it's produced form remains one of my favorite Trek episodes of all time, no matter what Ellison has said over the years.

Kor

 

[Sgt_G]

I don't remember Time Tunnel, but City was and still is one of my top-ten all-time favorite Trek episodes. In fact, I borrowed heavily from it while writing a short story, posted here: http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/short-story-set-in-st-tos-era-timelines.221197/ Enjoy!!

 

[Six of Twelve]

I watched Time Tunnel as a kid back then, but never saw any reruns of it.

As I recall, the first episode had them going back to the Titanic and ended with them jumping over the side just before it sinks and disappearing before hitting the water. I seem to remember them trying to persuade the captain to take precautions without revealing their knowledge of the future, but they either couldn't get to him or he wouldn't listen to them. I hope I'm remembering it correctly after it being fifty years since seeing the episode.

 

[johnnybear]

You are. The series had them continue travelling through time until in the very last episode it looked very much like they would return to The Titanic and be forced to relive their adventures in time for ever and abit!
JB

 

[HGN2001]

You are. The series had them continue travelling through time until in the very last episode it looked very much like they would return to The Titanic and be forced to relive their adventures in time for ever and abit!
JB

That's a perpetuated myth that was simply a product of the way television worked. THE TIME TUNNEL was constructed with a cliffhanger-preview of the next episode. At the conclusion of the 30th and final episode, a special promo was made for the first rerun of the summer, which was to be the pilot. The pilot episode didn't have the boys flying through time to the deck of the Titanic, but was itself constructed differently - obviously. It had a series-setup beginning.

The way it WOULD have worked, had ABC renewed the show was exactly the way they handled LOST IN SPACE. At the conclusion of whatever the final rerun of summer would have been, a special, new cliffhanger-teaser would have been inserted to promo the first episode of the next season.

Once upon a time, in the 1977 book, FANTASTIC TELEVISION, Gerani and Schulman wrote:

"In the final episode, our two scientist heroes materialize once again on the deck of the Titanic, never to be heard from again. Viewers are left with the impression that the whole cycle will be repeated."

And that book remained a "source" for many a TV science-fiction fan for years, so the myth perpetuated. In fact they did NOT "materialize" on the deck of the Titanic. It was simply a minute-long promo constructed especially for that first rerun. The only part of their statement that is correct is: "never to be heard from again." That's true. They were transferred out of the "Town Of Terror" and never heard from again.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Once upon a time, in the 1977 book, FANTASTIC TELEVISION, Gerani and Schulman wrote...

I have that book and still love it. In the 1970s, with no World Wide Web, a book like that was a much bigger deal than today's young fans can possibly appreciate. Whatever its little faults here and there, Fantastic Television has tons of good information and hundreds of great photos.

 

[johnnybear]

Yes I know they added that scene because of the summer repeats but it was sort of left that the boys would continue to travel through time forever!
JB

 

[johnnybear]

I have that book and still love it. In the 1970s, with no World Wide Web, a book like that was a much bigger deal than today's young fans can possibly appreciate. Whatever its little faults here and there, Fantastic Television has tons of good information and hundreds of great photos.

Mines in pieces these days but it's a great book!
JB