I love time-travel shows and have recently started watching this mid-60's American Irwin Allen series which I don't recall from my youth, possibly it was one of those Stateside shows which didn't cross over the Atlantic to here.
Anyway, it's a thoroughly enjoyable show, like so many U.S. series of the time ("The Man From U.N.C.L.E.", "I Spy", "The Wild Wild West" etc) featuring two male leads getting into unlikely adventures. The Tunnel itself doesn't look much different from the sort of treadmill you'd see at a fun-fair and it's funny to see the two adventurers drop in on their next time zone at the start, supposedly from a great height but very obviously suspended from a distance of not much more than three feet using a stop-action shot. The swirly time-travel sequences are similarly amusing but once they arrive at their destinations, their escapades are invariably entertaining.
I've only watched three of the shows to date, the best of them centring on a stay aboard the Titanic and while the two male leads are good-looking and act proficiently enough, it's crying out for a female co-lead I feel. There is a Miss Moneypenny-type back at control but it's a shame they couldn't walk her down the tunnel too to add a little more excitement, intrigue and of course, glamour to proceedings.
Still, chalk up another escapist mini-classic from the 60's, alongside "Land Of The Giants", "Lost In Space", "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" and many more, nostalgic reminders of my long-gone youth.
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