7 Time Travel TV Shows You Forgot Ever Happened

Vicki Hyman
34 Comments
timecop
Ted King in 'Timecop'

For those of us turned on by cosplay and the phrase “temporal paradox,” and who will always have a special place in our hearts for Scott Bakula and absurdly long striped wool scarves, this is a golden age of television.

There are three new time-travel shows on broadcast networks this season: ABC’s thriller Time After Time and Fox’s comedy Making History, both debuting Sunday, March 5,  joining NBC’s Timeless, which just wrapped its first season, not to mention The CW’s DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Starz’ Outlander, SyFy’s 12 Monkeys, and, of course, the immortal Doctor Who on BBC America. There has never been a better time to be a history nerd. But let’s not forget all those failed experiments in time travel that litter the vacuum tubes of yesteryear like roadkill.

Step into the Quantum Leap Accelerator for a trip back through TV time-travel history. All you have to do is smack the side of your remote control a few times and yell the magic word: Ziggy!

It’s About Time, 1966-1967
Flying high after Gilligan’s Island, Sherwood Schwartz sold CBS this new sitcom about two astronauts who break the sound barrier and land in the Stone Age, albeit one also occupied by dinosaurs — and, if you look closely, littered with borrowed props and sets from Gilligan’s Island. When the ratings quickly began to tank, Schwartz had his astronauts fix their spaceship and return to 1960s America with their new Neanderthal friends in tow. That went about as well as CBS’s Cavemen in 2007.

The Time Tunnel, 1966-1967
In this ABC adventure series, a not-quite-ready-for-prime-time time machine built in secret by the American government sends two scientists hurtling through the millennia, where they land at pivotal moments in history—the sinking of the Titanic, the attack on Pearl Harbor—and try to rewrite history. Spoiler alert: They don’t. Though it performed well over a 30-episode run, ABC dropped it favor of The Legend of Custer, which, it turned out, was the opposite of legendary.

Voyagers!, 1982-1983
Starring Meeno Peluce as the whip-smart orphaned son of a history professor, Jon-Erik Hexum as a dashing time traveler and, crucially, Hexum’s snug-fitting pants and perpetually unbuttoned white shirt, NBC’s charming and family-friendly Voyagers! entangled historical figures from various eras — Cleopatra, Babe Ruth and Isaac Newton in one episode, for example — in an effort to fix glitches in the historical record. Despite effectively goosing the libido of moms tuning in, Voyagers! was axed to make way for a news magazine expected to challenge the primacy of CBS’ 60 Minutes. Wonder how that turned out.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures, 1992
If the small screen adaptation of the 1989 surprise hit about two metal-god wannabes traveling through time in a phone booth had been done even more cheaply, and if a little more effort had gone in to making it even more lame, Bill & Ted might have worked—as a parody. (We pause for the obligatory air guitar squeal.) This utterly bogus Fox starring poor dudes’ version of Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter lasted a mere seven episodes.

Timecop, 1997-1998
Based on the Dark Horse comic and the 1994 Jean-Claude Van Damme film, Timecop starred relative unknown (and martial arts deficient) Ted King as an officer with the Time Enforcement Commission. He travels into the past to stop rogue criminals, including a recurring madman, from changing the future. Though ABC initially invested heavily in the show, network turnover marginalized the series, and it was canceled after 13 episodes, only nine of which ever aired.

Journeyman, 2007-2008
Kevin McKidd, fresh off HBO’s Rome, played a San Francisco newspaper reporter — yes! in this century! — who suddenly starts warping through time to help those whose destinies need a little nudging. Unlike its brethren, Journeyman dealt with the nitty-gritty realities of time travel: “You missed dinner, honey? Where were you?” “Oh, 1975.” “…” Hobbled by the writer’s strike, Journeyman was cancelled by NBC after its first season.

New Amsterdam, 2008
Not strictly a time travel show, Fox’s short-lived supernatural-tinged mystery starred the future Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) as an early Dutch settler of New York City blessed/cursed with immortality who now works as homicide detective and uses his encyclopedic knowledge of the city to solve crimes, with flashbacks to his earlier guises. And yes, that was basically the plot of ABC’s recent Forever, too. Help us, Sam Beckett! We’re stuck in a time loop!

DC's Legends of TomorrowDoctor Who (2005)Making HistoryOutlander (2014)Time After Time (2017)Timeless



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  1. C

    CyanCoathanger

    Time Trax

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    1. B

      BluePlanet

      With Dale Midkiff! I never watched it the first time around, but it sounded kind of like "Continuum," right? Police officer of the future sent back in time (to our present) to capture criminals.

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    2. G

      GoldBlowdryer

      Love Time Trax! I have it on DVD. :)

  2. G

    GoldTrumpet

    12 Monkeys is hands down the best time travel show I've ever seen. In this day and age it's really unusual to see a show that actually challenges you to pay attention and think about what's going on. The characters are exceptionally well written, the acting is faultless, and if you like your time travel twisted, this is the show for you! Such a shame it's hidden away on SyFy,
    I'm also loving Canada's Travelers which you missed out of your list of current time travel shows! This is another one you have to actually concentrate on whilst watching.
    Guilty pleasure is Timeless, which is kind of the anti-12 Monkeys in that you can just watch it as TV popcorn if you want to, and was intended to be that way, but also sometimes surprises you with interesting takes on fate versus self-determination, really appealing characters and some surprisingly good acting. It's possibly more like Time Tunnel than anything else in your list. I hope, unlike Time Tunnel, it lasts more than one season.

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    1. B

      BluePlanet

      I didn't include "Travelers" because it's new, these are all old shows. I haven't kept up with "12 Monkeys" but I did like the first season and have been meaning to catch up but, well, you know how that works.

    2. G

      GoldTrumpet

      Ooh make time for 12 Monkeys if you can! You won't regret it!

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    3. P

      PurpleSubmarine

      There was only four Monkees

  3. O

    OrangeBucket

    I love Syfy's 12 Monkeys. Quantum Leap was my one of my "past" favorites.

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  4. G

    GreenQuill

    I'm not sure that Time Tunnel counts as forgotten. I did really enjoy Voyagers.

    1

  5. O

    OliveSword

    Journeyman & Kings...2 shows that had a lot of potential that NBC just refused to see.

  6. O

    OliveBeer

    I enjoyed New Amsterdam and Journeyman (and Forever) and wished they'd gotten more seasons. I'm kind of a sucker for time travel shows, although I missed Time after Time.

  7. P

    PurpleHammer

    I remember Voyagers! well. Had it not been relegated to the 7PM Sunday death slot against 60 Minutes it might've gotten more than one season.

    1. P

      PurpleSubmarine

      Just think if Voyagers hadn't been canned than Jon Eric Hexum wouldn't have been playing with the prop gun on the set of Cover up.

  8. G

    GoldHammer

    I watched Voyagers! live as a preteen and loved it. Also enjoyed New Amsterdam and Journeyman, though they were not great shows if I'm being honest. Just fun, would have liked more, but oh, well.

  9. C

    CyanGuitar

    It wasn't a failure, but in a strange way, CBS's "Early Edition" was a time travel show of sorts. The hero, played by a pre-Friday Night Lights Kyle Chandler, received tomorrow's copy of the Chicago Sun Times today and spent every episode trying to prevent a yet-to-happen disaster of some kind, like a car crash, a fire or a murder. His best friend, played by Fisher Stevens, always wanted to use the advance info to play the winning lottery number or bet on the horse he knew would finish first.

    It ran for four years, but for some reason the network showed the final episode - in which Chandler's character turns over the paper to a young girl - out of order, so it didn't make much sense when it ended.

    1. B

      BluePlanet

      I was considering putting that in, although it is time travel-adjacent, not exactly time travel (like "New Amsterdam," but at least we saw him in different eras in "New Amsterdam). But I decided that if it lasted four seasons, then enough people probably remembered it. People love them some Kyle Chandler!

  10. G

    GreenApple

    Wasn't Voyagers canceled because Jon-Erik Hexum died?

    1. B

      BluePlanet

      No, it was canceled before. He was starring in "Cover Up" when he was killed.

    2. G

      GreenApple

      Wow, I had totally forgotten about Cover Up. Thanks for clarifying!

  11. G

    GreenRocket

    I've seen at least a few episodes of all but the Bill and Ted and Amsterdam, and even those I knew about.

    1. G

      GoldBattery

      I loved New Amsterdam. Sad it was cancelled so soon.

    2. B

      BluePlanet

      I loved "New Amsterdam" too. Thought it had a lot of potential.

  12. G

    GoldTrumpet

    What about Quantum Leap?? Probably the best time travel show of all.

    1. G

      GoldTrumpet

      Never mind. Reading comprehension fail!!

    2. B

      BluePlanet

      Yes, my favorite too. As I wrote up there, still crushing on Scott Bakula.

    3. O

      OliveCactus

      QL was a big hit, so it doesn't fit the premise of the article.

    4. G

      GoldTrumpet

      Also, she mentioned it quite prominently in the prologue. Hence, my "reading comprehension fail," comment below.

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  13. O

    OrangeMagnet

    Except for Bill and Ted, I remember all of these.
    "The Time Tunnel" is currently on MeTV, late Sat nights.

  14. C

    CyanCoathanger

    I didn't forget...I never heard of most of them. It's About Time is currently airing on Antenna TV.

  15. R

    RedPalmtree

    Forever was on ABC not CBS

    1. G

      GoldBug

      That isn't the only error in this article... :)

      Caveman was on ABC
      Timecop was 1997-1998 (the article says it aired before the release of the movie it was based on...)

    2. O

      OrangeFries

      This has been corrected. Thanks!

    3. O

      OrangeFries

      You are right. This has been corrected! Time travel took a toll on our writer!

    4. B

      BluePlanet

      Thank you all. My apologies. i wish I could time travel back to Tuesday and slap myself around. I'll have to settle for slapping myself around right now. You guys are on the ball!

      1