With the new Sci-Fi thriller "Flash Forward" on ABC's 2009 fall schedule, it's hard not to look back at the grandfather of all time travel shows, "The Time Tunnel." Created by Irwin Allen, this 1966 television series focused on Project Tic-Toc, a government-funded experiment which tried to send a man on a round-trip through time.

Facing budget cuts, Dr. Tony Newman (*James Darren*) decided to use himself as a human guinea pig in the untested Time Tunnel. Newman successfully sent himself to the deck of the Titanic hours before it hit the iceberg. Dr. Doug Phillips (*Robert Colbert*), the scientific director of Project Tic-Toc, followed his friend back to 1912 to help out.

Although the Time Tunnel could send people to different time periods, Phillips and Newman hadn't quite perfected how to bring those time travelers back to their starting point. The best that the technicians could do was to move them from time zone to time zone in the hopes of eventually perfecting the return mechanism.

Doug and Tony traveled through the centuries, landing in such places as a Mars rocket, Pearl Harbor and Krakatoa before the volcanic eruption. The two 20th Century scientists repeatedly had to convince everyone that they weren't crazy, and, quite often, they ended up in fistfights with people in the past.

Even if you believed time travel was possible, this show still required some suspension of disbelief. The staff at Project Tic-Toc, for instance, was constantly bringing the wrong people back through the tunnel, including a sword-wielding soldier and a little boy from the 19th Century. How come they could never get Doug and Tony all the way home?

The other odd thing was the clothing worn by the two doctors. Doug wore a suit while Tony had jumped into the time machine wearing a turtleneck and slacks. No matter how many fights and explosions they were in, their clothing always looked freshly laundered each week.

Still, "The Time Tunnel" is a fun "running and jumping" show that deserved a longer run that just one season.

Although police officers have been chasing fugitives on television for years, very few had to deal with the challenges faced by Captain Darien Lambert (Dale Midkiff) on the syndicated series "Time Trax." An officer from the 22nd Century, Lambert chased hundreds of criminals who had escaped to the year 1993.

The fugitives had used TRAX, a time machine that could send human beings into the past. The device wasn't quite perfect, though, because each person could only make a single roundtrip through time. Captain Lambert was sent back to 1993 to hunt down each fugitive, but the limitations of the time machine meant he had to stay in the past until each criminal had been shipped back.

His superiors gave Darien some specialized equipment to help him accomplish his mission, including a powerful, pocket-sized computer called Selma (Elizabeth Alexander). Disguised as a contemporary credit card, Selma helped Lambert uncover clues and locate each of the time traveling fugitives.

Darien also carried a special palm-sized weapon which could return each escapee to the 22nd Century. The device fired a special pellet which, when injected into a human body, allowed the TRAX machine to transport them back home. Darien longed for the day when he could inject himself, but he had to accomplish his mission first.

Two hundred years of evolution and conditioning also gave Darien Lambert a distinct advantage over 20th Century humans. He could run faster and his reflexes were sharper, making him a challenge to even Olympic level athletes. This physical superiority helped him locate a young boy who had been kidnapped by his father and taken to 1993. During a school track meet, the future boy broke a world record, which indicated to Darien that he was from the future.

Like the original 5-year mission on "Star Trek," Darien Lambert's fugitive hunt was cut short by low ratings. Still, the two seasons of "Time Trax" were a fun adventure series and one of the best uses of time travel on television.

Between the times that "Marcus Welby, M.D." first put up his shingle and the doctors over at County General Hospital started working in the "ER," the brave paramedics of "Emergency!" helped save lives on television each week. Although these professionals have become an established and necessary part of the medical community, when this show debuted in 1972, the use of paramedics was still in the experimental stage in most parts of the country. Thanks to a bit of legislation called "The Wedsworth-Townsend Act," however, Los Angeles made the paramedic program permanent; other states and counties soon followed suit.

"Emergency!" focused on Johnny Gage (*Randolph Mantooth*) and Roy DeSoto (*Kevin Tighe*), two paramedics who worked for the Los Angeles County Fire Department as part of Squad 51. Just like medical corpsmen on the battlefield, Gage and DeSoto went to accident sites, helping keep victims alive until they could be brought to Rampart Hospital. In some cases, Gage and DeSoto found themselves in awkward situations, such as helping a girl who got her toe stuck in a bathtub faucet. Other episodes covered some pretty grim emergencies, including a light airplane crash and a young boy overdosing on pills. At one point, Gage and DeSoto even made an appearance in an episode of the police drama "Adam-12," which was produced by the same company as their show.

"Emergency!" also made the crucial distinction between doctors and paramedics. At each accident site, Gage and DeSoto made sure to call Rampart Hospital for medical guidance from the doctor on duty. In one episode, an overeager, rookie paramedic gets the team in trouble because he started treating an injury victim without speaking to a doctor first.

This show, which lasted about seven seasons on NBC, took the paramedics all over Los Angeles County. At times, Gage and DeSoto were treating victims in the middle of a forest or near the top of a skyscraper. "Emergency!" is classic medical television and, if you are injured in the outdoors without a medical kit, hope that Johnny Gage and Roy DeSoto are the first ones on the scene.

Resources:
http://www.emergencyfans.com/episodes/insanity_epidemic.htm

In many ways, "Gilligan's Island" was the prototype for the popular reality show "Survivor." During this now-classic 1960's sitcom, seven people from different backgrounds were stranded together on an island during a terrible storm and, like the reality show, they had to work together in order to survive.

After spending 14 years in almost total seclusion before finally making it back home, however, some things just didn't add up:

Practically every week, Gilligan messed up an opportunity for the castaways to leave the island for good. After about a dozen foul-ups, in real life, one of his shipmates would probably tied up Gilligan in his sleep so he couldn't cause more mischief.

Bob Denver, who played the title role in the series, made an appearance in the 1987 movie "Back to the Beach." In character as Gilligan, Denver lamented the fact that he spent years on an island with a guy who could make a nuclear reactor out of two coconut shells and a piece of string, but he couldn't fix a two-foot hole in a boat.

Though Skipper *Jonas Grumby*'s first love was his boat, the Minnow, Gilligan and Professor Roy Hinkley were young, single guys. How come, in 14 years, neither one of them married Ginger Grant or Mary Ann Summers?

Despite the fact that most of the Minnow's passengers overpacked for a "three-hour tour", after 14 years of salt-water washings, even the sturdiest fabrics are going to fade and fall apart. When they were finally rescued, though, Gilligan and the Skipper were wearing fresh-looking clothes.

What exactly did the castaways use for toilet paper, toothpaste and other hygiene products?

Despite the lack of logic, "Gilligan's Island" remains one of the funniest outdoor television shows ever made. Even 45 years after its debut, it still is fun to lace up a pair of deck shoes and watch one of the episodes on satellite.

Before the "Great Cornfield Massacre" in 1971, a time when CBS axed "Hee Haw" and other rural-themed shows, "Green Acres" was a popular prime-time show. Created by the late, great Paul Henning, who also was responsible for "Petticoat Junction" and "The Beverly Hillbillies," this outdoor show focused on a farmer who truly was out of his element.

Eddie Albert played Oliver Wendell Douglas, a New York City attorney who, along with his beautiful wife Lisa (*Eva Gabor*), pulled up stakes and moved to the sleepy town of Hooterville. With his life-long love of farming, Douglas became a true "gentleman farmer," wearing a long-sleeved shirt and vest while his neighbors worked in overalls and work boots.

A small valley town serviced by an ancient train called "The Cannonball," Hooterville was home to a wide variety of colorful characters, including Mr. Haney (*Pat Buttram*), a salesman who always was willing to make a dishonest buck. Mr. Haney sold Oliver and Lisa his farm, which contained a decaying farmhouse that could not be successfully painted.

At times, it seemed as if the people of the Hooterville Valley actually came from another planet. The Ziffels at a nearby farm, for instance, had a "son" named Arnold, who actually was a television-loving pig. Arnold loved nothing more than to sit in front of the TV watching Westerns.

Though devoted to his farm, Oliver Douglas was notoriously bad at growing things. On the rare occasions that he did have a good apple crop, he had to rent a defective truck to take them to market. On the long journey, the apple prices continued to fall, making the trip less profitable as time went on.

"Green Acres" also was one of those rare sitcoms from the 1960's that showed a married couple sleeping in the same bed. Most episodes ended with Oliver and Lisa talking about the events of the day while they got cozy under the sheets. Lisa also could occasionally see the opening and closing credits of the show, which mystified her husband.

Several seasons of "Green Acres" currently are available for purchase on DVD.