Thursday Movie Picks Television Edition - Time Travel

I saw a time machine once. It was the summer of 1984. My bestest buddies and I were just hanging out in front of the house and something rather strange came zooming by. It was one of these...


It was just like that, doors up and all. We had never seen anything like it. We didn't know when it came from or when it was going, but we knew it wasn't from when we were. Strangely enough, I would see it a year or so later with some other...um...modifications. There's a good chance you've seen it, too. It looks like this...


The reason I'm talking about time machines is because this week's Thursday Movie Picks, hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves, is all about time travel. However, it's also the last Thursday of the month. That means, we're actually talking about television shows. And in my never-ending quest to find unique things to write about, I've come up with some doozies, this week. Let's just get to it. And keep that car in mind.

No, I'm not talking about the movie. Yes, I'm serious. It takes place after the events of the third entry in the cinematic trilogy. Doc Brown has rebuilt the DeLorean since, you know, it got ran over by a train. The short of it is, Doc and Marty go on various adventures through time, Saturday morning cartoon style. And it was dreadful. It didn't help that none of the cast from the movies even bothered to do voice-over for the show. Christopher Lloyd does reprise his role as Doc during the show's Fat Albert like live-action opens, but that's not nearly enough to save this...um...trainwreck. See what I did there? Forget it. Just know that this show did do one good thing. It provides us with the national TV debut of one Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Late in the 21st century, 2193 to be exact, there's an issue with a time machine. It's a big issue. Some sort of malfunction happens and over 100 criminals are sent back 200 years into the past and are running around 1993 all willy-nilly. No need to fear, Darien Lambert is on the job. By that, I mean he's sent back to '93 and has to round up all the bad guys. It helps that the dude is a supergenius. Then again, everyone is in 2193. When he was a kid in the 2170s, he was described as "a normal child of his times." In this case, "normal" is having an IQ of 204 and a "speed memorization rate" of "1.2 pages per second." He has also trained his brain so that he could make things appear to him as if they were moving in slow motion. Well, damn. Anyhoo, it's not a terrible premise. The execution, on the other hand, not so hot.

No, I'm not talking about the movie. Yes, I'm serious. Wait, haven't I said this already? Anyhoo, just like the movie, it follows our hero as he tracks down bad guys who have traveled back to the past and tried to change it, usually for financial gain. For some odd reason, our hero isn't Max Walker, but Jack Logan (Ted King). I guess that makes sense since this show lacks even an ounce of Van Damme's charisma. Whether you like the movie or not, it's far better than this.