Nothing on TV

Do you remember the Science Fiction(ish) TV show from 1997 called “Crime Traveller” ?? Me neither. It rang no bells at all. Evidentally back then I was still going places and doing stuff. Anyway I was given this DVD….it was about time travel and it wasn’t American so it immediately got me intrigued. Unfortunately I can see why it only lasted for the one season. None of the characters came across as likeable. The cop who uses the time machine sees it as an easy way to solve crimes by going back to before the crime takes place and just listening in to the crook’s plans.

The time machine operated by Holly (as played by Chloe Annett) the police scientist is a ridiculous heath-robinson affair that takes up most of her apartment and is forever blowing a fuse. It also has umpteen flashing lights and the obligatory (and pointless) reel to reel tape recorder on the console just like Dr Who’s tardis circa 1965.

If I had a time machine the first thing I would do is go back a few days and buy a lottery ticket with the winning numbers on it. In one episode our hero sets out to do just that. However being unsure if the ticket would still be in his pocket when he returned to the present he decided to tell Holly the winning numbers. Despite having 12 hours to do this he proved unable to track her down or reach her on the office phone/car phone/fax. This is the sort of plot device that wouldn’t work today. In 1997 even the police didn’t seem to possess mobile phones !! With minutes to spare he gets a collegue to buy a lottery ticket but the guy looks at the scrap of paper upside down and consequently gets two of the numbers wrong. End of story. I would have just tried again the next day !!

Actually one of the few interesting concepts about this series were the rules/dos and don’ts of their time travelling to avoid a “paradox”. They mustn’t meet their other selves. They only seem to be able to go back in time a few hours or days and must be back at the time machine at the same moment they left it to avoid being stuck in a time loop. So to get back to the present they have to re-live the past. I think the Tardis is much cooler !!

So after the mind-boggling concepts of time travel I enjoyed putting my brain into neutral for a dose of “The Cuckoo Waltz”.