The Twilight Zone (TV Series) No Time Like the Past (1963) User Reviews

"Are you satisfied with this kind of Twentieth Century?"

[classicsoncall · 8/10 · 29 June 2010]

With one hundred eleven episodes down, (this being #112), and forty four more to go, I'd have to say that "No Time Like The Past" offers up the best speech of the entire Twilight Zone series. It's the one where Paul Driscoll (Dana Andrews) admonishes Hanford (Robert Cornthwaite) at the dinner table about the blood and guts reality of war against the rabid sentiment of conquest for it's own sake. It provides Miss Abigail (Patricia Breslin) with an insight into Driscoll's character, and perhaps more so, an idea that he's 'in love with a moment' that can't quite be comprehended.

I'm sure like many viewers I was intrigued by the story's choice of moments in time for Driscoll to go back to. With World War II not quite two decades old, Rod Serling found that era a frequent stopping off point for his characters. That was the case with Season One's 'Judgment Night' along with a couple more in Season Three - 'Deaths-Head Revisited' and 'A Quality of Mercy'. Adolph Hitler even made a prior appearance (sort of) in the second season's 'The Man in the Bottle'. This show used actual archive footage of Hitler in a couple of instances, further insinuating Driscoll into events of the past that he initially sought to change for the better.

Since there's no bargaining with history, Driscoll is defeated at every turn in his attempt to affect outcomes. Interestingly, he tries to retreat to the seemingly innocuous America of 1881 where he once again is defeated by the rigidity of the past. Maybe I'm being a bit too naive here, but why was Driscoll so intent on unbridling the horses. Why not just GRAB the lantern?

While watching, I couldn't help but draw a couple of comparisons to the 'Star Trek' episode from that series' first season - 'The City on the Edge of Forever'. Besides the obvious transporter room analogy, I was struck by the similarity between Driscoll's encounter with Miss Abby, and William Shatner's serious fall for the Joan Collins character in that story. Driscoll was certainly more dispassionate about the whole thing, which might have made him a tad bit out of the ordinary when you come right down to it. That, along with a sense of history that I find just too unbelievable. I mean, everyone who was alive when John F. Kennedy was killed remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing on Novemmber 22nd, 1963. But seriously, how would anyone from the future know what day James A. Garfield was shot, much less the day he died?

Uneven but with moments of brilliance

[lyrast · 7/10 · 23 August 2010]

I would tend to agree with many of the reservations of other reviewers regarding"No Time Like The Past"--In fact, it is one of the most uneven in the entire series. But that includes moments of brilliance as well as failures.

First let me warn you that everything that follows has major spoilers. So don't read this until you have seen the episode.

Let's examine the negatives of the episode first. It tends to split into two programs: the first 15 minutes and the rest. The first section has Dr Paul Driscoll {Dana Andrews} trying to change history for the better by changing three decisive moments. The trouble is that only the second {an assassination of Hitler} could really be called decisive. It is also the only one in which it would appear that Driscoll has the remotest chance of success. The other two are just not convincing. Really, what good is it to warn a Japanese officer about Hiroshima a couple minutes before the bomb drops? And trying to get the captain of the Lusitania to change course isn't very convincing either.

From all this, Driscoll learns that "the past is inviolable". So why go back to a golden age in 1881 when he knows that he can't form meaningful relationships or change anything? Most of the time he spends there is filled with anguish and a sense of being out of place.

Finally, neither in this section nor in the much better second part do we get any explanation as to how Driscoll manages to get back to his own time.

What saves the episode and keeps us watching is the often brilliant script of Rod Serling and the bittersweet impossible romance of Driscoll and Abigail Sloan {Patricia Breslin}. This section of the episode is so skillfully presented that I think we can forgive the ineptitude of the opening sequence.

The plot is one that is quite familiar to enthusiasts of time travel stories. The problem of going into the past to change the future is done in a way that is highly reminiscent of two stories by Isaac Asimov. In a short story "The Red Queen's Race" and the novel The End of Eternity--both written in the fifties-- Asimov develops the idea that all attempts to change the future are, in fact, only creating the same future the time traveller left behind. The past cannot be changed because it is already part of the present. Thus, if one "successfully" manages to "change" events, one is in reality only repeating events that History has always recorded.

Later on in 1967 the original series of Star Trek approached the same idea in "The City On The Edge of Forever" with somewhat more success. Jack Finney does something similar in his novel "From Time To Time". The hero and heroine attempt to save the Titanic by creating a course change. In so doing they actually cause the disaster.

So the Serling story makes good use is of an honourable plot tradition and generally it works fairly well. As in most stories using this device. the power comes from the emotional involvement of the characters and this is the case here.

Very uneven the episode may be but it remains very much worth watching.

This Serling script is good - at times- but not at all times.

[darrenpearce111 · 8/10 · 7 December 2013]

Paul Driscoll (Dana Andrews) is a time traveler who wants to leave the 20th century. He denounces humanity in his own time in a way that resembles Taylor the astronaut at the beginning of Planet Of The Apes (Serling scripted, of course). Driscoll then appears at different times earlier in the century, and of these only the 1939 scene works dramatically. Driscoll returns to 1963 saying he wants to live in the 19th century in a quiet place called Homeville (like Willoughby, Cliffordville etc). There, on the periphery of this story is the shooting of President Garfield. Some wise words about 'armchair warriors', and 'what a shrapnel wound feels like' ( Rod Serling suffered shrapnel wounds in WW11). Driscoll comes across potential love interest in school teacher Abigail (Patricia Breslin from Nick Of Time,series two).

Dana Andrews had a wonderful voice and I like hearing him delivering the pessimistic dialogue about the all consuming madness of war in men. The story however seems quite a bit rushed, which is a pity because some elements of this are very good.

Very interesting, but flawed in its execution.

[basanakin · 21 July 2011]

Without outlining the the story - presuming you've read the other reviews or watched the episode - it's clear that this story contains two smaller episodes. Both are interesting, but ultimately also not really thought out.

The first half of the episode is about a scientist trying to prevent historical moments which had horrific consequences for thousands - and in one case millions - human beings. This part of the episode has many plot holes, nicely outlined by one of the reviewers here. This dark side of the coin is accompanied by a brighter side, however, because this episode leaves room for a debate for the historians about 'how the could change history if you could go back in time'. I have my own thoughts, for instance, for how Nazism was 'born', but the other might hold on to a whole other theory about the same subject.

The second have of the episode has a whole other kind of pacing: its slower, it has more eye for details, and it develops a romantic story, which is executed very well. However, one small segment annoyed me very much: why untying the horses if the character KNOWS the lantern at the back is the cause of the fire? WHY NOT JUST GRAB THE LATERN? When I saw this for the first time, I just had to pause the video, close my eyes for a moment, and get ready for the unthoughtful writing of the story. So this latter half has also a dualistic nature: its story is a very good concept to work on - stating that destiny is inevitable - but its told in a very unthoughtful way.

It's not a bad or good episode; its somewhere in the middle...perhaps in the twilight zone? ;)

Time Travel

[kellielulu · 9/10 · 4 July 2023]

Paul Driscoll (Dana Andrews ) tries to change the past but it never quite works so unsatisifed with war making he decides to live in the past . 1881 to be exact and not change anything. He knows too much though about the future and even trying to do what he thinks will help will have unitended consequences . Paul decides he must return to his own time despite finding love .He doesn't belong there and returns to his time and will concetrate on the future and changing the tomorrows .That's really the moral of the story we can't and shouldn't try to live in the past it's pointless we should do what we can to make the future better .Well acted especially by Dana Andrews good support by Patricia Breslin and Robert F Simon as Paul's wise counterbalance .

The script is not perfect it feels a bit like two episodes intead of one seemless one and it's an issue of time travel stories in that the big things don't change but the travler still manages to alter something but the overall moral of the story is simple but profound.

A thoughtful, warm and enjoyable story.

[tavasiloff · 10/10 · 3 January 2024]

Say what you will about the "plot holes," flat writing and other criticisms, this episode, especially with Driscoll "going home" and meeting Abby, is a touching, poignant story line. Dana Andrews, Pat Breslin and the supporting cast in this segment reinforce Driscoll's idealistic idea of a past without the trappings of the 20th century. Yet he soon realizes that it makes no difference when you live, which is an important distinction to his pre-conceived notions of a perfect life. When he says good bye to Abby after the school house fire, there was part of me that wanted him to stay. The chemistry between Driscoll and Abby was genuine, a high compliment to Andrews and Breslin. One of the best one-hour episodes.

More than any other season four episode, like two half hour shows fused together.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 16 June 2010]

This episode of "The Twilight Zone" is strongly reminiscent of the later TV series "The Time Tunnel" in that a time traveler tries repeatedly to undo horrible events of the past but despite his best efforts, the horrible events always occur. However, in "The Time Tunnel" the two travelers 'coincidentally' just happen to land in these times and places whereas in this episode Dana Andrews deliberately sets out to change history...but can't. A few of the disasters he tries to undo are the bombing of Hiroshima as well as the Torpedoing of the Lusitania (also, by the way, a plot from "The Time Tunnel" is VERY similar---with the guys ending up on the Titanic).

As a result, he now thinks that the past CANNOT be changed--at least for the better. And, inexplicably he is going back to the past to live could cause no harm--what will occur WILL occur no matter what he does. And he chooses a seemingly idyllic time and place--in a small town in 19th century America. And, he agrees with his colleague that he must be sure not to tamper with events of the time period--and just live out his life in peace. However, try as he might, his knowledge of will come to pass make it difficult, if not impossible, to just sit back and watch life pass.

Overall, a rather average episode that seems more like two half hour episodes fused together. There are two very distinct and different parts to the story and each cold have stood alone. The acting of Andrews, as usual, is professional and excellent.

A minor problem about the episode is that Dana Andrews' attempts to change history seemed pretty lame. Based on the way his character acted (not always rationally, that's for sure), you could see why no one takes him seriously! And, if they didn't, why didn't he just use the time machine AGAIN to try undoing the same event? After all, they wouldn't recall who he was the second time!

Unhitch those pedantic quibbles!

[midbrowcontrarian · 9/10 · 22 August 2021]

Science Fiction often deals with situations that cannot happen in reality. Yet paradoxically the genre attracts critiques of a pedagogic rigour more appropriate to a Latin school teacher. It's said Paul should have ensured his rifle was loaded before trying to kill Hitler, or that his assassination in 1939 wouldn't even have been wise. Also he should have simply removed the pedlar's lantern rather than attempting to unhitch his horses. No doubt all this is logical, but you wouldn't have had a story. That said, I'll allow myself one pedantic observation, the 1945 Japanese policeman's spectacles look more Henry Kissinger than Admiral Tojo.

The latter part where Paul attempts an escape from the 20th century in picturesque 1881 Homeville lift the episode above average. It has notably better dialogue, especially the dinner table confrontation between world weary Paul and the jingoistic Mr Hanford. It mostly concerns the romance with Abby, culminating in the tear jerking scene where a hurt Abby reproaches Paul "we'll leave it at that then" after he's made it clear, without explaining why, that they cannot get together. Call me a soppy romantic but it made me exasperatedly cry: don't be such a clot, you won't find anyone better. Patricia Breslin looks more elegant with hair up in 19th century style than her usual 60s pageboy cut, indeed she's probably never looked nicer.

History Cannot Be Changed

[AaronCapenBanner · 6/10 · 3 November 2014]

Dana Andrews stars as a time-traveling scientist named Paul Driscoll who decides he can no longer stand his present, which he finds disappointing, so decides to alter three key events in history; first to warn Hiroshima victims that they are doomed, second to kill Adolph Hitler with a rifle, and third to prevent the sinking of the Lusitania, but all attempts fail, so Driscoll instead goes back to 1881 Indiana to settle down, but will yet again learn a most personal history lesson... Partially misguided drama wastes time on three futile attempts to change history(obvious padding) until the narrative picks up in Indiana, which is interesting and well-written, especially the dinner-time speech about planting one's flag. Uneven and overlong, but still entertaining.

"I know too many Tomorrows "

[stevercoronado · 8/10 · 22 November 2023]

Enjoyed the episode as nothing like 60's time travel science fiction. This is from the one hour episode listing from 1963 the fourth year as CBS expanded from the half hour format, just a stretch and returned to original format the following season.

Written by Sterling and despite negative reviews , just enjoy a story where despite Dana Andrews character awareness to all that is to happen, presidential death, school fire and love interest impacted .

The Lathberry poem at close is pretty cool .... Fun episode as to the title , No Time Like The Past !!

I enjoy the preview at close of each episode as this one features The Parallel.

Thoughtful Time Trip.

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 3 May 2013]

Even those who remember the past are compelled to repeat it. I can't recall whose quote that paraphrases. Santa somebody. Santa Claus? That can't be right.

Well, no matter. Dana Andrews is a modern scientist who looks around him and sees nothing but threats, dangers, misery, mishigas. The world is going to hell in a handbasket -- and this is only 1963. He should see the world 40 years later.

So he decides to straighten things out by projecting himself into the past and trying to prevent the disaster written into modern history books. The science-fiction apparatus is perfunctory: a tight shot of Andrews' face, a cloud of smoke, the subject looks groggy, and -- poof -- he's back where he wanted to go, with no explanation of how it works.

But every attempt fails. First, his warnings to evacuate Hiroshima are ignored; then his attempt to assassinate Hitler is aborted; then he can't convince the captain of the Lusitania to alter course.

So he decides to hell with it. He picks out a nice, small, peaceful little town in Indiana, 1888, and projects himself there, with the intent of staying there for good, living a serene existence. He's vowed to change nothing because, you know, the butterfly effect and all that? But circumstances get the better of his intentions. He and a pretty school teacher, Pat Breslin, fall for one another. At the Fourth of July, he notices in the modern guidebook he's brought with him that the school house will burn down and a dozen children "severely injured." The disaster will be caused by a broken kerosene lamp from a salesman's wagon.

Minutes before the fire is scheduled to start, Andrews does his best to unhitch the horses from the peddler's wagon. The peddler takes a crack at him with a whip, the horses bolt, the wagon rattles off down the street, the lantern is flung from its hook, and everything proceeds on schedule.

Andrews kisses his girl good-bye and returns permanently to the present, determined now to try to solve current problems and improve the future, which is much more sensible, even if equally futile.

You have to hand it to Dana Andrews. He's older, of course, almost twenty years past his heyday, and the last couple of those years were given over to booze. Yet, he's professional and convincing enough, and Rod Serling has given him some good lines. I wish I had noted some of them. "The arts we admire the most are designed to kill" -- something like that.

Patricia Breslin, not a glamorous beauty, is attractive and appealing, despite the fact that her close ups appear to have been filmed through somebody's stretched pantyhose. She brings something to the role, too. In one shot, she's facing away from Andrews, chatting about something, then stumbles over her lines, turns around and asks firmly, "Paul, who are you? Where did you come from?" It's a small thing but she handles it nicely.

As for the logic behind the scientific part of the plot -- how did Andrews manage to wind up in a hotel room directly across the street from Hitler's platform, that sort of thing -- it's best not to ask.

This must be where Abe "Grampa" Simpson got his time-traveling advice from!

[Coventry · 8/10 · 1 February 2022]

Surely I'm not the only geek who instantly thought about the "advice" Abe Simpson gave to Homer with regards to traveling back in time? I believe it was in a Treehouse of Horror episode when, during a flashback, Grampa warned Homer not to touch or alter anything if he would ever travel back in time. Long before there ever was Emmett Brown and his DeLorean, this wisdom already featured in the almighty series "The Twilight Zone".

I'm actually very happy that I can give a high rating and favorable review to "No Time like the Past", because the pre-credits dialogue/discussion between two males (Dana Andrews and Malcolm Atterbury) is indescribably boring! It wasn't very encouraging to continue watching, in fact. Luckily, the instalment becomes very good immediately after Rod Serling's traditional intro-speech. Paul Driscoll makes use of Prof. Elliot's time machine to prevent thee major historical tragedies from happening. When they all fail, he wishes to use the machine one last time to permanently travel back to the year 1881 and settle in an idyllic little village; - long before all the horrors of the 20th century. But even that seems impossible.

Although the overall moral of the story is obvious (= the past is written), this is a fun episode with several action-packed highlights and staggering dialogs. It's also one of the few episodes of the infamous 4th season that makes perfect use of the longer running time. Driscoll's attempts to alter history three times, and his desperate attempt not to interfere with history in 1881 almost feel like two 25-minute tales splendidly merged into one.

Another Trip to Some Contrived Paradise

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 23 April 2014]

How many times has the Twilight Zone gone back to that town with the bandstand and those big wheeled bicycles, the picket fences and the candy stores. Apparently, modern technology has developed some sort of time travel device, and despite the immutability of time, sends people back. In this case a man is fed up with the way of the world. We have reverted to a cesspool. One country develops a nuke; then the other develops theirs; and bingo the world is blown into a million pieces. He decides to go on a mission to change things. First he goes to Hiroshima to warn them about the atom bomb, then he tries to assassinate Hitler (the gun misfires), and finally tries to talk the commander of the Lusitania into changing course. Because he sounds like a nut and has absolutely no authority, none of the people are willing to listen to him (and rightfully so). His disillusionment continues and he asks to be sent back to this bucolic utopia of the 1800's. In one scene he faces off against a banker who is spouting all his jingoistic malarky about planting the old American flag on every piece of land on the earth (stepping on the bodies of the heathens that inhabit these places). He meets a pretty young schoolteacher (of course) who finds his views intriguing. He is caught between a rock and a hard place because he has knowledge of the future but must do nothing to alter time. He hears of the shooting of President Garfield and can't do anything but wait for the inevitable. He finally comes to a point where he has to decide whether to act or not. There are so many holes in this thing and the man is so clueless at times, it begs the question whether he should have been allowed this freedom.

One of the weakest

[Qanqor · 4/10 · 12 January 2010]

This is, in my ever-so-humble opinion, one of the weakest episodes of the entire series. The idea isn't bad, but the execution fails.

The main problem is with the protagonist. He's just an idiot. Which really makes very little sense, since he had to have been some kind of genius to invent the time machine. But his ideas of what to *do* with the machine are feeble.

Imagine that you are given a time machine with which you may go back in time and attempt to alter history for the better. Where would you go? What would you do? Take a minute to consider that rather intriguing question, and then consider what our hero, Paul, does with it:

1) Go back to Hiroshima in 1945, and try to warn the military authorities about the impending doom of the city due to the bomb.

Huh??? Two rather gaping problems with this:

a) Why would you expect that *anybody* is going to believe you one tiny whit? Especially as an American! But even if you could somehow go as a native Japanese, nobody is going to order the evacuation of a large city just because one person spouts stories of a great bomb the likes of which no one has ever seen! It's preposterous.

b) Even if you succeed, so what? You might manage to save a few thousand people from death. So what? It's still a drop in the bucket compared to the millions who died in that war. Or other wars. Or other catastrophes throughout human history. How will the world be different 50 years later if you do manage to save a few thousand people at Hiroshima?

2) Go back to Germany in 1939 and kill Hitler.

A more worthy idea. If you kill Hitler, maybe you can prevent the entire horror of WWII, including the atom bomb drop. Except 1939 is just foolishness. By 1939 it's already vastly too late. By that point, the Nazi's are firmly in power, and Hitler is just one man. Kill Hitler in '39 and all that happens is some other Nazi takes his place. The war likely still happens, the holocaust still definitely happens, the German people still have to live under the black boot of Nazism. This is hardly a win. Indeed, it could ultimately be *cataclysmic*; what if whoever replaces Hitler isn't as much of a military idiot? It can be convincingly argued that Germany lost that war because of major blunders by Hitler. He was brilliant as a politician but *awful* as a military leader. What if his replacement has a flair for war? Or just enough sense to stay out of the way and let the military leaders conduct the war? The chilling possibility is that the axis could *win* the war.

No, the time to kill Hitler was much, much earlier, before the Nazi movement gained any traction. Prior to the period when Hitler's own charisma was a key facet in *causing* it to gain traction. Kill Hitler *then*, and maybe history never hears of the Nazis. What's more, it would be *vastly* safer and easier to kill him then, when he was nobody. Heck, kill him as a child!

3) Go back and warn the Lusitania, so that it doesn't get sunk.

Same two problem here as with 1) above: why would you possibly think anyone would listen to you, and what good would it do? Prevent the U.S. from entering WWI? What makes you so sure that *that* would make the world a better place? Are you so sure that things wouldn't be worse if Germany won WWI?

So what did *you* come up with for your list? I promise you mine wouldn't include the Lusitania or Hiroshima. Maybe I'd try to stop communism from taking over in Russia-- that would solve *most* of the problems of the 20th century (including Nazism, which gained traction in Germany largely because people were so scared of the communists). My point is, this brilliant scientist seems to have put very little actual thought into history and how best to alter it. I'm afraid Serling didn't either.

Well, I've rambled on too long; I haven't even left myself time to complain about how Paul is possibly able to control his time traveling once he's gone back in time. How *does* he manage to get back to the present, after he had already decided he was staying forever?

2nd Best Episode of the Series

[StuOz · 16 July 2020]

Hollywood legend Dana Andrews plays a time traveller.

Only a small number of the one hour TZ episodes really worked out but this is indeed one of the gems. However, I should point out that I have a soft spot for TZ time travel-related shows. The series time travelled so much I almost define it as a pre-Time Tunnel (1966).

The lines of dialogue given to time traveller - Dana Andrews - really sparkle, so much so that there was a time when I put his scenes on a recording device and walked around listening to him all day.

To me atleast, No Time Like The Past is a gem.

Very fine reserved ep

[bmulkey-86714 · 9/10 · 23 October 2022]

There was more logic to Driscoll's history changing attempts than anyone gives Serling credit for. His attempt to warn of Hiroshima's bombing could actually have been done by him arriving a day earlier but he did not to talk to anyone in authority till just before the bombing. The Lusitania is well handled as well and no real plot hole there. As for the assassination attempt delay you can come up with your own reason for that.

Another poster made a strange statement on here. That individual seemed to want Driscoll to save the Titanic from sinking. The Titanic was not actually a historical event just a well remembered incident. The Lusitania had nearly as many dead as Titanic and the Lusitania 90% brought America into WW1. It also caused the Germans to stop bombing passenger ships for two years. The 1915 sinking of the Lusitania was 100 times more important than the Titanic sinking 3 years earlier.

RIDICULOUS!

[skarylarry-93400 · 8/10 · 19 April 2021]

Paul takes a shot at Hitler and the rifle has no bullet in it. Wouldn't he for sure, 100%, make sure the gun was loaded and ready to go??? This fact is ludicrous!

You can't really change a thing

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 4 September 2019]

This Twilight Zone episode is almost two separate stories with the same protagonist Dana Andrews who with scientific colleague Robert F. Simon is experimenting with time travel. Simon operates the controls and Andrews does the traveling.

In the first half the plans are big, to prevent three catastrophes of world history. He fails in all three.

The second half hour has Andrews moving to a sleepy backwater town in Indiana of 1881. He meets and falls in love with Patricia Breslin a schoolteacher who senses something odd with him. And he has a more local catastrophe to deal with.

Some interesting questions about time travel are asked and answered. Do we really want to experiment like this? Can we really be effective?

Time itself is gazillions of stories from the beginning of it. Change one and you have a ripple effect over the years. Only the Creator/Deity can navigate those waters safely.

An episode that will make you think.

You can't change the past by traveling back into it.

[sol1218 · 7/10 · 4 October 2010]

***SPOILERS*** Physicist Paul Driscoll,Dana Anrews, has just about had it with the twentieth century with its wars pollution and the threat of nuclear annihilation and wants if at all possible to change it for the better. Having together with his good friend and confidant Harvey,Robert F.Simms, secretly invented a time machine Paul plans to do just that.

Going back in time Paul tries to prevent the bombing of Hiroshima the sinking of the Luitania and the accent to power in Germany of Adolph Hitler. Because of his either stupidity in him thinking that those he tries to convince of impending doom would bother listening to him or just his big and uncontrollable mouth in Paul shooting it off in how he hated Hitler and his Nazi regime to a maid at the hotel he was staying in Berlin Paul fails miserably in every attempt.

Back to the present,1963,Paul comes up with another not so bright idea in him going back to a time when things were peaceful and beautiful in America and, through the time machine, is brought back to the sleepy little town of Homeville Indiana in the summer of 1881. It's there that Paul realizes, by checking out the local newspaper, that within 24 hours that the then President of the USA President James Garfield would be gunned down by a lone assassin! Knowing from previous experience that he can't change history Paul just lets history,and Garfirld's assassination, take it's course.

Still while in Homeville Paul keeps on shooting his big mouth off,in order to impress everyone with his new found knowledge, telling anyone who would bother to listen to him about future wars that the US would be involved in like WWI WII Korea as well as the obscure, in the future history books,Spanish-American War! This has the people listening to him think that Paul has completely gone of his rocker. It's only Abigail Sloan, Patricia Breslin, the local schoolteacher who takes a liking to the very outspoken Paul and, in her losing a number of family members in the Civil War, and finds his passionate anti-war attitude very appealing to her.

***SPOILERS*** Even though Paul did nothing to save President Garfield's life he for some strange reason tried to prevent a 4th of July fire at the Homeville high school that he knew, by reading a book about the towns history, was going to happen! This time around Paul not only didn't prevent the school from catching fire but in fact was the person who, by trying to prevent it, started it!

Now back to 1963,the date this "Twilight Zone" episode was filmed, Paul has become both older and wiser in the fact that the past will always be the past and nothing on earth, not even traveling back to it, can ever change it! And with that it will always remain what it always was and always will be: The Past!

An Uneven Episode with Too Much Filler

[deankiravar · 7/10 · 26 March 2020]

The premise underlying this episode is intriguing; a man who can travel back in time to change things or not change things. The main character and his eventual love interest are both interesting. The execution of the episode isn't great, however.

First off, it felt like there was a lot of filler for this episode. It probably would've been better in the half-hour format than the hour one. At times, the episode just seems to drag on.

The protagonist was comically bad at 'intervening' in history. Stopping the Hiroshimo bombing was always impractical, but he was also just plain bad at killing Hitler. He seemed inept and it made the episode duller and made me wonder if any of these 'botched interventions' were even necessary for the episode.

He then goes back to live in a town in 1881 and decides rather than intervening in history, he just wanted to live a normal life, but then he won't do anything a normal person would do at fear of changing history.

The end moral was reasonably good (work on bettering the present and future, rather than the past), but just felt not much happened in 51 minutes.

Still an OK episode, but not a classic.

The Past Cannot Be Changed

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 8 August 2023]

The physicist Paul Driscoll is discontent with the Twentieth Century because of the wars, deaths and radioactivity. He develops a time machine and decides to visit three milestones of the recent history, expecting to change them. He fails and he decides to move to 1881 to Homeville, Indiana, to have a peaceful life. But he learns that only the future can be changed, and not the past.

"No Time Like the Past" is an episode of "The Twilight Zone" with a different concept from the Theory of Chaos". No matter what Paul Driscoll does in the past, the result is the same instead of changing the future. Based on his experiences, he learns that only the present can be changed affecting the future. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Dia Depois de Amanhã" ("The Day After Tomorrow")

Huge plot holes ruin an interesting time travel adventure

[FlushingCaps · 4/10 · 30 March 2021]

This is a disjointed episode with enormous plot holes so huge that they keep me from scoring this episode as high as I would have otherwise. I've almost always enjoyed any show about time travel-from The Time Tunnel to Quantum Leap and more-and have indeed speculated about what I would do if I could go back to some other time-various scenarios for different types of adventures.

This show starts with two men in a big room with a massive machine. A man high up tweaking dials on the machinery, is trying to get a good picture on his screen of the other man on the floor below and behind him. Later he is able to do so, with the picture moving from real fuzzy to clear just like when viewing someone in a camera and twisting the focus dial. Way too much attention on this when it didn't seem to matter at all to the script.

The men were having a long debate about the concept of changing history and the merits of the world at present-Cold War, 1963 era, etc. It seems the man on the floor was Paul Driscoll (Dana Andrews) and he was going to use the time machine he invented to go back and change history. He chose three places/times.

First was Hiroshima, Japan just hours before the first atomic bomb hit that city. Second was Berlin in 1939, and third was aboard the Lusitania less than an hour before the torpedo hit it in 1915.

All three attempts failed. Now Paul has decided to get out of the horrible world he knows and go to where everything is wonderful-Homeville, Indiana in 1881, and stay there forever.

Almost as soon as he arrives, he sees a newspaper headline about President Garfield and the date, and knows that tomorrow in his new world is the day that Garfield was shot, leading to his death two months later, thanks largely to the incompetent doctor that headed his medical team-but that's a story for another episode. Knowing what happened before, Paul says there's noting he can do to save the president so he doesn't try.

He meets a young, pretty schoolteacher (were there ever any others in the movies or TV?) at his boarding house. He and she hit it off, but he suddenly remembers in the book he read about this town that the school had a horrible fire on that very day that killed many of the children, started by a fire from a kerosene lantern that fell from a runaway wagon.

He again tells himself there's nothing he can do.

He leaves his room to go outside. On the street is a peddler of the famous alcohol-filled wonder medicines designed to cure all that ails anyone. He lights a kerosene lamp and hangs it on the back of his wagon just before making his sales pitch to the people. Paul tells him he needs to unhitch his horses from his wagon.

When the man asks why, instead of a good answer, or telling him, "I'll give you a dollar if you just do it for 20 minutes," or something, he proceeds to try to unhitch them himself. The peddler grabs his whip to drive away Paul and when the whip hits the horse next to him, the horses start running and this leads to the lantern falling off onto the front of the school, causing the very fire Paul was there to prevent.

So Paul goes back to his own time, realizing that's where he belonged all the time.

The biggest problem I had was the total illogic of the peddler wanting his lantern lit at 2 p.m. On a bright sunny July 3 afternoon. He wasn't about to read something to the people. As we saw his show, there was absolutely no use for the lamp at all. Then there's the problem of why Paul didn't just say, "I'll give you $1 if you let me borrow your lantern for 15 minutes." The lantern was the problem, not the horses being hitched. It would have been far easier for him to have just gone over and blown out the lantern. Had he done so, with the medicine tonic show over, the man probably wouldn't have bothered to relight it. I won't worry about the awkward way the lantern flew off the wagon and started the fire, but that's another weak point to blame on the director.

The other three times Paul traveled to seem like pointless, worthless times to go. He could have gone to prevent Lincoln's assassination, or Garfield's or McKinley's for that matter. He could have tried to stop the Titanic Disaster, or any of a dozen other 20th Century disasters where some warning might have saved hundreds of lives.

Instead he picks Hiroshima. As any novice student of WWII knows, the Americans brought about an end to WWII with the dropping of two atomic bombs. Hiroshima was first, Nagasaki second. It still took three more days before Japan decided to surrender. If Paul had somehow been successful in warning the Japanese to evacuate the city, the bomb would have killed no one (or a few) and merely destroyed empty buildings. It had been estimated by the War Department that an invasion of Japan by US forces might have cost a million American lives. If Paul had really helped the Japanese, and they did not surrender after Nagasaki, he might have been responsible for the deaths of a million of his fellow citizens, prolonged the war for who knows how long, and possibly caused many more troubles we can only speculate about.

Paul's second stop in Berlin was to assassinate Hitler. But by 1939, the Nazis were well entrenched in power-Hitler wasn't the only fanatic. Most people today figure Hitler's micro-managing of the Nazi war effort, along with his blunders in doing so helped the Allies claim victory. If Paul had killed "Der Fuehrer" in 1939, a different Nazi leader would have been in charge and this might have had disastrous consequences for the world. Now killing Hitler in the early 20s-that might have kept his movement from being able to take over in the 1930s, but Paul didn't think of that.

His third trip back was to the Lusitania, sunk by a German torpedo in 1915. While it still took the US two more years to finally get into the war, had the Lusitania not been sunk-had Paul somehow convinced the captain to change his course-this could have changed the outcome of World War I. Even if his attempt here would have helped had it been successful, Paul was a historical idiot to think that he could just appear, an apparent stowaway, telling the captain to change course to avoid a torpedo, and that the captain would listen to him. The German government themselves had taken out full page ads in New York newspapers before the ship sailed, warning about an attack because of the war. The captain was in communication by wireless with British naval authorities, who had ordered him on which precise route to take, and what areas to avoid. In other words, the captain would have had plenty of reasons to throw this stowaway into the brig and to be suspicious that he was trying to get the ship to steer toward the U-boat that was going to sink it.

So while it was interesting to see the depictions of his travels, overall this episode just wasn't up to scrutiny at all-a 4.

A lesson for everyone, the past is unchangeable already is history!!!

[elo-equipamentos · 7/10 · 18 December 2022]

That's public knowledge that mess in the past may bring drastic consequences to the future as displayed in several pictures and the scientific community broadly speaking in Twilight Zone Rod Serling bring up the issue as dramatic form.

A pacifist scientist Paul Driscoll (Dana Andrews) comes up with a Time Machine, due he no longer agreed with the human madness concerning the dangerous routes that making are walking on toward to nuclear apocalypse, the he is aided by a friend that operates his back at the pastime, arriving firstly at Hiroshima prior the city be bomb in doomsday, sadly he didn't convince the Japanese Officer to evacuate the town, then he tries kill Hitler during his speech at Berlin, another fails, so he ends up on board of the Lusitania in hope to Captain changes the course a lit bit, otherwise the vessel will sink and bringing together the America into the war, nothing changes.

Back on the present perceiving that all efforts weren't successful, thus he plans on live in peaceful town in 1881 at Indiana state, somewhat he thought be an easy life became a hideous nightmare, a must-see episode, had a little mistake noteworthy by the less warned, as soon he leaves Hiroshima the Bomb explodes, then even with the agreement of the Japanese Officer to evacuate Hiroshima any living soul will be save.

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 2022 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.75.

Serling's busy work

[glennsmithk · 5/10 · 3 November 2019]

This episode lies as flat as a doormat. It's disjointed, not very intelligent, and seems like something written for filler. Serling had to give the network something, and he gave them another time traveling plot. The problem is that this one seems more like a lesson on how to write a bad story. It has a few redeeming performances from the actors. Still, when the story is this poor, the episode is, too. A 5 is charitable.

A time-twisting Twilight Zone.

[BA_Harrison · 5/10 · 10 April 2022]

Time travel: a mainstay of The Twilight Zone. The yearning for simpler times: a theme often explored by Rod Serling. These form the basis of No Time Like the Past.

Dana Andrews plays time-traveller Paul Driscoll who, disillusioned with the present, attempts to change it by altering key moments in history: preventing the bombing of Hiroshima, assassinating Hitler, and stopping the sinking of RMS Lusitania. Despite his efforts, Driscoll fails to make a difference to the present, and comes to the conclusion that the future cannot be easily changed.

Instead of putting up with a present he despises, the scientist decides to live in the past, in Homeville, Indiana, in the year 1881. While there, he falls for pretty school teacher Abigail Sloane (Patricia Breslin), but he cannot allow himself to form a relationship with her for fear of altering the future.

So why the sudden change of heart about meddling with the course of history? Wasn't that what he was trying to do all along? And why care if you have no intention of returning to the 20th century? Instead of just allowing events to play out naturally in 1881, Driscoll returns to the present to concentrate on doing something about tomorrow.

No Time Like The Past is a reasonably entertaining but fundamentally flawed tale, as is so often the case with time travel stories, for which the paradox is an ever-present problem. Rod Serling's script conveniently ignores all of the troublesome temporal plot-holes, but it's not so easy for the viewer to do so. 5/10.