I love good science fiction and cleverly- written drama yet I'd never heard of this series until a few days ago. Having just finished watching all eight episodes from start to finish I am not remotely surprised that this has escaped my attention for so many years. This is the half-baked science fantasy of unthinking, gurgling nitwits combined with some of the more senile, soporific excesses of the worst episodes of Midsomer Murders.
Whoever conceived the "rules" of time travel in this series was probably better acquainted with the works of CS Lewis than HG Wells. There was either VERY little thought put into the fundamentally flawed logic and self-contradiction inherent in the whole premise or else the writers decided simply to ignore all the massive logical gaffs, not worry about the intelligence of the viewers at all and instead simply aim it like a laser at the kind of people who normally prefer a nice bit of Agatha Christie before hobbling to their stair-lifts. (Even the theme music would be better suited to an episode of Poirot or Miss Marple.)
For example; the rules of "Crime Traveller" time travel state that to run into oneself would be catastrophic, and yet because one needs to return to the time machine before the point at which one originally departed (to avoid being stuck in a 'loop of eternity') one is, therefore, absolutely GUARANTEED to run into oneself INSIDE THE TIME MACHINE every single time that the machine is used! (Think about it.) Another example. If one goes back in time and fills in a betting slip, or takes a photograph, or gets shot in the leg, according to "Crime Traveller" upon returning to ones own 'timeline' the betting slip and the photograph will become blank and the gunshot wound will disappear. And yet all the other things that one does while 'travelling' - such as leaving blood or fingerprints at a crime scene or winding up one's hysterically screeching menopausal boss - still inexplicably get our unimaginative heroes into hot water when they 'return'.
The supporting characters are ludicrous archetypal parodies played by actors who seem to be under the impression that they're in a sitcom, except nothing that they say or do is funny. And the lines written for the "straight" roles are so maddeningly hackneyed that To make this series fresh and witty for its audience you'd need a time machine to send it all back to the 1970's, which is presumably the last time the writer had ever worked or indeed watched television.
Maybe the series did travel back in time but didn't make it back to the machine and is now caught in its own stupid loop of eternity.
Whoever conceived the "rules" of time travel in this series was probably better acquainted with the works of CS Lewis than HG Wells. There was either VERY little thought put into the fundamentally flawed logic and self-contradiction inherent in the whole premise or else the writers decided simply to ignore all the massive logical gaffs, not worry about the intelligence of the viewers at all and instead simply aim it like a laser at the kind of people who normally prefer a nice bit of Agatha Christie before hobbling to their stair-lifts. (Even the theme music would be better suited to an episode of Poirot or Miss Marple.)
For example; the rules of "Crime Traveller" time travel state that to run into oneself would be catastrophic, and yet because one needs to return to the time machine before the point at which one originally departed (to avoid being stuck in a 'loop of eternity') one is, therefore, absolutely GUARANTEED to run into oneself INSIDE THE TIME MACHINE every single time that the machine is used! (Think about it.) Another example. If one goes back in time and fills in a betting slip, or takes a photograph, or gets shot in the leg, according to "Crime Traveller" upon returning to ones own 'timeline' the betting slip and the photograph will become blank and the gunshot wound will disappear. And yet all the other things that one does while 'travelling' - such as leaving blood or fingerprints at a crime scene or winding up one's hysterically screeching menopausal boss - still inexplicably get our unimaginative heroes into hot water when they 'return'.
The supporting characters are ludicrous archetypal parodies played by actors who seem to be under the impression that they're in a sitcom, except nothing that they say or do is funny. And the lines written for the "straight" roles are so maddeningly hackneyed that To make this series fresh and witty for its audience you'd need a time machine to send it all back to the 1970's, which is presumably the last time the writer had ever worked or indeed watched television.
Maybe the series did travel back in time but didn't make it back to the machine and is now caught in its own stupid loop of eternity.