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.
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.