User Reviews

Many episodes of "Tales of Tomorrow" are concerned with time travel, so "Ahead of His Time" is not that unusual in that sense. However, it manages to take a familiar theme and breath a lot of new life into it--and as a result, it's well worth seeing.

The episode begins in the 2050s. The Earth is nearly perfect--wars have vanished, people have enough to eat and all is at peace. But I said NEARLY perfect...because it's also about to die. However, there is some hope--perhaps a nerdy small-time science assistant, Mr. Whipple, can somehow change history and guarantee the future safety of mankind. I'd say a lot more, but don't want to ruin the surprise. However, rest assured--the plot is highly original, kind of cute and even a bit funny. A worthy episode that has aged well.

We all know about the immutability of time. In this episode, a dying planet, led by a man of good will, is about to explode because of mistakes made a hundred years earlier. The scientists put their faith in a positive thinking hick who has developed a time machine. They need him to interrupt the development of the aforementioned atomic mistake. Somehow, they drag him into the future and give him the task. They can't go back in time but apparently he can. They break all kinds of rules. If he is able to accomplish his mission and there is no future problem, how would the people of the future even be aware of him. It's the reason we will never be able to travel backward in time. Anyway, the characters are engaging. Once again there is an unpredictable, disbelieving, emasculating female who thinks destroying a man's dream is good for him. Women certainly weren't treated very well in the fifties. They are either monsters or inanities.

Sam Whipple, a nebbish with a time-machine is drawn into a distant idyllic future (2054 AD!) where he finds out that he is Earth's last hope against a century-old radioactive contagion. Some of the venerable sci-fi anthology's episodes are pretty good for primitive low-budget teleplays but this is not one of them. The story makes little sense, especially as no attempt is made to explain away either the 'grandfather paradox' inherent in the plot or the implausibly convenient nature of the apocalyptic plague, and the choice to frame the story by 'breaking the fourth wall' was ill-advised as the actor playing the inventor (Paul Tripp) was borderline amateurish (he was also the writer, so strike two). I enjoy working my way through the pioneering sci-fi series but this episode will be of interest only to completists (and I am a sucker for time-travel stories).