GaryPeterson67
Joined Jul 2006
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Watching 1960's epic film THE ALAMO it wasn't John Wayne's Davy Crockett or Richard Widmark's Jim Bowie that proved so compelling compared to Laurence Harvey's Col. William Travis, right? I mean, wasn't Travis the man you just yearned to see take center stage? If you answered yes, you stand with Bob and Wanda Duncan and likely enjoyed their exercise in squandered potential. The rest of us ask in bitter bemusement, how could they have messed this up?
The star-studded movie ran a whopping two hours and forty-two minutes and proved compelling all the way through, but "The Alamo" episode of TIME TUNNEL runs fifty minutes and proves a dreary and dull affair. Again, how did they manage to mess this up?
Ditching Davy Crockett. If people know anything about the Alamo it's that Davy Crockett died there fighting till his last breath. So why is he inexplicably and inexcusably MIA from this episode? Yeah, eagle-eyed viewers will spot a fellow in a coonskin cap when Doug and Tony are brought into the ill-fated fort, but that's it. And don't tell me Disney held the rights to the character. Crockett is a historical figure, not a fictional creation, so you can't hold the rights to Crockett any more than a company could hold rights to Abraham Lincoln, star of last week's episode.
Benching Jim Bowie. The second most iconic and fascinating figure at the Alamo was Jim Bowie, famous for the knife that bears his name (Frankie Lane sang a catchy song about it). But Bowie is benched for most of this story and then sent to the showers after taking his famous fall thanks to Tony. In his too few scenes, Bowie brought buckskinned bombast to the otherwise staid proceedings.
An aside, the real Jim Bowie was 39 on the day the Alamo fell. In the 1960 film he was played by 45-year-old Richard Widmark, and here by a 57-year-old Jim Davis. I loved Davis as Jock Ewing, but boy was he wildly miscast as Jim Bowie.
The Maguffin of Doug's Concussion. We're thirteen shows in and the formula is showing and wearing thin. Why do Doug and Tony have to separate in virtually every story? This episode would have been so much better had all the action been confined to the Alamo. Doug's is twice knocked on the noggin and is seeing double and can't even hold his head up. At least until after Tony takes off on his fool's errand to bring back a doctor, immediately after which Doug is suddenly hale, hearty and in fighting trim.
Wow, what an obvious a ploy to give Tony a solo side-adventure. I wouldn't care if it were good, but it was so painfully lame. Tony in a rookie move gets captured by the Frito Bandito and hauled bound and gagged to the local generale, who just happens to be in the company of the very doctor Tony is looking for. How convenient, coincidental, and contrived!
Too Much Travis and Reynerson. It's beyond rational thought why Bob and Wanda Duncan decided to swing the spotlight off the colorful characters of Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie and instead shine it on the dull martinet Travis and the fictional Reynerson, thus inflicting a mortal wound on the narrative. Travis was just a redressed Custer from a few weeks ago, and Reynerson was simply the formula's necessary plot device of an ally to assist Doug and Tony. With them as the leading guest stars, the show never achieved escape velocity.
Who else is growing weary with the now obligatory "accidental" bringing through the tunnel the wrong person? Cue another pop-eyed and jaw-dropped denizen of the past whom our crack crew/crew on crack locked onto by mistake. I was waiting for General Kirk to pull rank on Colonel Travis, but no, Kirk just shows the dazed visitor a video of his impending death and sends him back through the tunnel.
Is Doug a scientist or a historian? How many historians would know the exact date the Alamo fell? Doug does. And Doug also has no misgivings about playing his prescience of the future as a supernatural gift, really stringing along the gullible Reynerson, bragging with a mystical portentousness that he knows events a hundred years and more into the future.
In the end, what could have been--should have been--a tense nailbiter of a story as Doug and Tony race against a clock inexorably ticking down to a massacre sunk into a talky and dull affair that did a real disservice to the real-life drama of the Alamo.
The star-studded movie ran a whopping two hours and forty-two minutes and proved compelling all the way through, but "The Alamo" episode of TIME TUNNEL runs fifty minutes and proves a dreary and dull affair. Again, how did they manage to mess this up?
Ditching Davy Crockett. If people know anything about the Alamo it's that Davy Crockett died there fighting till his last breath. So why is he inexplicably and inexcusably MIA from this episode? Yeah, eagle-eyed viewers will spot a fellow in a coonskin cap when Doug and Tony are brought into the ill-fated fort, but that's it. And don't tell me Disney held the rights to the character. Crockett is a historical figure, not a fictional creation, so you can't hold the rights to Crockett any more than a company could hold rights to Abraham Lincoln, star of last week's episode.
Benching Jim Bowie. The second most iconic and fascinating figure at the Alamo was Jim Bowie, famous for the knife that bears his name (Frankie Lane sang a catchy song about it). But Bowie is benched for most of this story and then sent to the showers after taking his famous fall thanks to Tony. In his too few scenes, Bowie brought buckskinned bombast to the otherwise staid proceedings.
An aside, the real Jim Bowie was 39 on the day the Alamo fell. In the 1960 film he was played by 45-year-old Richard Widmark, and here by a 57-year-old Jim Davis. I loved Davis as Jock Ewing, but boy was he wildly miscast as Jim Bowie.
The Maguffin of Doug's Concussion. We're thirteen shows in and the formula is showing and wearing thin. Why do Doug and Tony have to separate in virtually every story? This episode would have been so much better had all the action been confined to the Alamo. Doug's is twice knocked on the noggin and is seeing double and can't even hold his head up. At least until after Tony takes off on his fool's errand to bring back a doctor, immediately after which Doug is suddenly hale, hearty and in fighting trim.
Wow, what an obvious a ploy to give Tony a solo side-adventure. I wouldn't care if it were good, but it was so painfully lame. Tony in a rookie move gets captured by the Frito Bandito and hauled bound and gagged to the local generale, who just happens to be in the company of the very doctor Tony is looking for. How convenient, coincidental, and contrived!
Too Much Travis and Reynerson. It's beyond rational thought why Bob and Wanda Duncan decided to swing the spotlight off the colorful characters of Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie and instead shine it on the dull martinet Travis and the fictional Reynerson, thus inflicting a mortal wound on the narrative. Travis was just a redressed Custer from a few weeks ago, and Reynerson was simply the formula's necessary plot device of an ally to assist Doug and Tony. With them as the leading guest stars, the show never achieved escape velocity.
Who else is growing weary with the now obligatory "accidental" bringing through the tunnel the wrong person? Cue another pop-eyed and jaw-dropped denizen of the past whom our crack crew/crew on crack locked onto by mistake. I was waiting for General Kirk to pull rank on Colonel Travis, but no, Kirk just shows the dazed visitor a video of his impending death and sends him back through the tunnel.
Is Doug a scientist or a historian? How many historians would know the exact date the Alamo fell? Doug does. And Doug also has no misgivings about playing his prescience of the future as a supernatural gift, really stringing along the gullible Reynerson, bragging with a mystical portentousness that he knows events a hundred years and more into the future.
In the end, what could have been--should have been--a tense nailbiter of a story as Doug and Tony race against a clock inexorably ticking down to a massacre sunk into a talky and dull affair that did a real disservice to the real-life drama of the Alamo.
