The Big List of Time Travel Adventures

 Related to: Star Trek
 from antiquity to 2017



   Beyond the Time Barrier
by Arthur C. Pierce
First release: July 1960

Major Bill Allison flies the experimental X-80 into the future where a plague has turned most humans into subhuman mutants and the rest (one of whom is a beautiful proto-Betazoid) are mostly mutes who live in an enclave wearing prototype Star Trek uniforms.

 Other nations? Mutants? What kind of talk is this? 




   Star Trek
created by Gene Roddenberry
First time travel: 29 Sep 1966

There once was a Captain named Kirk
Who was known near and far as a flirt
Into hearts his show grew to
Undoubtedly due to
McCoy and that pointy-eared jerk
  —Michael Main, 1973
Gene Roddenberry is the most famous person that I’ve ever met. In 1975 he came to Pullman and I wangled the job of interviewing him for The Daily Evergreen. I didn’t know what to expect from a famous person, and was thrilled to find him friendly and interested in what I was studying at WSU (journalism at that time). Is this a good place to post my Star Trek limerick (from the fanzine, Free Fall, that Paul Chadwick, Dan Dorman and I published in high school)?
  1. The Naked Time (29 Sep 1966) back 71 hours
  2. Tomorrow Is Yesterday (26 Jan 1967) to 1969
  3. The City on the Edge of Forever (6 Apr 1967) to the 1930s
  4. Assignment: Earth (29 Mar 1968) to 1968
  5. All Our Yesterdays (14 Mar 1969) 5000 years ago

 Peace and long life. 




   Star Trek, the Blish Adaptations
adapted by James Blish
First time travel: Star Trek 2, Feb 1968

I bought the first four of these collections in July of 1971 in Huntsville, and the rest I snapped up as they were issued in the ’70s (plus Blish’s original novel Spock Must Die!). At that point in my life, I could recite them by heart. Here’s the list of time-travel adaptations, which does not include “The Naked Time” (in Star Trek 1) since the 71 hours of time travel was omitted in the Blish version:
  1. Tomorrow Is Yesterday (Feb 1968) in Star Trek 2
  2. The City on the Edge of Forever    (Feb 1968) in Star Trek 2
  3. Assignment: Earth (Apr 1969) in Star Trek 3
  4. All Our Yesterdays (Jul 1971) in Star Trek 4

 “Jim,” McCoy said raggedly. “You deliberately stopped me . . . Did you hear me? Do you know what you just did?”
Kirk could not reply. Spock took his arm gently. “He knows,” he said. “Soon you will know, too. And what was . . . now is again.” 

—The City on the Edge of Forever




   Land of the Giants
created by Irwin Allen
First time travel: 21 Dec 1969

When a suborbital ship gets caught in a space storm, it ends up on a planet where everything and everyone is twelve times bigger than normal, providing fodder for adventure and at least two treks through time (“Home Sweet Home” on 12 Dec 1969, and “Wild Journey” on 8 Mar 1970).

The writing, acting and sets had little appeal to me, though I did enjoy Batgirl (Yvonne Craig) in “Wild Journey”, aka Marta, the green Orion dancer from the third season of Star Trek.

 But don’t you see: If we never take that flight out, there would have never been a crash, and the others would have never been stranded on this planet. 

—from “Wild Country”




   Star Trek: The Animated Series
directed by Hal Sutherland and Bill Reed
First time travel: 15 Sep 1973

This series has a special place in my heart because of the day in 1974 when Dan Dorman and I visited Hal Sutherland north of Seattle to interview him for our fanzine, Free Fall. He treated the two teenagers like royalty and made two lifelong fans.

I think the series had only one time-travel story, “Yesteryear” (written by D.C. Fontana), which was the second in Sutherland’s tenure. In that episode, Spock returns from a time-traveling mission to find that he’s now in a reality where he died at age 7, and hence he returns to his own childhood to save himself.

 Captain’s Log, Supplemental: When we were in the time vortex, something appears to have changed the present as we know it. No one aboard recognizes Mr. Spock. The only answer is that the past was—somehow—altered. 




   Star Trek: The Entropy Effect
by Vonda N. McIntyre
First publication: Jun 1981

Spock and the rest of the crew of the Enterprise transport a time-traveling criminal, Dr. Georges Mordreaux, between planets.

 The effort required to change an event is proportional to the square of its distance in the past. The curve of a power function approaches infinity rather quickly. 




   Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
by Gene Roddenberry, Leonard Nimoy, Have Bennett, et. al. (Nimoy, director)
First release: 26 Nov 1986

As the brave crew of the Enterprise are returning to Earth to stand trial for the events of the previous movie, Spock determines that Earth’s demise is imminent unless they can return to 1986 and retrieve a humpback whale (which they then proceed to do).

I saw this in the theater with Deb Baker and Jon Shultis during a winter trip to Pittsburgh for a small computer science education conference.

 McCoy: You realize that by giving him the formula you’re alterning the future.
Scotty: Why? How do we know he didn’t invent the thing? 




   Star Trek: The Next Generation
created by Gene Roddenberry
First time travel: 2 May 1988

I watched the premier with Harry and Cathy just four weeks before Hannah was born. In the seven seasons, there were 12 time-travel episodes.
  1. We’ll Always Have Paris (2 May 1988) repeated seconds
  2. Time Squared (3 Apr 1989) back six hours
  3. Yesterday’s Enterprise (19 Feb 1990) Enterprise C from 2344 to 2366
  4. Captain’s Holiday (2 Apr 1990) Vorgans from 27th century
  5. A Matter of Time (18 Nov 1991) historian from 26th century
  6. Cause and Effect (23 Mar 1992) time loop
  7. Time’s Arrow I/II (15 Jun / 21 Sep 1992) to 1890s San Francisco
  8. Tapestry (15 Feb 1993) Picard’s earlier life
  9. Firstborn (25 Apr 1994) Worf’s son from 40 years ahead
  10. All Good Things I/II (23 May 1994) jumping between three times

 Make it so. 






   Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller
First time travel: 2 Jan 1995

Seven seasons with nine time-travel episodes including the most troublesome “Trials and Tribble-ations.”
  1. Past Tense I/II (2/9 Jan 1995) back 300 years
  2. Visionary (2 Feb 1995) O’Brian jumps forward several hours
  3. The Visitor (9 Oct 1995) Sisko skips through timelines
  4. Little Green Men (13 Nov 1995) to 1947 Roswell
  5. Accession (26 Feb 1996) Akorem, a poet from 200 years past
  6. Trials and Tribble-ations (4 Nov 1996) take a good guess
  7. Children of Time (5 May 1997) Defiant crew visit their descendants
  8. Wrongs Darker than Death . . . (1 Apr 1998) Kira back to mother’s time
  9. Time’s Orphan (20 May 1998) Molly O’Brien falls into time portal
  10. The Sound of Her Voice (10 Jun 1998) The Defiant answers a distress call

 We do not discuss it with outsiders. 

—Worf in “Trials and Tribble-ations”






   Star Trek: Voyager
created by Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor
First time travel: 30 Jan 1995

Seven seasons with 12 time-travel episodes, two of which featured Kess’s namesake, Kes.
  1. Time and Again (30 Jan 1995) back one day to save a planet
  2. Eye of the Needle (20 Feb 1995) contact an old Romulan ship
  3. Future’s End I/II (13/20 Nov 1996) back to 1900s via 2900 AD technology
  4. Before and After (9 Apr 1997) Kes skips through her life
  5. Year of Hell I/II (5/12 Nov 1997) Krenim temporal ship
  6. Timeless (18 Nov 1998) 15 years in the future
  7. Relativity (12 May 1999) Seven becomes a time cop
  8. Fury (3 May 2000) Kes wants to change her past
  9. Shattered (17 Jan 2001) Chakotay steps between times
  10. Endgame (23 May 2001) future Voyager hatches a plan

 As they say in the Temporal Mechanics Department: There’s no time like the present. 






   Star Trek: Gargoyles
created by Greg Weisman
First time travel: 14 Sep 1995

What’s that? You didn’t realize that Tim’s favorite childhood cartoon was part of the Star Trek universe? And I suppose you also believe that Doc Brown had nothing to do with Brownian motion?! According to the creator, this universe has a fixed time line in which you may travel but not change things—what he calls “working paradoxes,” though my memory holds only one time-travel episode, “Vows” (14 Sep 1995).

 You may have prevented me from altering the past, but you failed too. You see I have clear memories of your little inspirational about keeping my vows of love. I never forgot it. Obviously history is immutable. 






   Star Truck: Animaniacs
by Earl Kress (Audi Paden, director)
First publication: 4 Nov 1995

The Warner kids beam onto the Star Truck ship in the year 2995 where Captain Mr Spork, Squattie, and the rest of the gang don’t realize that they are a mid-twentieth century tv show.

If you don’t get knocked out by the giant Star Truck hammer, you’ll briefly spot Pinky and the Brain in this satire. That pair had their own chronoatypical adventures in separate episodes of Animaniacs and their own show.

N.B. the Warners often visited movie or tv sets in different times in which it wasn’t clear whether the other characters knew that they were actors in a dramatical production. In Star Truck the Warners could well be in the future, but in other episodes (e.g., Hercules Unwound, which costars Pinky and the Brain), the fourth wall is shattered.

 Yakko: Come on, Cap, let’s go back to New York in the 1930s.
Dot: You can fall in love with Joan Collins—
Yakko: —and then she’ll die. 




   Star Trek: First Contact
by Gene Roddenberry, Rick Berman, et. al. (Jonathan Frakes, director)
First release: 22 Nov 1996

Picard and the Enterprise travel back to 2063 to stop the Borg from preventing Zefram Cochrane’s invention of the warp drive.

 Assimilate this! 






   Star Trek: Enterprise
created by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga
First episode: 26 Sep 2001

You must watch the whole of Enterprise to grok the full arc of the Temporal Cold War with 13 episodes that were more temporal than others:
  1. Cold Front (28 Nov 2001) Crewman Daniels from 31st century
  2. Shockwave I/II (22 May / 18 Sep 2002) forward to 31st century
  3. Future Tense (19 Feb 2003) little time loops and cold war
  4. Twilight (5 Nov 2003) future T’Pol tries to correct past
  5. Carpenter Street (26 Nov 2003) Detroit in 2004
  6. Azati Prime (3 Mar 2004) more of Daniels and Cold War
  7. E² (5 May 2004) meet your own descendants
  8. Zero Hour (26 May 2004) World War II
  9. Storm Front I/II (8/15 Oct 2004) World War II
  10. In a Mirror, Darkly I/II (22/29 Apr 2005)    23rd-century Defiant

 Old T’Pol: There’s a human expression: Follow your heart.
Young T’Pol: What if my heart doesn’t know what it wants?
Old T’Pol: It will, in time, it will. 




   xkcd
by Randall Munroe
First time travel: Comic 103, 15 May 2006

Nerdy Randall Munroe’s quirky stick figures don’t shy away from the difficut time-travel tropes.

     
  1. Comic 102 (15 May 2006) Back to the Future
  2. Comic 239 (23 Mar 2007) Blagofaire from the Future
  3. Comic 567 (10 Apr 2009) Ben Franklin Urgent Mission
  4. Comic 630 (31 Aug 2009) Megan’s Time Travel
  5. Comic 652 (21 Oct 2009) Come with Me If You Want . . .
  6. Comic 656 (30 Oct 2009) Doc Brown on Oct 30
  7. Comic 657 (2 Nov 2009) Primer Time Chart
  8. Comic 716 (19 Mar 2010) Time Machine
  9. Comic 730 (21 Apr 2010) DeLorean flux capacitor
  10. Comic 887 (3 Sep 2014) Rowling’s Time Turners
  11. Comic 935 (8 Aug 2011) Babe Ruth & the Tardis
  12. Comic 1063 (1 Jun 2012) Kill Hitler
  13. Comic 1177 (22 Feb 2013) More Terminator
  14. Comic 1191 (27 Mar 2013) The Past Oil Reserves
  15. Comic 1203 (24 Apr 2013) Useless Time Machines
  16. Comic 1256 (26 Aug 2013) Why Are There Two Spocks?

 Why are you so obsessed with this Hitler guy? 




   Star Trek (the reboot)
by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Gene Roddenberry (J.J. Abrams, director)
First release: 8 May 2009

Young Kirk and Spock meet future Ambassador Spock who has come back in time to stop Nero from destroying Vulcan.

Tim and I saw the reboot in the theater on opening day.

 You know, coming back in time, changing history . . . that’s cheating. 




   Star Trek: Into Darkness
by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof (J.J. Abrams, director)
First release: 17 May 2013

Tim denies it, but there’s a little-known rule that says that any time Spock Prime gets to talk to new Spock, the movie is counted as possessing time travel under a grandfather clause, even if said movie contained no actual new time travel.

For me, the dark aspects of the movie were nothing but forced melodrama, although it did have great special effects, terrific casting of the principles, and fun trekkie jokes. Those positives, though, weren’t enough to cover up the plot holes and Kirk’s questionabe decisions. Good grief, just blast the bad guy with a photon torpedo rather than blasting your way through a bunch of Klingons (who never harmed you) to give the guy a fair trial. And if you don’t do that, at least blast him to bits on the bridge of that dreadnaught.

 As you know, I have made a vow never to give you information that could potentially alter your destiny. Your path is yours to walk and yours alone. 




   2035 Forbidden Dimensions
by Christopher James Miller (Miller, director)
First release: 5 Aug 2014 (straight-to-video)

I get that somebody (Jack Slade) has come back from a dystopic, mutant-filled future to stop the events that led to the aliens creating such a future—but the movie was unwatchable for me, even if the writer did portray Jean-Luc Picard’s young nephew in Star Trek Generations.

 My name is Detective Giger . . . I’m contacting you from the year 2035. Dr. Shector has taken over society with a toxic drug made from the flesh of alien beings . . . 


 

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Thanks for visiting my time-travel page, and thanks to the many sources that provided stories and more (see the Links and Credits in the menu at the top). —Michael (main@colorado.edu)