Vote for why you think it jumped
Never Jumped
Jeff whines
The Letterman sketch
Day One
Meeno
Shark Bytes
The actor who played Boggg did not kill himself on Voyagers!
It was on the series Cover Up.
Voyagers! was done in by ratings most likely
It was on the series Cover Up.
Voyagers! was done in by ratings most likely
Good to know the show is finally on DVD. Fun program "officially" aimed at the teen/tween set: still any age can enjoy the history and action, and the comedic banter and timing between the lead charactors (all better than I remembered!). Never jumped.
The Letterman sketch as mentioned earlier was dead on! "Voyagers!" with it's flaws, still got the viewer to THINK a little! With that in mind, here's hoping someone can come up with a sequel series, obviously with different actors. Why not? After all, aren't there supposed to be a whole bunch of Voyagers out there?
("Voyagers II"? Well, anyone can come up with a better title.)
The Letterman sketch as mentioned earlier was dead on! "Voyagers!" with it's flaws, still got the viewer to THINK a little! With that in mind, here's hoping someone can come up with a sequel series, obviously with different actors. Why not? After all, aren't there supposed to be a whole bunch of Voyagers out there?
("Voyagers II"? Well, anyone can come up with a better title.)
Voyagers NEVER JUMPED! It was short-lived and great. Yes, the history plot line was a little sketchy, but it was meant for children and tweens, like me-when it aired. I watched it faithfully until in stopped syndicating in the late 80s.
I was very sad to see another young talent die early!
I was very sad to see another young talent die early!
Never watched the show, but I was reading the comments. Someone mentioned that the inventions that figured into the plots could have been invented by others, including the airplane and incandescent light. A.G. Bell, as I recall, narrowly missed his chance to patent the telephone as another inventor showed up the same day at the patent office. "Sliders", another show in a similar vein, made the mistake of showing the 1990's without television due somehow to the way WWII ended (without the atom bomb, IIRC), yet television pre-dated WWII and was available in the US, Britain, and even Germany in the 30's.
Never jumped. It was a great show but a fish-out-of-water. Anything with an intellectual content never had a chance in the brain-dead 1980's. If I were a voyager I'd take out that whole decade.
As for it's believability, well, what do you expect? If they had tried to make the whole thing make sense it would have only appealed to people with a Ph.D. in physics. Why did history screw up? Why didn't that screw everything up long before the voyagers came to exist? How did the voyagers know that history was messed up? How did they know what history was supposed to be rather than what it was? Does that mean that there was some great plan for all of history put forth by a higher power? Did that higher power give them his/her plan so that they could figure out where it had gone wrong?
If they had tried to take on all this it would have never been a kid's show.
As for it's believability, well, what do you expect? If they had tried to make the whole thing make sense it would have only appealed to people with a Ph.D. in physics. Why did history screw up? Why didn't that screw everything up long before the voyagers came to exist? How did the voyagers know that history was messed up? How did they know what history was supposed to be rather than what it was? Does that mean that there was some great plan for all of history put forth by a higher power? Did that higher power give them his/her plan so that they could figure out where it had gone wrong?
If they had tried to take on all this it would have never been a kid's show.
Gosh, some people can't turn off their politics.
Now, I was a kid when Voyagers! first aired -- the prime target audience. And I believe it did what it was meant to: first, entertain, and second, inspire kids to read about history on their own. Of course it had problems on the historical details, but citing "American revisionism" as if there were some insidious conspiracy... is idiotic.
I remember a lot of other historical programs that were on around the same time, so maybe it was a peak for turning history into entertainment. That doesn't mean that the writers were necessarily history buffs; when such a trend gets going all the writers looking for work jump on it. It's the same thing with science fiction shows lately: writers who are keen on fantasy and boogeymonsters wind up scripting adventures for some super-science themed show (Eureka! for example). The resulting treknology can be pretty rediculous, but such shows may have other merits.
Anyway, having just picked up the DVD set of Voyagers! I am pleasantly surprised to find that it still impresses me all these years later. The acting is quite good, even on the part of Meeno Peluce (how many child actors were ever required to cover this much range, and pulled it off?). The premise was exciting, with lots of kid-cool elements, and if they'd been able to continue it appears that a Dr. Who style continuity was in the offing. And (quibbles asi) it's educational! You can't tell me that the last two decades of Haim Saban kid's shows hold a candle to Voyagers!
Never jumped.
Now, I was a kid when Voyagers! first aired -- the prime target audience. And I believe it did what it was meant to: first, entertain, and second, inspire kids to read about history on their own. Of course it had problems on the historical details, but citing "American revisionism" as if there were some insidious conspiracy... is idiotic.
I remember a lot of other historical programs that were on around the same time, so maybe it was a peak for turning history into entertainment. That doesn't mean that the writers were necessarily history buffs; when such a trend gets going all the writers looking for work jump on it. It's the same thing with science fiction shows lately: writers who are keen on fantasy and boogeymonsters wind up scripting adventures for some super-science themed show (Eureka! for example). The resulting treknology can be pretty rediculous, but such shows may have other merits.
Anyway, having just picked up the DVD set of Voyagers! I am pleasantly surprised to find that it still impresses me all these years later. The acting is quite good, even on the part of Meeno Peluce (how many child actors were ever required to cover this much range, and pulled it off?). The premise was exciting, with lots of kid-cool elements, and if they'd been able to continue it appears that a Dr. Who style continuity was in the offing. And (quibbles asi) it's educational! You can't tell me that the last two decades of Haim Saban kid's shows hold a candle to Voyagers!
Never jumped.
Voyagers! Never jumped. It didn't have a chance to get it's footing. There was so much more they could have done, I blame the networks for not trying to save it or give it a better budget.
The last comment is wrong. Jon-Erik did not kill himself on the set of Voyagers! He died on the set of Cover-up 2 yrs later, in which they did replace him. What a tragedy, he was one of a kind. Jon was not stupid!. He was a multi-talented, thoughtful, humble person, that unfortunately made a foolish mistake. It can happen to the best of us.
I think both Jon and Meeno did great in the roles. If the show was aimed at children. They should have done more to promote it for children. I see it as more for the tween or teen set. But even as an adult I love it. It was just ahead of its time.
It's great to see it on DVD! It looks gorgeous and clear.
The last comment is wrong. Jon-Erik did not kill himself on the set of Voyagers! He died on the set of Cover-up 2 yrs later, in which they did replace him. What a tragedy, he was one of a kind. Jon was not stupid!. He was a multi-talented, thoughtful, humble person, that unfortunately made a foolish mistake. It can happen to the best of us.
I think both Jon and Meeno did great in the roles. If the show was aimed at children. They should have done more to promote it for children. I see it as more for the tween or teen set. But even as an adult I love it. It was just ahead of its time.
It's great to see it on DVD! It looks gorgeous and clear.
I really enjoyed this show too. The show was dropped because of a tragedy, not because of ratings. Unfortunately, the guy who played Bogg turned out to be as stupid in real life as his character. He killed himself by placing a gun to his temple and firing it in a joking suicide during a rehearsal. What he didn't know is that even though the gun was not loaded, it still shot blanks, and the temple is the weakest part of the skull, so the cotton wadding in the blank bullet penetrated his brain and put him on life support. If I remember correctly, his family kept him alive for a few days so they could donate his organs, and then took him off life support.
The producers decided he was not replaceable and cancelled the show shortly thereafter.
A terrible tragedy, because the show was fun, I learned a lot (my favorite episode was the one with Thomas Edison), and most importantly, even though it was not historically accurate to the nth degree, it was close enough that it made me interested in finding out the whole story - I particualrly remember reading several books about the Wright Brothers after their episode.
All in all, one of the best shows of my otherwise misspent youth.
The producers decided he was not replaceable and cancelled the show shortly thereafter.
A terrible tragedy, because the show was fun, I learned a lot (my favorite episode was the one with Thomas Edison), and most importantly, even though it was not historically accurate to the nth degree, it was close enough that it made me interested in finding out the whole story - I particualrly remember reading several books about the Wright Brothers after their episode.
All in all, one of the best shows of my otherwise misspent youth.
The best Time-Travel Show ever!
Yes, it wasn't perfect in all details of history. But it wasn't supposed to be. It was supposed to make history interesting and for me the concept worked.
I also loved how they demonstrated the connections in history. I remember one episode, where they had to travel in the time where the telephon was invented, because without it some president would be died at birth. (well, it was also a littel paradox, because when they travelled back they screwed up history themself, but it is never good to think to much about time-lines)
I don't agree that they glorified history. Perhaps a little bit, but they also showed some darker points of history like slavery and wars.
It is really a shame that they didn't send the show again since the 80er (at last not in germany).
Yes, it wasn't perfect in all details of history. But it wasn't supposed to be. It was supposed to make history interesting and for me the concept worked.
I also loved how they demonstrated the connections in history. I remember one episode, where they had to travel in the time where the telephon was invented, because without it some president would be died at birth. (well, it was also a littel paradox, because when they travelled back they screwed up history themself, but it is never good to think to much about time-lines)
I don't agree that they glorified history. Perhaps a little bit, but they also showed some darker points of history like slavery and wars.
It is really a shame that they didn't send the show again since the 80er (at last not in germany).
Now that this show is on DVD, it's a great pleasure to revisit it. I had fond memories of Voyagers! locked in my brain, but since I only saw some of the episodes -- and one time at that -- I didn't remember a lot.
Yeah, there are ways to nitpick the show, but on the whole I think it was quite well written and enjoyable.
I wish the show could have continued past the first year. But what we have is fine.
Yeah, there are ways to nitpick the show, but on the whole I think it was quite well written and enjoyable.
I wish the show could have continued past the first year. But what we have is fine.
A neat, escapist adventure series that might have worked better as a feature film (hey Mr. Speilberg, are you listening?). A kid gets scooped out of his routine to travel through time as make history right. Maybe not entirely historically accurate, but perhaps it encourged a few more kids to study history.
Loved this show! Never a bad episode. I remember being a 10 year old kid and watching it every Sunday night. Wish NBC had kept it going.
As a ten year old, I loved this show. I wanted to be Jon Erik Hexum. I will never forget the famous blooper where the Wright brothers were flying for the first time, but up above them in the sky was the trail of a jet that had flown by earlier. I think the director missed the red light blinking on the Omni.
While Voyagers! never really jumped it was already in trouble thanks to a BCC/PBS show hosted by James Burke called Connections shown just three years previously. Connections blew the 'great man' theory that Voyagers! depended on clear out of the water. For example the Wrights were not the only people trying to build a motorized airplane (Wilhelm Kress tried to fly a sea plane in 1901 and failed only because the engine was twice as heavy as what he had asked for.) So by 1914 there would have been airplane just not as advanced as we have. Then the show would take wild liberties with history. The Salem Witch trials where shut down by Governor William Phipps of Massachusetts partly due to the influence of Increase Mather rather than any action in Salem (now Danvers) Court room itself. Finally the show never explained how or why history would go wrong. It was simply accepted but the issue never really came up.
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