Crime Traveller
Encyclopedia
Crime Traveller is a 1997 science fiction
detective
television series produced by Carnival Films
for the BBC
based on the premise of using time travel
for the purpose of solving crime
s.
Anthony Horowitz
created the series and wrote every episode. He got the idea while writing an episode of Poirot
. Despite having over eight million viewers on a regular basis, Crime Traveller was not renewed after its first series, because according to Horowitz, "The show wasn't exactly cut. There was a chasm at the BBC, created by the arrival of a new Head of Drama and our run ended at that time. There was no-one around to commission a new series...and so it just didn't happen." The final episode of the series was followed the next week by the first episode of Jonathan Creek
, which became a popular long-running crime series.
of the local police force led by Kate Grisham, although unusually for such a position he is an armed officer; carrying a handgun as routine. Slade is a good detective who gets results although his approach is somewhat maverick and his methods do leave a lot to be desired and have more than once landed him in trouble. Amongst Slade's colleagues at the department is science officer Holly Turner who has a secret that Slade manages to uncover. Holly owns a working Time Machine that was built by her late father. The machine is able to take Slade and Holly back far enough in time to witness a crime as it happens and discover who committed it. As a result Slade's track record with crime solving goes through the roof with case after case being solved in record time.
Slade is not what could be described as a conventional detective. His style is maverick to say the least and he is more prone to go on instinct rather than cold hard facts. This approach invariably gets him in trouble with his superiors but nine times out of ten they will result in an arrest. Slade clearly enjoys his job and is very dedicated to it even though his attitude sometimes suggests otherwise. He was inspired to join the police because of his father Jack who was a highly respected detective himself until his false arrest and imprisonment for theft in 1992. Jeff took this very hard as he had always admired his father and refused to believe he was capable of such a thing following such a distinguished 30 year career. Slade was once married but very little is known about how long he was married and indeed how the marriage ended but it is thought that his wife died as he keeps a picture in his flat of a girl he tells Holly is now dead. Outside work Slade tends to keep himself to himself and rarely if ever socialises with colleagues such as Morris and Nicky. His only real friend at work is science officer Holly Turner. They have clearly always been on friendly terms but it is suggested that before her telling him about the machine they didn't socialise outside of work. Since his finding out about the machine the two have become a lot closer and spend a lot of time together outside work. It is hinted throughout the series that Slade is attracted to Holly but for whatever reason he has never seen fit to tell her how he feels. As well as making them closer personally their use of the machine has also shown that professionally they are a very good team and together they have solved several crimes including who set up Slade's father five years before and getting him released.
Holly is the daughter of Professor Frederick Turner a prominent physicist whose specialist field was that of time travel. After years of research and work, Turner was able to develop a working time machine. Turner used the machine to carry out experiments on time and the laws and rules by which it abides, such as 'you can't change the past' and 'time won't allow paradoxes'. The only other person Turner ever told about the machine was his daughter Holly. When Turner failed to return to the machine in time on his last trip and was trapped in a loop of infinity, Holly took over work on the machine and continued to maintain and perfect it to continue his experiments. In order to do this Holly needed money and as she didn't dare apply for a grant for fear of someone discovering the machine. So she went to work for the CID as a science officer and it was here that she met detective Jeff Slade. The two were friendly from the start but when Holly used the machine to help Slade out after a case had gone badly wrong and got Slade in trouble, Slade found out about the machine. This resulted in their relationship becoming closer and they began spending time together outside work. Holly is clearly attracted to Slade as he is to her but like him she chooses to not to reveal this to him, probably because she thinks that if the machine were not around then Slade wouldn't give her a second glance. Like Slade, Holly tends to keep herself to herself, possibly more so than he does because she is so terrified that someone may find out about the machine. Whilst she feels that Slade relies to much on the machine to solve his cases, she does seem to like the fact that she now has someone to talk to about the machine and she no longer has to keep all the financial worries that it's upkeep brings completely to herself.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
detective
Detective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
television series produced by Carnival Films
Carnival Films
Carnival Films is a British television production company, founded by Brian Eastman in 1978 as Picture Partnership Productions Limited and run by Gareth Neame since 2005. The company swiftly built up a strong reputation as an independent production company of theatre, film and television drama...
for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
based on the premise of using time travel
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
for the purpose of solving crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
s.
Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Craig Horowitz is an English novelist and screenwriter. He has written many children's novels, including The Power of Five, Alex Rider and The Diamond Brothers series and has written over fifty books. He has also written extensively for television, adapting many of Agatha Christie's...
created the series and wrote every episode. He got the idea while writing an episode of Poirot
Agatha Christie's Poirot
Agatha Christie's Poirot is a British television drama that has aired on ITV since 1989. It stars David Suchet as Agatha Christie's fictional detective Hercule Poirot. It was originally made by LWT and is now made by ITV Studios...
. Despite having over eight million viewers on a regular basis, Crime Traveller was not renewed after its first series, because according to Horowitz, "The show wasn't exactly cut. There was a chasm at the BBC, created by the arrival of a new Head of Drama and our run ended at that time. There was no-one around to commission a new series...and so it just didn't happen." The final episode of the series was followed the next week by the first episode of Jonathan Creek
Jonathan Creek
Jonathan Creek is a British mystery series produced by the BBC and written by David Renwick. Primarily a crime drama, the show is also peppered with broadly comic touches...
, which became a popular long-running crime series.
Plot
Jeff Slade is a detective with the CID departmentCriminal Investigation Department
The Crime Investigation Department is the branch of all Territorial police forces within the British Police and many other Commonwealth police forces, to which plain clothes detectives belong. It is thus distinct from the Uniformed Branch and the Special Branch.The Metropolitan Police Service CID,...
of the local police force led by Kate Grisham, although unusually for such a position he is an armed officer; carrying a handgun as routine. Slade is a good detective who gets results although his approach is somewhat maverick and his methods do leave a lot to be desired and have more than once landed him in trouble. Amongst Slade's colleagues at the department is science officer Holly Turner who has a secret that Slade manages to uncover. Holly owns a working Time Machine that was built by her late father. The machine is able to take Slade and Holly back far enough in time to witness a crime as it happens and discover who committed it. As a result Slade's track record with crime solving goes through the roof with case after case being solved in record time.
Rules of time travel
The rules of time travel in the series are as follows:- The time machineTime travelTime travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
sends the traveller back in time by a random interval. Usually this is about a day but it may be as little as a few minutes or as much as a week. (N.B. In the final episode of the series it is found that the length of time travelled back can be controlled by altering the length of the photon rods; this is discovered by the research company Webb Biotech, who have also invented a time machine). However long you go back for, you must live through that time again (see rule 6). - You must not meet yourself in the past. It is not clear what would result if you did, but it is presumed the consequences would be dire.
- You cannot change the past. One of the results of this restriction is that the effects of the time traveller's journey back in time are already visible "before" the journey is made.
- You cannot exist more than twice in the same time frame. If you try to go back a second time, the machine will simply fail to operate.
- When "in the past", you must get back to the time machine by the time you "left". Otherwise, you will be trapped in a "loop of infinity". This is what happened to Holly Turner's father. (This apparently conflicts with rule 3, as the time traveller would have to be at the machine at this moment, otherwise they couldn't have used it to travel into the past).
- The time machine never travels into the future. Holly tells Jeff in the first episode "You can't travel into something that doesn't exist."
Characters
| Character | Actor | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Jeff Slade | Michael French Michael French (actor) Michael French is an English actor, most notable for his role as consultant Nick Jordan in Casualty and former cardiothoracic registrar in Holby City... |
Detective and the only person other than Holly who knows about the time machine. |
| Holly Turner | Chloë Annett Chloë Annett Chloë Victoria Annett is an English actress, best known for her role in series 7 and 8 of the British sitcom Red Dwarf.-Early life and family:... |
Forensic scientist whose father invented the time machine, which she keeps and adjusts in her apartment. |
| Kate Grisham | Sue Johnston Sue Johnston Susan "Sue" Johnston, OBE is a BAFTA nominated English actress best known for playing Sheila Grant in the long-running soap opera Brookside , Grace Foley in Waking the Dead from 2000 to 2011 and Barbara Royle in the BBC comedy The Royle Family between 1998 and 2000, and again in 2006, 2008, 2009,... |
Slade's irritable boss whom, thanks to his methods, he is constantly getting on the wrong side of. |
| Morris | Paul Trussell Paul Trussell Paul Trussell is an English actor.Born in Wimbledon, he has appeared in many plays, television series and films. He has worked closely with the director, Mike Leigh, on the stage play It's a Great Big Shame, and the films Life is Sweet and the Oscar-nominated Secrets & Lies, .He is known to TV... |
Slade's slow-witted colleague, who usually takes the credit for his success. |
| Nicky Robson | Richard Dempsey Richard Dempsey Richard Dempsey is an English actor.- Biography :Dempsey's first role was at the age of 15, when he was cast as Peter Pevensie, the lead role in the BBC's adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 1988. The following year, he appeared in the adaptation of Prince Caspian... |
Posh, intelligent but naive trainee detective, too helpful and trusting for his own good. |
| Danny | Bob Goody | Janitor at Holly's apartment block, who is constantly having to deal with the power outages caused by Holly and Slade's use of the time machine. |
Episodes
| # | Title | Director | Original Airdate |
|---|---|---|---|
Jeff Slade
(Played by Michael French)Slade is not what could be described as a conventional detective. His style is maverick to say the least and he is more prone to go on instinct rather than cold hard facts. This approach invariably gets him in trouble with his superiors but nine times out of ten they will result in an arrest. Slade clearly enjoys his job and is very dedicated to it even though his attitude sometimes suggests otherwise. He was inspired to join the police because of his father Jack who was a highly respected detective himself until his false arrest and imprisonment for theft in 1992. Jeff took this very hard as he had always admired his father and refused to believe he was capable of such a thing following such a distinguished 30 year career. Slade was once married but very little is known about how long he was married and indeed how the marriage ended but it is thought that his wife died as he keeps a picture in his flat of a girl he tells Holly is now dead. Outside work Slade tends to keep himself to himself and rarely if ever socialises with colleagues such as Morris and Nicky. His only real friend at work is science officer Holly Turner. They have clearly always been on friendly terms but it is suggested that before her telling him about the machine they didn't socialise outside of work. Since his finding out about the machine the two have become a lot closer and spend a lot of time together outside work. It is hinted throughout the series that Slade is attracted to Holly but for whatever reason he has never seen fit to tell her how he feels. As well as making them closer personally their use of the machine has also shown that professionally they are a very good team and together they have solved several crimes including who set up Slade's father five years before and getting him released.
Holly Turner
(Played by Chloe Annett)Holly is the daughter of Professor Frederick Turner a prominent physicist whose specialist field was that of time travel. After years of research and work, Turner was able to develop a working time machine. Turner used the machine to carry out experiments on time and the laws and rules by which it abides, such as 'you can't change the past' and 'time won't allow paradoxes'. The only other person Turner ever told about the machine was his daughter Holly. When Turner failed to return to the machine in time on his last trip and was trapped in a loop of infinity, Holly took over work on the machine and continued to maintain and perfect it to continue his experiments. In order to do this Holly needed money and as she didn't dare apply for a grant for fear of someone discovering the machine. So she went to work for the CID as a science officer and it was here that she met detective Jeff Slade. The two were friendly from the start but when Holly used the machine to help Slade out after a case had gone badly wrong and got Slade in trouble, Slade found out about the machine. This resulted in their relationship becoming closer and they began spending time together outside work. Holly is clearly attracted to Slade as he is to her but like him she chooses to not to reveal this to him, probably because she thinks that if the machine were not around then Slade wouldn't give her a second glance. Like Slade, Holly tends to keep herself to herself, possibly more so than he does because she is so terrified that someone may find out about the machine. Whilst she feels that Slade relies to much on the machine to solve his cases, she does seem to like the fact that she now has someone to talk to about the machine and she no longer has to keep all the financial worries that it's upkeep brings completely to herself.
The Machine
The Time Machine was invented by Professor Frederick Turner. The machine has been cobbled together from various different pieces of electronic equipment over the years and has a distinctly home-made look about it. Turner built the machine in the living room of his flat in Sundown Court where he lived with his daughter Holly and presumably at some stage his wife. Holly is the only other person he ever told about the machine. The most vital component for the machine is the electro-magnetic crystal which is in the heart of the machine, unfortunately it is also the single most expensive part of the machine, Turner had to sell his house in order to buy his. The machine can only travel backwards in time as it is not possible to travel into the future which doesn't exist and it can only go back as far as few hours into the past, though it could in theory take you back a week. Attached to the machine is a time piece which has a small analogue clock and a digital countdown display. This indicates how far back the machine has taken you and how much time remains until you are back at the time you left. This time piece can be removed from the machine and placed in a watch which the time traveller can use to carry it round with to remind them of how much time is left. The time piece must be replaced in the machine before the countdown reaches zero otherwise the traveller or travellers will be caught in a loop of infinity constantly living out the same few hours that they travelled back in time. This is what happened to Frederick Turner. The machine is now maintained by Holly and she is the only person to know about it until she tells her friend and colleague Jeff Slade.See also
- Quantum Leap, an American science fiction show involving time travel to fix the past; this often involves crime solving.
- Seven Days, an American science fiction show in which a government-controlled machine can send one man a week back in time, though the expense means that it is only used to avert serious disasters; this can involve stopping criminals or terrorists.
- TimecopTimecopTimecop is a 1994 science-fiction thriller film directed by Peter Hyams and co-written by Mike Richardson and Mark Verheiden. Richardson was also executive producer...
, a 1994 science-fiction film starring Jean Claude Van Damme as a time-travelling police officer.
External links
- Crime Traveller fan site
- Crime Traveller at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
. - Action TV Crime Traveller page