Back in 1895, H.G. Wells published a book called The Time Machine and now over 120 years later, it is being told again in the ABC series Time After Time, Sundays at 9p. Wells was a writer way of ahead of time, thus why he wrote about time travel. His writing influenced another writer and that person is Executive Producer, Writer and Director extraordinaire Kevin Williamson. Williamson has taken his love of the author from the book to the small screen because he has been a huge fan of the big screen version since his teens.
Williamson recently spoke about his admiration of Wells and 1979’s feature film Time After Time at a press event for the Sci-Fi show. He said, “Well, I have always loved this project. I have just been a big fan of (the film’s Director) Nicholas Meyer from the word go growing up. This movie is what led me to actually read H.G. Wells, it’s what turned me to H.G. Wells as a writer.”
Even though it got him to read the author, he veered away from it first. Telling us, “I found it very hard, very dense. It wasn’t my cup of tea at the time. And then I started reading The Island of Doctor Moreau and then I got it. I like this this guy. Then I went out to read The Invisible Man. We sort of live in that universe.” So much so, he made it known that, “We live in The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau and The Invisible Man and we just start touching War of the Worlds and that will be this season.”
One such way the worlds of Wells’ imagination combine on the series, is Williamson says that, “In a lot of ways, Griffin in The Invisible Man is a lot like John (Stevenson aka Jack the Ripper), in terms of some of his character and his backstory.”
While that is Dr John Stevenson aka Jack the Ripper (Josh Bowman), what about hero H.G. Wells (Freddie Stroma)? Even though Wells invented the time machine, he does not adapt to our time as well as Dr Stevenson, the man he is chasing. Why is that? Williamson explained his thought process on that one as, “It seemed too easy to take H.G. Wells, who wrote of the future, who predicted the internet basically, to be this guy who goes to modern day and sort of picks it up.” Eventually, he will take all of his knowledge and Williamson reveals he, “will go home to 1893 and write all of his books, based on his experiences in modern-day New York City is the idea.”
One aspect of the movie that meant a lot to Williamson is a scene where Wells puts on the television and finds out that Utopia he hopes for never happened. That was a scene he incorporated into the pilot, adding that the first episode is loyal to the big screen adaptation. That scene while disappointing to Wells, seems to fit Stevenson like a glove. Shaping how both men will adapt and survive in the year 2017 as compared to 1893. We started to see the effect in the second episode last week and even more so tonight as they have gone their own ways in New York City. Separation is not a good thing for them because there are even more people who know what their true identities are and those people are coming after them. How well prepared are they take on these people who are out to get the two men from the past? Only time will tell.
And one more tell from Williamson on Wells, “I just loved (him). I loved all the ideas. I loved all the science fiction everything that H.G. Wells. I started listening to his recordings.” Then he continued by saying, “Then of course we threw it all away, we created our own show.” A show that is as thrilling as the concept of time travel. Therefore, you don’t want to miss it tonight and every Sunday night on ABC at 9p.
