A couple of years ago, we came into possession of much of the late Victor Pemberton‘s archive regarding his attempt to revive Timeslip in the 1990s. This included much of his correspondence with a number of companies regarding initial finance and distribution. While much of the material is his attempt to sell the embryonic show, there are several undated versions of a pitch document which includes a précis of the original series, a description of what the new series could be, character notes for the new series and a basic plot breakdown of the first four episodes.
Victor had also commissioned separately a further plot breakdown from original writer Bruce Stewart. Bruce’s six-part storyline (undated) is a little more in depth but is unrelated to Victor’s except for the inclusion of the same old and new characters. Both storylines come across as being very much first attempts. They make a number of continuity errors with the original series which would no doubt be corrected at a later stage. For example, Bruce’s storyline referenced both Commander Traynors being consumed by the time barrier in the original series. There is also an insight into things that were unseen in the original serials. Victor’s storyline proffers an origin for the time barrier in Traynor’s 1940s experiments with laser beams bringing it into existence.
These documents have been transcribed as originally presented – including some spelling and grammatical errors. (Some of these errors have been noted.) We’ve tried to keep the layout of these notes consistent with the originals but have adjusted certain aspects of them to enable them to be more easily read online.
Andrew-Mark Thompson
May 2022