TimeQuest
Picture: C
Sound: C+ Extras: D Program: C+
The Kennedy family has been more Pop trivialized than any
other ever has been or will be. With a
new series that will weekly chronicle (or so they think) the family through the
decades, there is no sign of this going away.
One of the wackiest recent cases is the Science Fiction production TimeQuest,
a taped 2002 feature-length program that supposes what might have happened if
JFK was NOT killed.
That might sound interesting and/or outrageous at first,
then you have to realize how politically savvy the film might be, or at least
expect its audience to be. This is not
the dark Sci-Fi of NBC’s brief-lived TV series Dark Skies, one of many X-Files greenlighted shows. That one
asked us what if aliens killed JFK, among other things.
Though the acting is on the flat
side, it is also unintentionally amusing.
It is fair to say that the program is optimistic that Kennedy would have
taken the U.S. into a better direction and had a lasting presidency. There is even an odd Clinton in-joke. Of course, Writer/director Robert Dyke is
nowhere near Rod Serling territory, which is the ultimate failure here. However, this is a program that is likely to
become a curio in the long run and possibly a cult item, especially with Bruce
Campbell in it.
The full screen image is soft,
having originated in analog videotape, and even has raw videotape in it, making
no secret of the source. This would
usually be distracting, but this is so bad to begin with, that such breaks are
not a surprise. The Dolby Digital 2.0
Stereo claims to be Surround (Pro Logic) capable, but does not seem to sound
right. Our copy did not decode well at
all, with nothing in the surrounds.
This used to happen in the early days of VHS & Beta all the time,
where the majors did not even care if surrounds were missing, despite many
consumers having the capacity to begin with.
There are no extras, as if we expected any.
Science Fiction has been in a
really bad rut in recent years, waiting for some breakthrough film to show
up. Besides the bad action films in the
genre’s clothing, bad TV series have been too abundant. TimeQuest is at least somewhat ambitious and might have been
something more if more effort and research had been applied. If you get a kick out of this kind of thing,
you will want to check it out.
- Nicholas Sheffo
