Timeslip
- The Videos
The complete Timeslip series was released as four
double pack videos during the early nineties by ITC Home Video.
Depending on where you purchased them form you could buy them
for around £16.99.
The catalogue numbers were:
The Wrong End of Time (ITC 8115)
The Time of the Ice Box (ITC 8116)
The Year of the Burn Up (ITC 8117)
The Day of the Clone (ITC 8118)
The Wrong End of Time Cover |
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At the time, ITC Home Video were capitalising
on their back catalogue of television programmes from both
the ITC and ATV folds with releases as diverse as The Persuaders!
Tiswas and The Adventures of Robin Hood. The Wrong End of
Time debuted in 1992 with the other serials following shortly
after at sporadic intervals.
ITC were forced to use black and white film recordings of
all the episodes due to the unavailability of the series in
colour. As such both sound and picture quality is lacking
to various degrees throughout all of the releases. The Wrong
End of Time is a reasonably clear print but is marred by surface
marks that appear especially on the darker shots. The Day
of the Clone has very poor sound in places with episodes varying
in quality. |
The Time of the Ice Box Cover |
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Adding insult to injury, they were also haphazardly
edited to remove the commercial breaks and ATV/ITC logos to
make them more palatable for video release.
Sloppy chopping here and there meant that you could occasionally
hear the "echo" of the commercial break sting around
the middle of some episodes. (The break during part one of
The Year of the Burn Up is very obvious with the show's theme
music running over a scene of Liz leaving home, for no apparent
reason on the edited video release!)
The music and end titles would sometimes cut off suddenly
before the ATV logo appeared following the end credits...
especially on The Day of the Clone. |
The Year of the Burn UP Cover |
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The box design remained uniform through the
releases utilising an enhanced shot of the naval station gateposts
together with a selection of black and white stills. Many
of the stills were poorly chosen with some being matched to
the wrong serial whilst others being quite obviously rehearsal
shots.
For example, the shot of Simon, Liz, Gottfried and Sarah on
the cover of the first serial shows them performing in broad
daylight whilst the actual scene occurred at night in the
final version. The shot of Liz and Larry in the fantasy room
that adorns the cover of the second serial shows Cheryl Burfield
in her street clothes as opposed to her Liz costume. |
The Day of the Clone Cover |
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On the back of the same video, the two stills
used above the blurb are both taken from the previous serial
and make no sense whatsoever...
The videos have long since been deleted.
Although it is easy to level complaints at the presentation
and packaging of the video releases, one must still be thankful
ITC Home Video released them in the first place. They could,
looking at the poor black and white prints of this once
colour serial just as easily passed it over in favour of
something more colourful and high profile. |
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