The networks’ time traveler convention continued on Tuesday with the new trailer for ABC’s Time After Time, from Scream creator Kevin Williamson. ABC’s entry into the time travel derby doesn’t have zeppelins, but it does have H.G. Wells, which is nearly as good. Wells has traveled in his time machine—he built it before writing about it—to modern-day Manhattan. The purpose of his voyage is summed up in an admirably concise voiceover, which with any luck will run over the opening credits of each episode:
I believe my friend John is Jack the Ripper. He has escaped to the future, and I am the only one who can catch him.
Freddie Stroma stars as Wells while Josh Bowman plays Jack the Ripper. The show has traveled from the past just like its hero; in 1979, it was simultaneously made into a novel and a film (screenwriter Nicholas Meyer wrote the script concurrently with Karl Alexander’s novel). That iteration starred Malcolm McDowell as Wells, David Warner as Jack the Ripper, and Mary Steenburgen as Wells’ 20th-century love interest. Here’s the trailer for the original film:
