The Best And Worst Time Travel TV Shows

The longest-running science fiction show in history is a fine place to start this list. Doctor Who has been a BBC mainstay since 1963, which is kind of brain-melting when you think about it. The titular Doctor is what's known as a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, on the run from his fellow men in a stolen TARDIS. He jumps through time and space solving problems with his wits, accompanied by a revolving cast of companions. One of the most interesting aspects of the series is the many actors who have played the Doctor - since his species can regenerate from injuries, eleven different dudes have been cast in the role over the nearly half-century the show has been on.

And from the sublime to the ridiculous. The early days of upstart TV network The WB were characterized by throwing tons of shows at the wall and seeing what stuck. One that didn't was Do Over, a 2002 comedy series starring Penn Badgley. The story is one that we've all fantasized about - Joel Larsen, a schlubby paper salesman, gets his consciousness sent back in time to his 14 year old body in 1981. What does he do with his knowledge of the future? Pretends to have written Green Day songs. Ugh. Absolutely one of the worst time travel TV shows ever.

A popular variant on the time travel concept is the time loop, where a character relives the same span of time over and over again. Probably the most famous example is Groundhog Day, but TV got a respectable take on it with Day Break. Starring Taye Diggs, the series was cancelled after just a season, which was a major shame. Every day Detective Brett Hopper wakes up at 6:17 AM, is accused of murder, and has to figure out what the hell is going on. The show was remarkably intelligent and had a ton of promise, so it's sad that we only got thirteen episodes.

Okay, what genius thought that a TV show based on a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie would do big business? Timecop was a very short-lived 1997 show on ABC that starred Ted King as officer Jack Logan, who has been rocketed back to the past from 2004 to take care of crimes in the '90s. Wow, they really thought we'd figure a lot of stuff out in seven years. Too bad we all just dicked around on the Internet instead. The plots were corny, the effects were dumb, and it lasted nine episodes. There's a reboot of the movie coming, apparently, which just proves that bad ideas never die.