Voyagers!

Opening narration

We travel through time to help history along...give it a push where it's needed. When the Omni's red, it means history's wrong. Our job is to get everything back on track. Green light, kid! We did it!

Plot

Phineas Bogg (Jon-Erik Hexum) was one of a society of time travelers called Voyagers who, with the help of a young boy named Jeffrey Jones (played by Meeno Peluce) from 1982, used a hand-held device called an Omni (which looked much like a large pocket watch) to travel in time and ensured that history unfolded as we know it.

Bogg and Jeffrey first met when Bogg's Omni malfunctioned and took him to 1982 (the device was not supposed to reach any farther than 1970), landing him in the skyscraper apartment of Jeffrey's aunt and uncle, who were caring for him after his parents' deaths. Bogg's Guidebook, which contained a detailed description of how history was supposed to unfold, was grabbed by Jeffrey's dog Ralph, and in the struggle to retrieve it Jeffrey accidentally fell out his bedroom window and Bogg jumped out to rescue him by activating the Omni. With his Guidebook stuck in 1982, Bogg (who, being more interested in girls than in history, apparently never paid much attention in his Voyager training/history classes) had to rely on Jeffrey, whose father had been a history professor, to help him. Jeffrey's knowledge proved invaluable; for example, in the first episode Jeffrey ensured that baby Moses's basket traveled down the Nile where it was met by the Pharaoh's daughter.

Phineas was timeless in his machismo, and managed to fall for a beautiful woman in almost every episode. Whenever Jeffrey's wisdom was paired up against Bogg's stubbornness, Jeffrey usually won out, to which Bogg would always mutter, "Smart kids give me a pain!" However, they developed a strong relationship and became a formidable team. In the course of their adventures together, they sometimes encountered other Voyagers whose missions happened to overlap with theirs.

It was revealed later in the series that despite Jeffrey's age, and the accidental circumstances of his first encounter with Phineas, he was always destined to become a Voyager.

Over the closing credits of each episode, regular cast member Meeno Peluce said in voice over: "If you want to learn more about [historical element from the episode], take a voyage down to your public library. It's all in books!"

Reception

Voyagers ran for one season of 20 episodes, broadcast opposite the top-rated 60 Minutes. The series averaged a 17 share. Voyagers! seemed likely to be renewed for a second season, but controversies in 60 Minutes reporting led executives to believe that 60 Minutes might be successfully challenged by a competing news program instead. NBC canceled Voyagers! and replaced it with the news magazine program Monitor, which averaged only a 7 share.

VHS release

In 1982, MCA Home Video released Voyager from the Unknown, which edited together two episodes ("Voyagers" [the pilot episode] and "Voyagers of the Titanic") into one feature-length film that also incorporated new video special effects, some voice-over dubbing for Peluce's character to change or add lines and added footage to include a super-computer which directed Voyager missions.

DVD release

On July 17, 2007, Universal Studios Home Entertainment released all 20 episodes of Voyagers! on DVD in Region 1. It was released in Region 2 on October 29, 2007.

Streaming

All 20 episodes are also available in the United States by streaming through Amazon Video.