Timeline (TV series)

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Timeline is a 1989 American/British/Spanish/Turkish educational television series that aired on PBS, presenting historical events from the Middle Ages in the style of newscasts.^[1] Six episodes of the series were produced.^[1]

The series was created, written and directed by Leo Eaton through Maryland Public Television (MPT). Producers were Diane Holmes of Holmes Associates in London, UK, Fernando de Castro Lopez of Televisión Española (TVE), and Altug Savasal of Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT).^{[citation needed]} It was filmed on location during summer 1988 on the Isle of Man in the UK and in Spain and Turkey, with the anchor newsroom created at Maryland Public TV in the United States. Timeline evolved from a series of similar television shorts for children created by Gary Witt and produced by Leo Eaton earlier in the 1980s, called Newscast from the Past. Gary Witt was also a co-producer on Timeline.^{[citation needed]}

In Timeline, news anchor Steve Bell (a real-life news anchor, playing himself) and four ethnically diverse field reporters – "Siboletto of Zimbabwe" (Fran Dorn), "Owen of Canarfon" (Robert Bathurst), "Luis de Jaen" (Iñaki Aierra) and "Selim Karasi" (Engin Cezzar) – report from six watershed events in human history between 1066 and 1492. The series owed some of its inspiration to Walter Cronkite's You Are There, which aired on CBS from 1953 to 1957. Timeline also included faux commercials for products and services first available at that time in history. While the premiere episode "The Crusades" aired to good ratings and received extensive press coverage, PBS's decision to broadcast each half-hour episode only on a bi-monthly basis (paired with comedian Mark Russell's half-hour satirical TV specials) provided no audience continuity and the series soon disappeared from public view.^{[citation needed]}