Eric Stoltz And Sam Neill Starred In An Award-Winning Time Travel Miniseries
Syfy is famous for its plethora of original (and often campy) speculative fiction projects (i.e. "Ghost Shark"), but the channel has aired its share of more serious projects. One of these is a 2005 award-winning work starring Sam Neill and Eric Stoltz.
"The Triangle" is a three-part miniseries that aired over three nights from December 5 to December 7. Sam Neill plays Eric Benerall, a shipping industry tycoon concerned over the numerous container ships his company has lost in the Bermuda Triangle. He is also looking for his twin brother, Winston, who was on one of those lost ships.
Eric hires a team of four to figure out what's happening, including cynical journalist and paranormal skeptic Howard Thomas (Eric Stoltz). Eventually, they discover an anomaly in the Bermuda Triangle concerning a time-bending wormhole and uncover its connection to the urban legend of the Philadelphia Experiment. The series also featured Lou Diamond Phillips, who later starred in "Longmire," one of the best neo-Westerns on television.
The Triangle utilized different theories about the mysterious location
Dean Devlin, one of the miniseries' producers, spoke to TVGuide prior to the premiere about the research that went into making the series. "One of the fun things we did," he told TVGuide, "is right after we decided to pursue this project, we hired some researchers to gather information. We were expecting to get a few pages of crib notes, but we kept getting reams and reams and reams of paper with all these different theories."
The research that went into the infamous area paid off. "The Triangle" won the 2006 Saturn Award for Best Television Presentation and the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Special Visual Effects. Sam Neill was nominated for the Saturn Awards' Best Supporting Actor, and Catherine Bell, who previously starred in "Jag" (which the Navy tried to stop from getting made), was nominated for Best Supporting Actress.
Despite the nominations, the critical reviews for "The Triangle" were somewhat mixed. While not as popular as many other TV shows about time travel, it still holds a nostalgic place in the hearts of science fiction fans.