Other reviews have synopsized the plot well enough, so I won't belabor it. On the plus side, this plays better then 90% of the SciFi channel's made for TV movies (but then, what doesn't?) It even has a couple of clever touches that you wouldn't expect the hero to be bright enough to think up in a split second. So what was wrong with it?
[..spoiler alert..]
What happens when the hero returns to his 1994 could be more fascinating than anything else in the movie. After all, he has a dire warning of how dangerous this technology can be, yet despite the appearance of the professor at the end, there's nothing in the plot to indicate that he story would be taken seriously. Sure he went away, but all his potential evidence went away along with the alternate universe unless he managed to bring some 1993 Nazi American souvenirs back with him - and there's nothing to suggest he did. Who's he going to warn them about? The bad guy got sucked into cosmic nothingness after the hero shot his father in 1943, so none of the setup ever happened in this time line!
But that's almost a minor quibble. Where this show really lost me was when he returned and they had the heart-warming scene of him reuniting with his kid, I thought to myself, "Surely, they wouldn't be dumb enough to have the girl show up in this time line!" Well, they did. Think of it... She was obviously born in the 60's sometime. Yet, if Hitler had nuked Washington, DC in 1943 and won the war, what would be the chances that her parents would have ever gotten together in this time line? In a show like this, you just have to know how long to expect your audience to suspend their disbelief. (Also, the other person was right about the F117 not having sufficient range to bomb the US from anywhere in Europe without mid-air refueling.)
Still, the part about his getting rid of the villain by killing his father was great - probably the best thought out part of the whole show. Of course, it lost a little since the only dialog that sets up the fact that the kid was born after 1943 was in German. What's the point of writing clever stuff if the average English-speaking viewer can't understand it?
[..spoiler alert..]
What happens when the hero returns to his 1994 could be more fascinating than anything else in the movie. After all, he has a dire warning of how dangerous this technology can be, yet despite the appearance of the professor at the end, there's nothing in the plot to indicate that he story would be taken seriously. Sure he went away, but all his potential evidence went away along with the alternate universe unless he managed to bring some 1993 Nazi American souvenirs back with him - and there's nothing to suggest he did. Who's he going to warn them about? The bad guy got sucked into cosmic nothingness after the hero shot his father in 1943, so none of the setup ever happened in this time line!
But that's almost a minor quibble. Where this show really lost me was when he returned and they had the heart-warming scene of him reuniting with his kid, I thought to myself, "Surely, they wouldn't be dumb enough to have the girl show up in this time line!" Well, they did. Think of it... She was obviously born in the 60's sometime. Yet, if Hitler had nuked Washington, DC in 1943 and won the war, what would be the chances that her parents would have ever gotten together in this time line? In a show like this, you just have to know how long to expect your audience to suspend their disbelief. (Also, the other person was right about the F117 not having sufficient range to bomb the US from anywhere in Europe without mid-air refueling.)
Still, the part about his getting rid of the villain by killing his father was great - probably the best thought out part of the whole show. Of course, it lost a little since the only dialog that sets up the fact that the kid was born after 1943 was in German. What's the point of writing clever stuff if the average English-speaking viewer can't understand it?