Few who recall the adventures of time travelers Phineas Bogg (Jon-Erik Hexum) and Jeffrey Jones (Meeno Peluce) have not yearned for the DVD release of Voyagers! as more obscure one-season wonders filled DVD shop shelves over the last decade.  Whether it was seen during its 1982 NBC run Sunday nights at 7pm (against the ratings titan 60 Minutes), in syndication on independent stations, or the Sci Fi Channel's 1992 airings, the series left a distinct impression on its audience.  A now rare combination of historic adventure stories imbued with educational content, the series was created by James D. Parriott (most recently of Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy) and partially financed by Scholastic Books (most recently the US distributor for Harry Potter).  It concerned the adventures of an 18^th century pirate, Bogg, trained by a secret cabal of unknown origins, the Voyagers, to travel through time "restoring" history to its proper order.  When his Omni, a watch-like time travel device, malfunctions, Bogg is forced to adopt 12-year-old orphan Jeffrey Jones as a traveling companion—and as a guide to history as Bogg lost his Voyager Guidebook.

Aimed at a younger audience, the 20-episode run plays like a highlight reel of history with Spartacus' slave revolt, Thomas Edison's invention of electric light bulbs, and Charles Lindberg's trans-Atlantic flight all providing fodder for compelling stories of adventure and problem solving while other moments—Francis Scott Key's composition of "The Star-spangled Banner," for example—serve as brief vignettes between major plot points.  Most of the early scripts features two time zones with thematic underpinnings—the aforementioned Spartacus story sharing an episode with Harriet Tubman and the underground railroad in "Created Equal"—while the seven episodes from the later production block often devoted an entire hour to one plot for a more involved scenario.  Perhaps most intriguing of all were the stories that offered some insight into the world of the Voyagers themselves.  On three occasions, Bogg and Jeffrey encountered other members of the former's fraternity with compelling results and the thirteenth episode (likely in an effort to save some money) featured Bogg recalled to the Voyager headquarters to stand trial for abducting Jeffrey and breaking the order's Code.  Sadly, the show never had to time to develop this mythology further.

The late Jon-Erik Hexum, who died tragically of a firearms accident a short time after the series' production, lends both a romantic edge and tender paternal air to the series as Bogg.  Though almost entirely ignorant of history, Bogg is a capable instrument when aimed in the right direction.  Jeffrey stands in for every kid who reveled in school and longed for adventure.  Peluce's bright-eyed innocence allows the audience to forgive some of the more forced aspects of his performance (the kid cannot cry convincingly to save his life), but the real heart of the show is his remarkable chemistry with Hexum.  Though short-lived, the show is fondly remembered and stands as a monument to a time when TV occasionally aspired to something more than mere entertainment.  Though Peluce's closing reminder that the facts behind each episode are "all in books" may be dated in this Internet age, the show is not.