The Time Tunnel in favor of Custer. The network headquarters gave green light for Custer, and The Time Tunnel was cancelled. The Legend of Custer was itself cancelled after airing 17 low-rated episodes, skewered by critics and performed worse than The Time Tunnel. Media Novels Murray Leinster promotional novel In January 1967 a promotional novel, The Time Tunnel, was published by Pyramid Books. The author was Murray Leinster, who had previously written a novel of the same name in 1964, completely unrelated to the television series. Leinster used four of the main characters: Tony Newman, Doug Phillips, General Kirk, and Ann MacGregor as well as the initial antagonist Senator Clark. Unlike the television series, Project Tic-Toc is secretly begun and financed through the Defense Department without the consent of Congress. General Kirk is a retired Air Force General rather than an active duty Army General. Senator Clark, rather than urging immediate human time travel as he does in the TV series, demands that Project Tic-Toc refrain from going forward with it. He does this in the interests of humanity, which, in his view, would be adversely affected by a person from the future intruding into the past: ancestors of persons now living could be killed by a time traveler resulting in their descendants now living ceasing to exist or inventions and developments of the past being changed resulting in the wiping out of what exists in the present day. Tony and Doug's relocation to Johnstown, Pennsylvania just before the Johnstown Flood of May 31, 1889 allows them the opportunity of saving the life of Senator Clark's grandmother, Julie Bowen. If Tony and Doug had not gone back in time and saved her, Senator Clark would have ceased to exist. The second time and place Tony and Doug are relocated to is the Texas prairie near Adobe Walls, Texas, June 26, 1874. They are picked up by a traveling group of hunters tracking bison at the scene of the massacre of another group of bison hunters by Comanche warriors. Tony and Doug travel with them to Adobe Walls just in time for the historic battle on June 27. Knowing about the impending attack and the incident of the cracking of the ridgepole of the sod roof of Hanrahan's saloon where Tony and Doug were staying, they caused the cracking themselves by shooting at the pole. This effectively awakened the sleeping hunters,