askchapo

12 monkeys

yeah one of the simpsons halloween episodes homer accidentally builds a time machine when he's trying to fix the toaster, but he doesn't have precise control since it's controlled by a screwdriver jammed into the toaster electronics.

There was a pretty whelming show called Travelers that had a similar premise of restrictions on time travel, but instead of imprecise its the opposite, it has to be so precise that it's very limiting because you can't send matter back in time, only information so they take over host bodies at very specific locations and moments. If they have the coordinates or the time incorrect, it misfires and the mind of the traveler just is lost.

Due to butterfly effect shit changing the future, there's tons of rules like you can't travel back further than any previous trip. They started as early as they could once cell phones were invented and they had coordinates, and then only sent back new travelers after that point in time. Basically there's future day 0 when they first tested time travel, and past day 0 when the first time traveler arrived. Those two times are synched up, and the future travelers have to come back at the same time (future day 252 and past day 252, etc).

In a post-apocalyptic future, thousands of special operatives are tasked with preventing the collapse of society. These operatives, known as "travelers", have their consciousnesses sent back in time and transferred into the "host" body of present-day individuals who are about to die, minimizing unexpected impact on the future. The transfer requires the exact location of the target, made possible by 21st-century smartphones and GPS, providing time, elevation, latitude, and longitude (TELL) coordinates that are archived for use in the future. No transfer can be safely made to a time prior to one already performed.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

Which by the way is also the answer to the bar trivia question "Name four movies where Christopher Lloyd's vehicle was used for time travel."

There was an episode of The Original Star Trek series I think

Not exactly what you're looking for but in Stargate SG1 they accidentally travel back in time due to some very specific circumstances involving wormhole travel and a solar flare. They try to replicate it to go back to their own time but end up overshooting due to their timing being slightly off. Since this is TV they luckily overshoot far enough that the tech exists to send them back to their original time.

I feel like Terminator sorta does this in that all the "historical records" remaining are very imprecise, so even if the technology was hyper-precise, you don't really know what you're aiming for. But not in the literal sense of the OP.

I'm trying to remember how time travel in Continuum worked.

There's obviously also the collection of stories where the time travel is accidental, so there isn't really a statement of intent to begin with.

Isn't this Quantum Leap (or at least the reboot, I don't really remember the original)...

Thar be spoilers...

Quantum Leap couldn't get exactly where they needed to in one shot. They had to kind of slingshot-effect around other places in time to get to where they needed...sorta like slingshotting around planets to go faster in space.

The Doctor can be pretty imprecise.

In dbz trunks is consistently off by a few hours when traveling back in time. It has no impact on the story though.

I can't remember if this is actually canon or if it's a throwaway line in the Abridged dub but I think Trunks' time machine in DBZ works like this. He shows up super early to Frieza and Cooler landing on Earth, and then shows up super late to the fight with the Androids.

The Light Brigade

Doctor Who touches on this theme occasionally, but its not anywhere near the main premise. "wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff" I believe is one of the quotes, lol.