Airdate: Stop. Rewind.

This series goes back to the future as it takes stock of what the past thought the present would look like.

How right were they? What were the breakthrough discoveries nad what were the fads that fell over?

And should we all add 3D television to that list now?

Planes, trains, fast cars, high-tech homes, space exploration – Stop. Rewind is a television journey that plots the most innovative 25 years in human history.

From the giant leap forward in technology from the mid-1980s to the beginning of the 21st century, Stop. Rewind explores those ideas, discoveries, breakthroughs, dead-ends and eureka moments that shaped the latter part of the 20th century and laid the groundwork for the 21st.

Stop. Rewind reflects on what the 80s and 90s generations thought the future would deliver and considers what we’ve ended up with.

Twenty-five years ago the world was a very different place – no digital, no dot-com, no cell phones, no blogs, tweets, nor many of the tech innovations that we now take for granted.

Using images shot over the past quarter century Stop. Rewind showcases the hilarious and often hapless ideas that fell by the wayside and those innovations that really were a preview into the future.

Each themed episode shows the development of a tech industry, documenting how each latched onto new technology, materials, and designs to eventually become the common gadgets, goods and services we know today.

In tonight’s opening episode Stop. Rewind looks at robots – they promised so much – but sadly it’s still a work in progress. Since the 50s we’ve been told a bold new world of robots was supposed to be around the corner – performing all those tasks no human would ever dirty themselves with.

But it’s not been through lack of trying – robots have revolutionised industry and they’ve even created robotic pets – but the ultimate aim – to create an independent, thinking, humanoid robot – is still coming…

It airs 6pm Wednesday September 22nd on ABC2.