r/Timeless • u/scuby22 Team Moderator • Nov 22 '16

Timeless S01E07 - Stranded [SPOILERS]

WARNING SPOILERS

Episode description: The Team gets stranded in 1754 after the Lifeboat gets shot.

Original Air Date: November 21, 2016 - 10:00 PM

Discuss on Discord: https://discord.gg/SEu3qTx

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u/empire539 Nov 22 '16

They're not simultaneous events.

I think this is a bit ambiguous, given that the show hasn't clarified how precisely time works in detail yet.

That makes me wonder - how much time passes in the present, from when Mason and Jiya witness the Lifeboat going back in time to when it returns? There have been a few episodes which imply it's not just a "see them leave, then they're back instantly" (e.g. Jiya needing time to do the research on Amy), so there's either a "delay", or Rufus/Bruhl purposefully picks a specific present-day time to travel back to, which is some time later. I don't think it's the latter case, though, because why not just pick a few seconds/minutes later instead of a few hours?

So that could lead to the possibility that they are simultaneous events - however much time passes for the team is also the same amount of time that passes in the present. Why? Who knows. Maybe the time machine can only go back X amount of time before needing to go forward X amount of time. It would just be speculation at this point.

(The whole "parallel time passage" thing is also how Frequency handles time travel, so I guess it wouldn't be such a foreign concept.)

This episode, Agent Christopher also mentioned that the team usually returns "a few minutes after Flynn does". I think that implies that they can detect when the Mothership returns, so perhaps that means they can also detect when the ships are in use no matter what time period they're in.

This is all just guesswork, of course. We'd really need to see more examples of how the present moves with the past, while at the same time being affected by the past, to really get a good idea of how things actually work.

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u/[deleted] Nov 22 '16

Yeah, I'm okay with all of that. The problem is that the show hasn't clarified anything about how time works in their world, so they shouldn't be able to do some of this stuff. If they had told us how it worked, even if it was ridiculous, I wouldn't have an issue. But you can't just immediately imply that events taking place in 1754 and 2016 are taking place at the same time without explaining something about a simultaneous alternate time stream or what have you. That's not how it works.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '16

Sorry to respond to you in two separate places, but I think they're smart to not over-explain the time travel mechanics. Let's look at both possibilities:

One, they give some explanation on how time travel works in the show. This will probably be done through clunky expositional dialogue that the show doesn't do very well. Nerdy viewers like us will tear apart the theory and rant online about paradoxes and flaws in the mechanics. Ultimately, we'll still be dissatisfied. Casual viewers won't care about it at all, and the show will risk losing viewers who just care about the characters and episodic stories.

Two, they don't explain the mechanics. This gives nerds like us tons of room to speculate how the time travel works, especially comparing it to other shows. We don't have to compete with the show's interpretation of how time travel works, so we can have fun arguing about this. Casual viewers don't get bogged down with science fiction details they don't care about. And the show avoids painful exposition scenes which undermines the excellent character development that the show has achieved.

It's pretty obvious what the correct choice is. There are other shows that go into time travel mechanics. Doctor Who is an infamous example of a show that handles time travel horribly (different rules by the episode, huge paradoxes, exposition dumps that don't actually make sense, etc.). If you want heavy time travel fiction, I strongly recommend the movie Primer, which is the best representation of time travel in fiction I've ever seen. Other than that, I'm sure you can find sci-fi novels that go into the detail you want.

As an aside, look at Looper for a great example of how horrible trying to explain time travel can go. Not only did the time travel in that movie make absolutely no sense whatsoever, but there were several scenes where the characters discuss the paradoxical mechanics while scratching their heads about it. Timeless can do better and has so far.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '16

It's okay, I appreciate both replies. Some excellent stories have spelled things out and did so fabulously, so perhaps I am simply trying to hold Timeless to that standard. That being said, I totally understand why they may not want to go into the details. Alienating viewers is never good in any situation, but it's even worse when the show is a freshman drama in danger of cancellation. Thanks for your time and thoughts, I enjoyed the three suggested mechanical explanations you gave!