PhantomStranger

My guess goes even further. The female lead eventually realizes all the changes she has made to the timeline are too damaging. She gives her son a notebook in the future, with explicit details on how to reverse the changes she made in history to restore everything. The "villain" we met in episode one is her son.

His father? Wyatt.

This is a show that is going to live and die by its weekly cases, not its overarching narrative. It was pitched as Supernatural with time travel.

Superman07

The sequence of events does pose for some interesting questions. For example this week they affected events in the 1930s but next week they appear to be going further back in time to affect the 1860s. When the effects in the 1860s then alter the newly affected 1900s? So if you were to stop at Lincoln from getting killed, or whatever they're planning, maybe there would be no Hindenburg to stop from blowing up in the first place.

I'm not convinced the company owner is necessarily the bad guy. He did seem genuine when he said the government cant be trusted with something.

I feel like it would be a bit too obvious if the guy was at her husband or son. Chances are if that was the case he would've reacted a lot differently. For instants Wyatt had a long stare when he saw the reporter in the bar who reminded him of his wife.

Why So Blu?

Just watched it this morning and it's rather bland and some of the CGI was really bad. I like the lead chick but whether it keeps my interest - who knows. I think I'm gonna re-watch Westworld again.

rw2516

I think known history is accurate. Every time they travel history is getting more screwed up. The historian is keeping a record of original history in her journal. It's the only record of original history. The bad guy is using the journal as a guide to know where to go, what to change, to get desired results.

bunkaroo

This. I generally hate the way NBC series look, and yeah the pretty boy is definitely annoying.

bunkaroo

I also didn't see this mentioned, but the episode was directed by Neil Marshall, who directed Game of Thrones' "Blackwater" and "The Watchers on the Wall" episodes. Given that resume I was expecting more from this, but I'm sure NBC execs are much more meddlesome than HBO.

Why So Blu?

I noticed that, too. In fact, I also noticed that Marshall also directed an episode of Westworld. I'm sure that will be much better in terms of quality than the Timeless pilot was.

SteveA

More regarding time travel. I'm always amused when people are in such a big hurry to go back in time to catch the bad guys that just went back there. They could have waited a week, or a year, or five years to go back in time and still been right behind (or right ahead) of the guy. It's not when you start, it's when you end up.

Eric F

I thought it was poor. Too many little errors.

When they wanted to get rid of the bomb why didn't they just throw it out the window? They were able to break the same exact window when they wanted to escape, so that clearly wasn't the issue.

VHS?

I enjoyed this a lot. I may get confused along the way though. Time travel rules are always changing and different, it makes it hard sometimes to be able to say "hey, that wont work" but it's still fun to see how things change in a big way from the simplest changes.

MikahC

Mea Culpa... I'm not a fan of time travel. While that would seemingly mean I should just avoid shows like this, it doesn't always work out that way. I basically ignore thinking about the time travel much as I know going in it likely won't be intellectually rewarding.

That said... time travel (with the exception of things like Interstellar) usually means time moves at one pace, there's a jump, then time resumes moving at the previous pace. So if you do a time jump at noon on Dec 31st, a day later, it will be noon on Jan 1st.

Then there's the "model" of time travel being presented by the show to consider. Is there one thread of time and everything changed in the past ripples through to the present? Or does altering something in the past cause a split where the original timeline can never be changed and a new timeline forms from the point of the change in the past?

In a ripple model, it doesn't just matter when I end up, it can also matter when I begin that journey. Let's take an example. Person 1 and Person 2 are enemies. On 10/08/16, Person 1 does a time jump at noon to noon 3 months before Person 2 was born (let's call it 7/08/1984). Person 1 then locates person 2's parents within 2 hours and shoots the pregnant mother in the stomach killing both mother and person 2 (at 2p on 7/8/1984).

Now let's look at things from person 2's perspective. at 12:01p on 10/8/2016, all is still fine. At 1:59p person 1 can jump back to anywhere he wants prior to 2:00p on 7/8/1984. But person 2 won't be around to go back and prevent his own death as of 2:01p because he and his mother have already been killed.

In the ripple model, if you're trying to stop changes to the past, it's best that you follow the people trying to change it as soon as possible. It applies to a split time model as well, but I think it's easier to visualize in a ripple model.

Joe Schmoe

If they had thrown the bomb out the window, it still would have exploded and that could have altered history by killing people on the ground.

Eric F

See, that's the thing. You could make up a million different reasons why they did this, or why didn't they do that? And that's exactly why most time traveling shows don't work. Best to keep it light and fun.

JimRochester

Saw this last night and certainly enough to keep me interested in future episodes. I too thought of Time Tunnel but no one has mentioned Timecop. You can't go forward because it hasn't happened yet. People go back because it's the easiest way to make money. I also thought the soldier was a little wooden and in the first 3 minutes in the past he falls for a damsel about to die and tried to change history. WTF. They just told you that you can't change history. Saw the bra reveal coming the minute she mentioned it in the future. Knew it would be a plot point. I have this on DVR so I'll probably be checking out a few episodes. I love time travel as you don't over think it.

So do you think all her male co-stars have checked out her leaked nudes?

Joe Schmoe

I'm not sure I see the bomb as a reason why this show doesn't work as a time travel show. No matter what year this show took place in, they'd be risking injuring/killing people on the ground if they threw a ticking bomb from a flying aircraft, so I don't think they'd do it. As far as keeping it light and fun, the Back to the Future trilogy had that kind of tone but still addressed the idea that altering events in the past can have serious repercussions. I think this show can do the same.

PhantomStranger

In our actual physics, there is good reasoning to believe it would be impossible time traveling to a point before the invention of the time travel device/machine itself. If time travel is actually possible backwards in time. It's the one point most entertainment stories get wrong about time travel.

I don't think most people realize that traveling forward in time is a built-in feature of relativity. You simply can't go back in time with ordinary physics unless you start introducing exotic wormholes and other spacetime features.

rw2516

I heard once that Einstein described how to build a time machine and how it would work. Something about a cylinder that spins, and time would pass at a different speed inside the cylinder. If an hour passed inside the cylinder, a year would past outside it. Not unlike the movie Interstellar. They spent a day on the planet but 30 years passed on the ship in orbit.

DWilson

I saw the photos and the videos when The Fappening occurred, but it's more effective when you can connect them to an actress you've just watched as the lead in some NBC show (hadn't heard of her at the time). I just looked them up again. She seems like a nice girl.

davidh777

I liked the pilot and will keep watching. I'm a sucker for time travel, and I liked the twist at the end. I'm sure the intent is to handle a lot of these unanswered questions as they go along. I haven't seen the female lead before, but she's gorgeous, even when "dirtied up."

DWilson

I'm a little "Timed out" these days, since the "Butterfly Effect" is over-used to keep the plot in motion on so many shows these days, -see "12 Monkeys", for one example, -but I'll give this another episode or two.

davidh777

I'll confess that I liked the first few episodes of 12 Monkeys then lost track of it.

JimRochester

Yeah while searching for something to watch last night I threw the pilot on again for my wife. Obviously it has many issues but it certainly has potential as an entertaining show.

Astrofan

Gave it up in the before the end of the first season.

Astrofan

Oh please are we going to really worry about the physics of time travel in a TV entertainment show? Go watch Primer instead.

OldBoy

I'm watching the pilot now. About half hour in. Frankly it's doing nothing for me. Seems like been there done that with some questionable effects. Does it get better and less hokey imo?