Timeless - NBC's "Hard SF" & "Historical" TT Series

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Spoiler

How do you charge an iphone in 1918 ?

With electricity. How else? The electricity was developed at 1752 by Benjamin Franklin. So they had 166 years to developed AC generator if you don't want to fix the phone directly to DC network. Tesla made the AC real at 1888.

 

[REBerg]

Aren't all battery chargers really just ac to dc transformers?

 

[REBerg]

Spoiler: 2.02 - The Nascar 500

I don't think they are going to show Lucy diving into the darkness and never getting out from there

Lucy's character has definitively hardened from the one she played in the first season. As you said, she has been put through a lot. I also think she will recover.

 

[ctg]

Aren't all battery chargers really just ac to dc transformers?

There's more smart in it then the normal ac/dc converter. If you have a normal DC battery you can connect the mobile directly in it, if you make sure you're feeding 5V to correct contacts.

 

[Cli-Fi]

Lucy's character has definitively hardened from the one she played in the first season. As you said, she has been put through a lot. I also think she will recover.

Are we still going with Rittenhouse is evil?? Because Lucy was not so nice and Agent Christopher locking up the Time Team in a bunker? Not so nice either.

 

[Dave]

Surely, the problem is with lack of standard sockets and plugs, rather than with the electricity. Even with an iPhone those have gone through several changes that I know of. When electricity was first distributed even different streets within the same city had different shaped sockets and plugs. That must be a nightmare for your everyday time traveller from the future.

 

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When electricity was first distributed even different streets within the same city had different shaped sockets and plugs. That must be a nightmare for your everyday time traveller from the future.

True, but if you need to get the thing charged then a couple shocks is a small price to pay for it - if you use wires and stick them into the socket (just don't do it at home if you're not licensed). Back then, brown and blackout would have probably fried your mobile as the spikes would have killed electronics. The currency rates back then weren't filtered and managed as well as they're today and that would probably have been bigger problem then charging the thing. Especially on wartimes at the conflict zones.

 

[Dave]

I love this series but I do have a small problem with the temporal mechanics. I know the real reason why they visit random points in history each week - for the same reason the did so in Time Tunnel and Quantum Leap - it makes better TV. However, those two series had valid reasons for their randomness. Here, they are trying to prevent some nefarious Ritterhouse plot spread across the whole of history. Last season there were only a small number of changes to put right, but now the changes are more widespread. My problem is that in reality, neither group would never be messing around in 1955, as it is far too close to the present day. The further back in time you go, the bigger and more far-reaching the consequences will be of any change you make. If Rittenhouse change anything in a more recent year, our heroes can go back to the day before and reverse it. Rittenhouse can then go back to the day before that. This could continue, with each iteration going progressively back in time, until a race back to the beginning would ensue. The beginning, I guess, being the formation of Rittenhouse (although it is possible they could continue back to the dinosaurs or blue-green algae.) That beginning is where the final battle will be fought, so anything else they do is pointless.

On the other hand, maybe the creation of the time machine is another "beginning" that can be wiped. However, thinking about having two "beginnings" makes my head hurt.

I also don't know where Jiya's ability to see the future/alternative future/past fits into this, but it must become important. That is one ability Rittenhouse do not have, which must make it an advantage. I'm not sure either why she is keeping it secret. She may have thought she was going mad, but with Rufus' burn to the arm, she now knows it is something real.

Are we still going with Rittenhouse is evil?? Because Lucy was not so nice and Agent Christopher locking up the Time Team in a bunker? Not so nice either.

Yes, even last season there were signs that everything wasn't black and white. I suspect that Flynn will become a full team member once everyone can accept that, because he has never been wrong, and the his own cause is perfectly aligned with them.

Is Rittenhouse evil? - they do kill without any regret. We still don't really know what they aspire to do. Their cause could be just. Maybe they are trying to prevent the destruction of Earth in the future - would a just cause give them a moral backing their actions and impunity? If they are just trying to create a "perfect" idealised Earth, then that would not be a just cause.

 

[ctg]

I also don't know where Jiya's ability to see the future/alternative future/past fits into this, but it must become important.

I can only explain it through multiverse theory but not through traditional TT in the linear, no forking timeline. If they would slip into the other world, even for a moment, a lot of plotholes could be explained through that understanding.

Is Rittenhouse evil? - they do kill without any regret. We still don't really know what they aspire to do. Their cause could be just. Maybe they are trying to prevent the destruction of Earth in the future - would a just cause give them a moral backing their actions and impunity? If they are just trying to create a "perfect" idealised Earth, then that would not be a just cause.

I totally agree. Their cause could be just and that is the same problem we faced in the first season as they chose to not show the future. But, is that a problem for the larger audience as we learned through Orville that there is a demand for classical SF in the small screen. Timeless is far easier to understand then 12 Monkeys and I gave up on trying to figure it out, because it goes so weird that my brain couldn't handle the complexities. The extended version of movie actually gives a nice explanation to what is and why it happened, and it goes even beyond that into the realm of dark fantasy.

Can all TT stories be classified as dark fantasies?

 

[ctg]

I can explain the visions in the linear timeline if I take from the mythology concept known as an oracle. They are supposed have powers of clairvoyance or a true sight. Whatever changes Rittenhouse/Timeless team are doing might be change Jiay in ways nobody has explained yet. But, if she is standing at the centre of the culmination of these events, it might be possible for her to see things in the future as her metaphysical body goes through alterations.

 

[ctg]

3.03 Hollywoodland. Truly wonderful episode. It made me smile, laugh and feel so good. I don't want to say more as I don't want to spoil you.

 

[REBerg]

Spoiler

What the ... Wyatt and Lucy finally get romantically honest with each other, then Wyatt goes AWOL to hook up with his former (as in dead) wife?
I was also amazed to see Aslaug so alive and well. The last time I saw her, she had taken a fatal Viking arrow in the back.

 

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Spoiler

Wyatt and Lucy finally get romantically honest with each other, then Wyatt goes AWOL to hook up with his former (as in dead) wife?

Yeah, I don't know what is that about. So he should have a pretty good reason to go AWOL. Maybe he wants the divorce so that he can do the honours and ask Lucy.

I was also amazed to see Aslaug so alive and well. The last time I saw her, she had taken a fatal Viking arrow in the back.

Mrs Grey told me off for assuming that she was Buffy's Drusilla actor.

 

[Dave]

I think we can dispense with the spoilers if we just tell everyone DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER if you haven't seen the last 5 minutes of S2: episode 3.

To me she seemed surprised to see him; very surprised as in the "I have no idea who you are!" "Why is this complete stranger hugging me?" kind of way. That was pretty stupid of Rufus to give Hedy Lamar that advice and change the future. Maybe in this reality they never got together? If they never got together then she would never have become a target.

 

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Maybe in this reality they never got together? If they never got together then she would never have become a target.

Yeah. That is true as well. I also thought on how Wyatt is going to explain his wife where he's been all this time. And also if you save some who says that in the next time something is altered in the past that it won't take the good thing away. When you are time-traveller how do you deal with the altered states? What is the safest way, be stranger first (as if you wouldn't know the person even though you do) and savour those moments?

 

[Ursa major]

* Typing while carefully avoiding reading anything in the thread that might include a spoiler.*

Timeless starts on UK terrestrial channel E4 on Wednesday the 4th of April, i.e. eight days from now.

 

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Spoiler: S02E04 - The Salem Witch Trails

How impossible it is for one to escape the destiny that had been told to become? Apparently it's not that easy. I don't think Lucy's team has ever got a mission, where they could had just enjoyed the event for being one that changed humanity perspective. We know now that Salem's trials were an episode of US reflecting the old world evilness. It's almost like bobody learned or even heard about the Spanish Inquisition in Boston when they started the accusations. What I was surprised about was the presence of US nation father's mother in those trials.

If time is a slow moving river and throw a rock in to cause a ripple, you are powerful, but you are not strong enough to control the whole stream. You just cause a chance and alter the events. Yet, when you look at Logan's wife, she's a walking testimony of the power of Rittenhouse. They will do whatever they can to cause permanent changes directly or indirectly by messing with the Timeless team. Eventually all they need is to show a jump and it's almost guaranteed that there is going to be changes in the time. They might not necessarily be what they ultimately wanted, but they are still changes to events that made the humanity to what we are seeing around us.

The problem for the Timeless team is that they are all isolated from the changes in the world. In one minute the dead people come back alive, the other they might not even have existed because the time got changed. I know that it might be hard for them to understand this is happening, but there is no reset button.

Should there be one?

 

[Anthoney]

I enjoyed last nights episode (2.4). I like them working with Flynn. I'm also amused by their new "Screw it! We'll just change what we want ." attitude.

 

[REBerg]

there is no reset button.

Should there be one?

No. That would be a cheap trick.
Every change in the past should have implications for the present. I wonder if Rittenhouse, with its lengthy experience, has any greater control over events than the Time Team.
Now that Wyatt has taken the time out to reconnect with his formerly deceased wife, has he lost the historical continuity shared by those within the Lifeboat?

 

[ctg]

Now that Wyatt has taken the time out to reconnect with his formerly deceased wife, has he lost the historical continuity shared by those within the Lifeboat?

I think he lost it a long time ago or before episode 3, as Logan has been looking so-o dodgy.