Timeless again (finished watching)
Sep. 8th, 2019 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowscastAfter a quick binge, I've finished watching Timeless.
Overall impressions: I enjoyed the series. I liked season 2 more than season 1, and I did like season 1. I'm not head-over-heels in love with the series, and I'm probably not going to do anything with it fannishly, but it was an enjoyable experience. The end wrapped things up pretty satisfactorily (which I gather was not a foregone conclusion; apparently twice it was cancelled after cliffhanger endings and then fannish uproar brought it back).
I love time travel stories in general—that's definitely what drew me to this series. Being Canadian, I maybe don't have a sufficiently strong emotional connection to American history to have enjoyed Timeless to its full extent—it might have been more fun for me if it had been a little more global. But within the story, it made sense that the trips were limited to the past three hundred years or so of American history, with even more emphasis on the most recent 100 years; the various bad guys were trying to affect current events in the U.S.A. and they had to work with history that they themselves were familiar with, and events where they felt like they could figure out what the cause-and-effect sequence would be.
I do think that the show underestimated the butterfly effect of changing various events, although we did see a big one in the very first episode when saving the Hindenburg (oops!) led to Lucy's sister never being born. I can understand why the show didn't do a lot of that (it would have been really hard to manage!) so I forgive them.
I think that it's good that the show ended when it did; I thoroughly enjoyed the second season doubling-down on timeline changes involving the main cast, but we really were getting to the point where every member of the team was remembering a different version of their own timelines, including their relationships with each other, and it was getting pretty hard to keep track of. (You'd need a spreadsheet. I bet Rufus or Jiya would have made one!)
I respect Lucy's decision, late in the final episode, to let go of her sister Amy (in the sense of not trying to revise the timeline again to bring her back). Lucy had already seen how the timeline changes that saved Jessica had lost them Jiya, and saving Jiya had resulted in Rufus's death, and then to get Rufus back they had to lose both Flynn and Jessica. Moral of the story: stop messing with the damn timeline!
A quibble: after Flynn went back to kill Jessica and save Rufus, Wyatt concluded that the reason Jessica's killer had never been found was because it must have been Flynn all along. But that doesn't make sense; that's not the way time paradoxes work in this show. Flynn had no reason to kill Jessica before she became a Rittenhouse operative, and she only became a Rittenhouse operative after Rittenhouse overwrote the original timeline where she died.
Speaking of Flynn: poor Flynn. He definitely gets the short end of the time loop stick. It was heartbreaking to watch Lucy (already deep into her own happily-ever-after) travel back in time to give him the journal and set him on his path. Future-Lucy knows that by doing so, she is dooming him. And also, how fucked-up is it that all through season 1, she's fighting to stop him from doing the mission that future-her gave him? And hating him for it? Time travel, man. *shakes head slowly*
And speaking of Flynn and his bleak fate: you might recall that in my previous post, I had seen up though episode 6 of season 2; Jessica was back from the dead but we didn't yet know that she was evil, and I was rooting for her and Wyatt to rekindle their love, and for Lucy and Flynn to get together. So, well, if you've seen through to the end of the series, you know how that turned out.
Lucy and Wyatt getting together was the one part of the ending that I didn't like. Unfortunately, I got completely turned off Wyatt during the period while he was torn between Jessica and Lucy. Specifically: I was completely squicked by the way he was jealous and possessive of Lucy even while he was supposedly working on fixing his relationship with Jessica (again, this is before we knew that new-Jessica was evil). And I was super duper ultra-squicked by the scene where, upon seeing Lucy leaving Flynn's room in the morning, Wyatt went to Flynn and threatened him and told him to stay away from Lucy. (To which Flynn completely properly and correctly responded that Lucy was perfectly capable of making her own choices. Thanks, Flynn! Sorry about how it all turned out for you!) Anyway ... ew, Wyatt. Ew, ew, ew. Please stop getting your toxic masculinity cooties all over this beautiful, otherwise quite progressive show.
Anyway, like I said, I did enjoy the show overall and found its ending satisfying. And I think that it does provide its own version of an answer to the question "If time travel is possible, where are all the time travellers?" Answer: in the back alley, in period costume, murdering each other. :-P
Overall impressions: I enjoyed the series. I liked season 2 more than season 1, and I did like season 1. I'm not head-over-heels in love with the series, and I'm probably not going to do anything with it fannishly, but it was an enjoyable experience. The end wrapped things up pretty satisfactorily (which I gather was not a foregone conclusion; apparently twice it was cancelled after cliffhanger endings and then fannish uproar brought it back).
I love time travel stories in general—that's definitely what drew me to this series. Being Canadian, I maybe don't have a sufficiently strong emotional connection to American history to have enjoyed Timeless to its full extent—it might have been more fun for me if it had been a little more global. But within the story, it made sense that the trips were limited to the past three hundred years or so of American history, with even more emphasis on the most recent 100 years; the various bad guys were trying to affect current events in the U.S.A. and they had to work with history that they themselves were familiar with, and events where they felt like they could figure out what the cause-and-effect sequence would be.
I do think that the show underestimated the butterfly effect of changing various events, although we did see a big one in the very first episode when saving the Hindenburg (oops!) led to Lucy's sister never being born. I can understand why the show didn't do a lot of that (it would have been really hard to manage!) so I forgive them.
I think that it's good that the show ended when it did; I thoroughly enjoyed the second season doubling-down on timeline changes involving the main cast, but we really were getting to the point where every member of the team was remembering a different version of their own timelines, including their relationships with each other, and it was getting pretty hard to keep track of. (You'd need a spreadsheet. I bet Rufus or Jiya would have made one!)
I respect Lucy's decision, late in the final episode, to let go of her sister Amy (in the sense of not trying to revise the timeline again to bring her back). Lucy had already seen how the timeline changes that saved Jessica had lost them Jiya, and saving Jiya had resulted in Rufus's death, and then to get Rufus back they had to lose both Flynn and Jessica. Moral of the story: stop messing with the damn timeline!
A quibble: after Flynn went back to kill Jessica and save Rufus, Wyatt concluded that the reason Jessica's killer had never been found was because it must have been Flynn all along. But that doesn't make sense; that's not the way time paradoxes work in this show. Flynn had no reason to kill Jessica before she became a Rittenhouse operative, and she only became a Rittenhouse operative after Rittenhouse overwrote the original timeline where she died.
Speaking of Flynn: poor Flynn. He definitely gets the short end of the time loop stick. It was heartbreaking to watch Lucy (already deep into her own happily-ever-after) travel back in time to give him the journal and set him on his path. Future-Lucy knows that by doing so, she is dooming him. And also, how fucked-up is it that all through season 1, she's fighting to stop him from doing the mission that future-her gave him? And hating him for it? Time travel, man. *shakes head slowly*
And speaking of Flynn and his bleak fate: you might recall that in my previous post, I had seen up though episode 6 of season 2; Jessica was back from the dead but we didn't yet know that she was evil, and I was rooting for her and Wyatt to rekindle their love, and for Lucy and Flynn to get together. So, well, if you've seen through to the end of the series, you know how that turned out.
Lucy and Wyatt getting together was the one part of the ending that I didn't like. Unfortunately, I got completely turned off Wyatt during the period while he was torn between Jessica and Lucy. Specifically: I was completely squicked by the way he was jealous and possessive of Lucy even while he was supposedly working on fixing his relationship with Jessica (again, this is before we knew that new-Jessica was evil). And I was super duper ultra-squicked by the scene where, upon seeing Lucy leaving Flynn's room in the morning, Wyatt went to Flynn and threatened him and told him to stay away from Lucy. (To which Flynn completely properly and correctly responded that Lucy was perfectly capable of making her own choices. Thanks, Flynn! Sorry about how it all turned out for you!) Anyway ... ew, Wyatt. Ew, ew, ew. Please stop getting your toxic masculinity cooties all over this beautiful, otherwise quite progressive show.
Anyway, like I said, I did enjoy the show overall and found its ending satisfying. And I think that it does provide its own version of an answer to the question "If time travel is possible, where are all the time travellers?" Answer: in the back alley, in period costume, murdering each other. :-P
(no subject)
Date: 2019-09-09 05:48 pm (UTC)Haha!
Sorry about how it all turned out for you!) Anyway ... ew, Wyatt. Ew, ew, ew. Please stop getting your toxic masculinity cooties all over this beautiful, otherwise quite progressive show.
Yeah, unfortunately the show was developed around Wyatt. Some comments I made on the show some months back, partly to do with how Kripke recycled issues from SPN:
"I knew from osmosis that there's a strong fandom for the het ship in Timeless. Unfortunately after four episodes I found the lead character only ok. I could not BELIEVE that he was raised with an abusive alcoholic father and his dead wife is named Jess and that her mysterious death kicks things off for him. Really Kripke? And the point at which I realized I wasn't going to continue was when Jess returns from the dead for the sole purpose of breaking up the lead characters who have finally slept together. The presumed dead wife who inconveniently returns is an extremely tiresome cliche. Only in the case of Outlander where she's the lead character and the story is about her time traveling do the writers get a pass.
I was only mildly interested in the whole Rittehnhouse angle, though kudos to having mother-daughter issues central in the storyline rather than another daddy angle. The character I liked best was Rufus but it was rather cringey to see him having to navigate one historical scenario after another. I did like the episode where he masquerades (temporarily) as Langston Hughes and makes friends with Hedy Lamarr. But I've already recognized that I can't keep watching shows for just one character."
I watched most of S2 I think and the finale but I don't think I saw any of S1. And about the finale:
"It was pretty much by the numbers. What I mean is that plot points that were meant to extend the show but proved inconvenient to the ending were conveniently dismissed, such as Jessica's pregnancy, Flynn's storyline with Lucy, Lucy writing off her sister as a lost cause, etc. Even the way things wrapped up with Emma seemed blah. It also just seemed so rote – let's have 5 minutes of activity and then a scene where two characters talk about character development issues.
Flynn definitely seemed to get the Snape treatment to me (especially since the requisite two kids had one named after him). I've never been in the fandom but I'm guessing that early on there was a push for Flynn/Lucy since he's a way more interesting character than Wyatt. In the end it seemed that Rufus and Jiya had a more satisfying storyline in this because they'd never had prominent storylines anyway and they had a less traditional one.
That said, I imagine fans of the show were pleased to get an ending that tied things up while leaving the possibility open for future developments. The 2 hour ending to Sense8 was also imperfect, rushed, and exceedingly convenient in how things turned out for everyone. So to some extent I guess it's the nature of the beast – you're not out to do your best work ever but to satisfy longtime fans who want to see loose ends tied up and happy endings dispensed."
(no subject)
Date: 2019-09-12 01:49 am (UTC)Oh, hah, I didn't even realize there was an SPN connection!
unfortunately the show was developed around Wyatt
Was it really? My impression (based on just the show itself; I haven't looked at any interviews with any of the creators) is that it was built around Lucy. She was our viewpoint character going in; she's the one whose family and background are the most present, explored, and plot-relevant.
So to some extent I guess it's the nature of the beast – you're not out to do your best work ever but to satisfy longtime fans who want to see loose ends tied up and happy endings dispensed.
Yeah. Endings are hard! It feels rushed if all of the loose ends get tied up in one or two episodes—but on the other hand, if the loose ends were to get tied up gradually over a longer time, so that as the end of the show approached the characters had progressively fewer and fewer problems ... hm, that would probably feel very weird, in terms of pacing. Going out with a whimper rather than a bang. And the other alternative is to not tie them all up, and as a viewer I hate having loose ends in cancelled shows!
So all in all, considering the alternatives, I think I'm perfectly happy with a rushed ending with all plot threads getting tied up fast! (In fact I loved the Sense8 ending. It hit me in all the right feels.)
Endings are inherently an artifact of fiction, anyway; in real life, the story always continues (until you're dead). (Which makes me think of the Six Feet Under ending, actually. That was a good ending!)
Flynn definitely seemed to get the Snape treatment to me (especially since the requisite two kids had one named after him).
Oh gosh, you're so right! The parallels are many.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-09-12 01:50 pm (UTC)I only saw a few episodes of 6 Feet but it does seem like a show well positioned to deal with endings!