S01.E07: Stranded

[Tarasme]

1 hour ago, green said:

And Wyatt remains as stupid as ever.  Laughed at the flux capacitors.  Groaned at his "choosing" to drink a beer proves free will.  What a dunce.  Hint Wyatt, it is both.  You take an action and reactions happen from it and they build up into a web that binds you over your life or even lifetimes into destinies of reactions from same all the while you are creating fresh destines by struggling in said web with your precious little free will that never makes you free but just binds you tighter.  Especially you Wyatt in the dumb "choices" you are always making.  See "wife, dead".  (Nope I have never warmed up to this character in the least and likely never will).

Though I too find him really attractive, I was hoping Show Runners would be ballsy and take advantage of The Alamo for Wyatt to make the sacrifice play. 

[CooperTV]

1 hour ago, green said:

You take an action and reactions happen from it and they build up into a web that binds you over your life or even lifetimes into destinies of reactions from same all the while you are creating fresh destines by struggling in said web with your precious little free will that never makes you free but just binds you tighter.

Wyatt's words somehow almost directly reference "There's no fate but what we make for ourselves", a classic Terminator movie quote and the classic time travel movie as well. One can argue it's stupid, of course.

Edited November 22, 2016 by CooperTV

[vibeology]

55 minutes ago, green said:

I agree Rittenhouse may not have evolved from some idea or plans of the original Rittenhouse.  But the organization is made to sound like a Masons conspiracy thing sprinkled with Illumaniti and Knights Templar seasonings and there had to be some reason the organization chose that name. 

And they did say last episode that the organization started back in what?  1778 was it.  Rittenhouse would have been 46 years old then and part of the founding fathers group since he went on to become the first secretary of the treasury under Washington.  So it does sound like the real guy could possibly even if inadvertently been involved in it's founding.  Perhaps the original organization was far from what it has become and by warning the original Rittenhouse about what would happen to his group it could have been set on a new path at least.

The actual David Rittenhouse wasn't a founding father and he wasn't the first secretary of the Treasury. That was Alexander Hamilton. Rittenhouse was the first Director of the United States Mint among his many accomplishments and contributions. They could go very Da Vinci Code/Masons/Illuminati on it and have there be something in the coin designs that is important. I want them to go full conspiracy theory eventually and since they chose Rittenhouse as a name I do think the show must plan to tie it back to the historical figure eventually.

[RemoteControlFreak]

16 hours ago, methodwriter85 said:

The land was awfully kind of flat for future Pittsburgh, but whatever. LOL. (Oh, TV geography, never change.)

Not only that, but the tall evergreen trees and mountains in the background look kind of like, oh, I don't know, Vancouver?   And if the woods they were walking through is the future downtown Pittsburgh, wouldn't the river been a whole lot bigger?

Also, while I like how the nerd relationship between Jiya and Rufus developed, but isn't he a little old for her?  Yes, I'm judging.

Edited November 22, 2016 by RemoteControlFreak

[saber5055]

I swear the Enterprise has a tractor beam. Scottie, am I right? Scottie ... ?

[iMonrey]

Quote

Also, while I like how the nerd relationship between Jiya and Rufus developed, but isn't he a little old for her? 

Malcolm Barrett is 36; can't find a birth date for Claudia Doumit.

Quote

I swear the Enterprise has a tractor beam. Scottie, am I right? Scottie ... ?

Yes - the Enterprise has a tractor beam - from Next Generation onwards, anyway. But the way tractor beams work in Star Trek or Star Wars doesn't even seem comparable to what Jiya was trying to do with the time machine. 

[legaleagle53]

8 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

Malcolm Barrett is 36; can't find a birth date for Claudia Doumit.

Yes - the Enterprise has a tractor beam - from Next Generation onwards, anyway. But the way tractor beams work in Star Trek or Star Wars doesn't even seem comparable to what Jiya was trying to do with the time machine. 

Oh, it had one in Kirk's time as well.   And actually, the way it worked in Star Wars was exactly what Jiya was trying to do.  She was using it as a sort of combination homing signal and remote-control navigational system that would enable the time machine to return to the correct place as well as the correct time. That the landing was only a few yards off-target proved that it worked, so with a few refinements, the crew should now have a working back-up navigation system to help the time-travelers if they ever need to use it again.  Now, they just need to remember to stock spare parts for Rufus so he doesn't have to jury-rig repairs the way he did (and I have to say that Scotty would have been impressed with Rufus' ability to make do with the materials at hand!)

Edited November 23, 2016 by legaleagle53

[phalange]

For some reason I was thinking this was the mid-season finale and that it was going to end on a cliffhanger with them trapped in the past. Even though getting stuck in the past for a couple of episodes would be interesting (and I do hope this happens at some point), I thought Rufus and Jiya saving the day through their love of sci-fi was cute. Starting the episode with them already in the past was a nice change, and I enjoyed the team-bonding/confessions scene and Rufus standing up for his friends. 

[possibilities]

Plus, Wyatt shaved.

[Camera One]

The first quarter of the episode grated with them bickering and Wyatt acting like a scorned little brat.  I don't like how he just automatically kills people in the past... that French guy actually wanted to give them food.  It has been weeks now and he still doesn't seem to see that there could be ramifications to changing history.

I did like that Lucy and Rufus are developing a bit of a bond.  Although I wasn't as engaged this episode, I'm glad this show is slowing down to have some conversations, and that they tried to deal with the emotional fallout of the last episode.

[shapeshifter]

15 hours ago, vibeology said:

It's time to start building another time machine! They need an actual backup and its a time machine so it doesn't really matter when they build it, it can still go back to the exact moment the team gets trapped and bring them into the future. They might miss a couple of months but its still better than dying of smallpox.

I wonder if I'm the only one watching who muttered to herself after hearing them fearfully dreading smallpox: "Aren't they vaccinated?!" before realizing that only older folks like me have been vaccinated for smallpox.

 

1 hour ago, possibilities said:

Plus, Wyatt shaved.

I didn't notice, but I wasn't distracted by his out of fashion beard either.

[legaleagle53]

9 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

I wonder if I'm the only one watching who muttered to herself after hearing them fearfully dreading smallpox: "Aren't they vaccinated?!" before realizing that only older folks like me have been vaccinated for smallpox.

That's true.  Routine vaccinations for smallpox ended in 1972, so none of our heroes would have been vaccinated for it.  The vaccine isn't even available to the general public right now because the risk of an outbreak is considered relatively minor.

[green]

8 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I don't think Rittenhouse was ever a person. Flynn said it was a "what" not a "who." Granted, maybe originally it was named after a person, but that's just speculation at this point.

Yes of course it is an organization.  But someone had to found the organization and we were told it was founded in 1778 last episode.

The only possible reason I can see that some organization took the unlikely name of Rittenhouse in 1778 was because it had to be named after this guy.  I mean how many other famous Rittenhouses were there in 1778?  Or Rittenhoses period.  It isn't like he is named Smith or something.  

 Rittenhouse was well-known by 1778 especially among the movers and shakers of the day.  Though I did misspeak about being the secretary of the treasury as pointed out above.  He indeed head up the Mint.  Thanks, vibeology.  (To me I probably mixed it up because treasury and mint, both involve money.  I'm no expert when it comes to something I don't have, heh).  Anyway from Wikipedia we see he is the perfect guy for 1778 to set up a secret organization given his obvious intellect and scientific background for the day:

Quote

David Rittenhouse (April 8, 1732 – June 26, 1796) was a renowned American astronomer, inventor, clockmaker, mathematician, surveyor, scientific instrument craftsman and public official. Rittenhouse was a member of the American Philosophical Society and the first director of the United States Mint.

If you name an organization Rittenhouse in 1778 everyone then knows it is either founded by him or some colonial fanboy named it after him which is weird to do if the guy is still alive and walking the streets of Philly in 1778 which he was.

And yeah not good our reviewer here mixed up Star Wars and Star Trek.  Good catch but don't tell Sheldon.  he would be so deeply offended.

Edited November 23, 2016 by green

[LittleIggy]

No Goran V. in this episode (if he was, I blinked and missed him)! Pout!

[legaleagle53]

Just now, LittleIggy said:

No Goran V. in this episode (if he was, I blinked and missed him)! Pout!

Nope.  But I think the point of that (as well as starting in the middle of the mission to 1754) was to focus directly on the team's rebuilding its dynamic after Flynn's revelations in 1972 nearly tore it apart.  Besides, I imagine that Goran appreciated the time off.

[Sulis]

I enjoyed this one for all the reasons mentioned: starting in the middle of the action, the working together to fix the problem, the drinks after the mission. Some of the French was a bit dodgy, though...
And I too like Wyatt. It's not his fault the show has to make him fail to kill Flynn every week, though I wish they could get round that in a better way. And the dead wife is a bit cliched. Still, he's being fleshed out.

[legaleagle53]

12 minutes ago, Sulis said:

I enjoyed this one for all the reasons mentioned: starting in the middle of the action, the working together to fix the problem, the drinks after the mission. Some of the French was a bit dodgy, though...

True.  Lucy was spot-on for the most part, but she was wrong about how to say "I slept with your mother last night."  The correct translation is "Je me suis couché avec ta mère hier soir."  Evidently she never heard the famous refrain of "Lady Marmelade":  "Voulez-vous vous coucher avec moi ce soir?" ("Do you want to sleep with me tonight?") or she would have remembered that the verb is se coucher, not coucher, and that as a reflexive verb, it takes être, not avoir, in the passé composé.  

Edited November 23, 2016 by legaleagle53

[dr pepper]

What's always bugged me about that phrase is, shouldn't it be veux-tu couche? I mean, something that personal should be informal.

[Randomosity]

5 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

True.  Lucy was spot-on for the most part, but she was wrong about how to say "I slept with your mother last night."  The correct translation is "Je me suis couché avec ta mère hier soir."  Evidently she never heard the famous refrain of "Lady Marmelade":  "Voulez-vous vous coucher avec moi ce soir?" ("Do you want to sleep with me tonight?") or she would have remembered that the verb is se coucher, not coucher, and that as a reflexive verb, it takes être, not avoir, in the passé composé.  

...except it's not reflexive in the song? There aren't two 'vous'. Plus, I believe 'coucher' alone (vs 'se coucher') is an accepted idiom for 'to have sex with' as compared to the literal/original 'se coucher' = 'to go to bed'. Whether that translates to 1700s French-speakers is another story.

Disclaimer: I have not studied French for years, and when I lived among the French-speaking for 4 years after that, they all spoke Quebecois. Perhaps it's a Quebecois idiom and I'm mixing my dialects. Although, Quebecois is closer to what colonial French would have been than current continental French is, so... Who knows!

[withanaich]

Quote

I would say that one way that Wyatt earns his keep is that he keeps his head in a crisis. The other two get stuck on worrying they're going to die, and he's the one focused on getting out, both at the beginning when they were captured and then when the ship was damaged and he was forcing Rufus to think through what could be done. 

Actually, kind of the exact opposite happened. Wyatt was freaking out ("I'm a specially trained military man but I need a teeeam to do my job"), demanding that Rufus think of a way out, and then when Rufus remembered the protocol and started implementing the only plan he possibly could, Wyatt (and Lucy) proceeded to ask a bunch of questions (that Rufus didn't have the answers to) and whine. What a couple of babies. I hope Wyatt's not starting to rub off on her, and I don't mean in a romantic way, although the show has been dropping some awful anvils in that direction as well. Wyatt is purely the muscle. He's good at shooting (except Flynn, but even I'm willing to concede that that's not really his fault), and knocking people out in a hurry. Oh, and he speaks German. 

Quote

I'm not sure I like the implications of that last conversation about Lucy's journal. It seemed to suggest that if Lucy ends up writing the journal it means she eventually "turns to the dark side" to work with Flynn. Does that mean the show is resolved to make Flynn a villain? I thought from the start we would eventually learn he's the good guy which is why Lucy eventually ends up helping him.

Well, we can see that Flynn is not all bad, and I think maybe after the last episode it's starting to dawn on the team as well, but they don't know for sure. Flynn could still be lying, about a lot of things. They don't know who they can trust. I think Lucy was mainly bothered because Flynn is okay with killing a lot of people to get what he wants (which upsets her as a person) and very intent on destroying the course of history (which upsets her on a professional level). Plus, you know, his shenanigans led to her sister being wiped from existence. So naturally, she's not happy to think about how she would have to change in order to be okay working with someone like that. 

But I think it's moot anyway. Lucy knows about the journal, and so probably won't start it. (Which is probably why Flynn won't give her any more details about how their alliance comes to be, in case she decides against that as well when it comes up.  It doesn't matter with the journal, because it already exists and Flynn has it, but he doesn't want to influence any of her other future actions in the "wrong" direction.)

[JackONeill]

As to the journal, let me ask:

Flynn has it. The audience has seen it. More importantly, Lucy has seen it.

Now if Lucy decides NOT to write it, what happens to the journal Flynn has?

(I feel like I'm on the Big Bang Theory. And that I'm Penny.)

Edited November 23, 2016 by JackONeill

[Raja]

On 11/21/2016 at 9:19 PM, henripootel said:

Try 1492

http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case487.htm

I'm still surprised by how much I'm enjoying this show.  The Time Team isn't particularly good at their job, they dealt with the fact that their ship is just sitting there unprotected, and (unless I misunderstood) acknowledged that Lucy may now never write her journal, nor does she need to - if it exists from another time line, it exists.  They're also getting a lot out of their CGI budget - very cool seeing the historical sites recreated.

 

15 hours ago, RemoteControlFreak said:

Not only that, but the tall evergreen trees and mountains in the background look kind of like, oh, I don't know, Vancouver?   And if the woods they were walking through is the future downtown Pittsburgh, wouldn't the river been a whole lot bigger?

Also, while I like how the nerd relationship between Jiya and Rufus developed, but isn't he a little old for her?  Yes, I'm judging.

I got a Stargate SG-1 vibe off of this episode and on that show it was obvious that no matter what the mission was the stargate was the critical point and they had the ability to send a defense force for the gate in with the team that Timeless crew doesn't.

He might be physically old but emotionally Rufus seems younger than Jaya, lucky for him Uncle Mason is there to help

[Chaos Theory]

32 minutes ago, JackONeill said:

As to the journal, let me ask:

Flynn has it. The audience has seen it. More importantly, Lucy has seen it.

Now if Lucy decides NOT to write it, what happens to the journal Flynn has?

(I feel like I'm on the Big Bang Theory. And that I'm Penny.)

No one understands time travel.  12 Monkeys which is a far superior show but more of a drama deals ALOT in circular logic.   Time just wants certain things to happen so they will happen one way or another.  You can change the events leading up to it and you might not know how and why but certain things are going to happen...because they have already happened. It's the chicken and egg scenerio.

Lucy will write the journal at some point but Flynn might be wrong about her reasons for writing it or what it means.  The journal existence is its proof that it always existed.

Circular logic. 

No one understands time travel.

Edited November 23, 2016 by Chaos Theory

[legaleagle53]

3 hours ago, Randomosity said:

...except it's not reflexive in the song? There aren't two 'vous'. Plus, I believe 'coucher' alone (vs 'se coucher') is an accepted idiom for 'to have sex with' as compared to the literal/original 'se coucher' = 'to go to bed'. Whether that translates to 1700s French-speakers is another story.

Disclaimer: I have not studied French for years, and when I lived among the French-speaking for 4 years after that, they all spoke Quebecois. Perhaps it's a Quebecois idiom and I'm mixing my dialects. Although, Quebecois is closer to what colonial French would have been than current continental French is, so... Who knows!

No, you're right.  I just checked the lyrics. I must have been mentally filling in the reflexive pronoun because I've only ever seen or heard the reflexive verb used. The lady in the song is actually "Creole Lady Marmelade," so it would seem that the non-reflexive verb is a bit of slang that I've simply never picked up in my 40-odd years of studying, speaking, reading, and writing French (the Parisian French that I took for three years in high school didn't have a unit on how to proposition desired sex partners.  Shameful, n'est-ce pas?).

[iMonrey]

There really need to be more repercussions to the deaths they're causing in the past. Since Rupert killed that French soldier it would have been interesting if they'd come back to a present where the French revolution never occurred. Something like that. I don't know why they don't make better use of the trips through time and up the stakes a little here. If they kept returning to more and more altered history the suspense on this show would be incredible. We'd be waiting every time to see what they messed up next. It's too bad the show isn't a little more ambitious.

[JackONeill]

13 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

There really need to be more repercussions to the deaths they're causing in the past. Since Rupert killed that French soldier it would have been interesting if they'd come back to a present where the French revolution never occurred. Something like that. I don't know why they don't make better use of the trips through time and up the stakes a little here. If they kept returning to more and more altered history the suspense on this show would be incredible. We'd be waiting every time to see what they messed up next. It's too bad the show isn't a little more ambitious.

I agree that this would up the stakes. I guess one problem is that if you did this, then it might wind up being two shows: One about the trip to the past, and the second about the repercussions of that trip. Unlike a lot of TV shows, I'm not totally pissed off with the writers of this show (yet), but I think it would require a team of really, really good writers to be successful at the "two-part" story approach.

[dubbel zout]

9 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

I wonder if I'm the only one watching who muttered to herself after hearing them fearfully dreading smallpox: "Aren't they vaccinated?!" before realizing that only older folks like me have been vaccinated for smallpox.

Ha! Another olds here who wondered the same thing!

9 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

I imagine that Goran appreciated the time off.

For a lead, he's pretty supporting. He's got a good deal.

[henripootel]

46 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

Time just wants certain things to happen so they will happen one way or another.  You can change the events leading up to it and you might not know how and why but certain things are going to happen...because they have already happened.

I've always disliked the 'time wants things to happen' trope, mostly because it ends up being used lazily too much.  It just reeks of magic, and I'm not against magical time travel, just stay consistent.  11.22.63 did a nice job with this (guy went back in time to keep Kennedy from being assassinated and time started to push back a bit) but so few others do.

If there is a logic to time travel, I think it's this: once something exists, it exists.  There's no reason Lucy has to write the journal at all at this point as it exists, much like her memories of a sister who now 'never was'.  Lucy doesn't need to go manufacture a sister in order to keep that memory, Lucy exists (from that timeline) so the memory of the sister exists.  That all the events leading up to Lucy's sister (her parents having sex, kid being born, etc) never happened in this timeline is irrelevant, as things can obviously exist without a 'past', so to speak.  This seems to be the logic the show is using, so I hope they stick with it.

44 minutes ago, legaleagle53 said:

(the Parisian French that I took for three years in high school didn't have a unit on how to proposition desired sex partners.  Shameful, n'est-ce pas?)

Nor did mine, but the months I spent living with a french girlfriend or two did.  But there's the rub - as time has past, I've gotten a bit fuzzy on where I learned what, and now I'm reluctant to bust out my french for fear of sounding too ... intimate.  I remember the slang, I'm just a bit hazy on with whom it'd be appropriate to use it.

Just to stay on topic, Lucy's french sounded a bit schoolboy to me.  Any thoughts on how she'd have sounded to a french speaker 200 years ago?

[JackONeill]

23 minutes ago, henripootel said:

Just to stay on topic, Lucy's french sounded a bit schoolboy to me.  Any thoughts on how she'd have sounded to a french speaker 200 years ago?

Isn't that one of those things we sort of have to hand wave in a time travel show? As a few of you have already said, you may know French, but are you using it in the right context? Add on top of that are the words and idioms that come and go with time, the slang that's specific to that time period. You could probably get away with it if you only traveled back to the '60s, maybe '50s. Much further than that and I'd be afraid of opening my mouth. I would know the words, but not how to string them together to sound like I'm from that time. So, my vocabulary would be limited to Yes, No, Maybe, and What, with a healthy amount of Please, Thank You, and Sorry.

[Cranberry]

There are different types of time travel. A fixed timeline (where things happen as they're "supposed to" no matter what you do) is just one of them. Here's an image that gives a brief overview: http://9gag.com/gag/5795881/the-3-types-of-time-travel

I think I have some more in-depth stuff bookmarked at home; I'll check later.

EDIT: Added some stuff to this thread.

[orza]

Someone who has learned the language primarily at school and knows it well enough to speak it somewhat fluently has probably read literature from the period so would have knowledge of how people spoke at that time. And they could also take their cue from the people they are talking to and mimic them. The native speaker would probably chalk up any oddities to them not being native speakers. Passing oneself off as a native speaker is difficult. Just making oneself understood is easy with passable language skills.

[henripootel]

7 minutes ago, JackONeill said:

Isn't that one of those things we sort of have to hand wave in a time travel show?

Actually, the smart thing to do is what Flynn does.  He doesn't seem to try to pretend he's one of the locals, he's clearly a gentleman from 'somewhere else'. Like as not, this is because they hired Goran Visnjic and don't want him to use a fake american accent, but it's still the right answer.  People expect a 'foreigner' to be different, so they hand wave for you.  

One of the things I like about this show is that they pull no punches about how difficult it would be for a time traveller to blend in.  First thing I thought when Rufus tried to bullshit the civil war soldiers (that he was one himself) was 'they're not gonna buy that for a second', and to my delight, they didn't.  If the Time Team was smart, they wouldn't even try to pretend too much, just have a plausible explanation the locals will buy.  A really clever super-historian (like Lucy's supposed to be) would probably know that.

[dubbel zout]

23 minutes ago, orza said:

The native speaker would probably chalk up any oddities to them not being native speakers.

Exactly. Idiom is the bigger problem, but even that could be explained away as long as the idiom doesn't reference something that doesn't exist in that era.

[Netfoot]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

Since Rupert killed that French soldier it would have been interesting if they'd come back to a present where the French revolution never occurred.

Or, they see the NYC skyline, and one of them suddenly shouts "What's that?!??" and points out the Statue of Liberty.  Turns out their original timeline had no Statue of Liberty, and their time-tampering has pushed reality towards what you and I think of as real, rather than away from it.

The whole show could have been written in this way, with them starting from a timeline with subtle differences that we, the viewers, aren't aware of until at the end of each episode, they discuss how things are different.

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

I Am The Time Machine On Timeless

And time is on my side -- yes it is.

[legaleagle53]

1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:

Exactly. Idiom is the bigger problem, but even that could be explained away as long as the idiom doesn't reference something that doesn't exist in that era.

Also true.  Native speakers don't expect foreigners to sound like perfect native speakers -- they're usually just knocked out that the non-native was even willing to try speaking their language.  That's why even bad French, Spanish, Italian, or German will get you further in France, Mexico, Italy, or Germany than English alone will.  The natives may inwardly cringe or roll their eyes at your butchering of their language, but they can be extremely patient and will appreciate the effort and even go out of their way to help you if they see you getting stuck.

[Dowel Jones]

3 hours ago, iMonrey said:

There really need to be more repercussions to the deaths they're causing in the past

Coincidentally, I was watching a program on the Pilgrims migration to the colonies, and they referred to a seaman who got swept overboard, but they managed to rescue him.  The narrator stated (and I'm not going to vouch for this or research it) that some of his direct descendants included Brigham Young, FDR, and the GHW Bush clan. 

[withanaich]

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Flynn has it. The audience has seen it. More importantly, Lucy has seen it.

Now if Lucy decides NOT to write it, what happens to the journal Flynn has?

Quote

If there is a logic to time travel, I think it's this: once something exists, it exists. 

That's not always the case, but it's certainly the way it works on this show. Remember the picture of Lucy's sister? She had it with her in the time machine while the timeline was being changed and the sister wiped from existence, so it still exists. The sister is no longer in the photo in Lucy's mother's house, but she's still in the photo Lucy had with her.

Quote

Just to stay on topic, Lucy's french sounded a bit schoolboy to me.  Any thoughts on how she'd have sounded to a french speaker 200 years ago?

No idea how "off" she would have sounded to them, but I definitely noticed it. For one thing, she was speaking far too slowly; even I, with my five years of shitty public school French, could understand her. I think we are just going to have to handwave it, but like henripootel pointed out, they would be better off pretending to be allies from "somewhere else" than trying to fit in as natives. 

[henripootel]

12 minutes ago, withanaich said:

That's not always the case, but it's certainly the way it works on this show. Remember the picture of Lucy's sister? She had it with her in the time machine while the timeline was being changed and the sister wiped from existence, so it still exists. The sister is no longer in the photo in Lucy's mother's house, but she's still in the photo Lucy had with her.

I should have been clearer - I was referring to 'reality' as perceived by our heroes (and by extension, us).  The picture of Lucy still exists because it is in the possession of one of our heroes, but if she'd left it home that day, it too would have ceased to exist (like her actual sister).  I guess in some sense, Lucy's sister still exists somewhere, maybe, but for our purposes she does not.  But anything that's held in the possession of the time travelers - that's exempt.  This is what I meant by 'if it exists, it exists', meaning to separate this notion from any Marty-McFly-slowly-fades-from-existence nonsense.  In a world with time travel, you can exist even if your parents never met or had you, if you go back in time and make sure they marry other folks.  

This show seems roughly faithful to this idea, although it does skim over some other unpleasant parts.  For instance, as noted in previous episodes, the version of Lucy who actually got engaged (and never had a sister) is just ... gone.  She got into her time machine (as far as we know) and just vanished, and our Lucy came back.  Where'd she go?   She had a whole lifetime of experiences not dissimilar to our Lucy but definitely different, and now she's just gone, and a look-alike (our Lucy) is now living in her apartment, kissing her fiancée.  It's kind of horrifying if you think about it.

[ALenore]

Quote

 

I wonder if I'm the only one watching who muttered to herself after hearing them fearfully dreading smallpox: "Aren't they vaccinated?!" before realizing that only older folks like me have been vaccinated for smallpox.

 

Quote

That's true.  Routine vaccinations for smallpox ended in 1972, so none of our heroes would have been vaccinated for it.  The vaccine isn't even available to the general public right now because the risk of an outbreak is considered relatively minor.

I also thought at first they would have been vaccinated, then realized that had been stopped (didn't know it was in 1972).  But shouldn't the bigwigs of the project thought to vaccinate them all for smallpox, as well as malaria, various kinds of flu, both so the time travelers themselves don't come down with a disease, and to they don't inadvertently spread it to everyone in the present? 

[henripootel]

7 minutes ago, ALenore said:

as well as malaria, various kinds of flu

There's no vaccine for malaria, only prophylaxis (pills you have to take regularly), and the flu changes so fast that any shot you got this year wouldn't be worth much in 2 years, to say nothing of 200.

[shapeshifter]

4 hours ago, henripootel said:

Actually, the smart thing to do is what Flynn does.  He doesn't seem to try to pretend he's one of the locals, he's clearly a gentleman from 'somewhere else'. Like as not, this is because they hired Goran Visnjic and don't want him to use a fake american accent, but it's still the right answer.  People expect a 'foreigner' to be different, so they hand wave for you....

It might be a good idea for the time travelers to have a story ready of having come to France (or whatever country they are in or group they are with) from another country (England or another country whose language they are fluent in) to explain their lack of familiarity with idioms or slowness of speach.

[legaleagle53]

3 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

It might be a good idea for the time travelers to have a story ready of having come to France (or whatever country they are in or group they are with) from another country (England or another country whose language they are fluent in) to explain their lack of familiarity with idioms or slowness of speach.

I think that part of the problem is that they're always traveling into the past after Flynn's already gone there (since they have no way of predicting where and when he's going ahead of him) and they only have a narrow window of time in which to catch him once they've found him, so there really isn't any time for them to do the kind of thorough pre-mission briefing that would enable them to come up with ready-made cover stories that would be believable to the locals.  That's why they're always making things up as they go along (and why they're so bad at it most of the time).

Edited November 24, 2016 by legaleagle53

[shapeshifter]

8 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

I think that part of the problem is that they're always traveling into the past after Flynn's already gone there (since they have no way of predicting where and when he's going ahead of him) and they only have a narrow window of time in which to catch him once they've found him, there really isn't any time for them to do the kind of thorough pre-mission briefing that would enable them to come up with ready-made cover stories that would be believable to the locals.  That's why they're always making things up as they go along (and why they're so bad at it most of the time).

True, although I was thinking of a generic cover story — or maybe a set of stories — into which they would plug appropriate countries, languages, etc. But they haven't really had time yet for that either.

Edited November 24, 2016 by shapeshifter
iPad typo

[BooksRule]

Although I knew that they would eventually make it back home, I was worried for them for most of the episode (the magic of television story-telling, I guess).  I liked that they did have a way to send a message home, but (like Rufus said at the end) they need to refine it a little so it will stand up to the passage of time.  

I also thought the scene where the time machine reappeared right in the middle of the desks, computers, etc. instead of on the platform (while everyone ducked and tried to get out of the way) was kind of cool.

[Hanahope]

Why would Flynn want to abandon Lucy? She can't write the journal if she's dead.

[legaleagle53]

17 hours ago, dr pepper said:

What's always bugged me about that phrase is, shouldn't it be veux-tu couche? I mean, something that personal should be informal.

Not if you're chatting up a stranger.  Technically correct usage calls for the formal pronoun vous in that circumstance.  That said, in 2016, people tend to get on an informal basis a lot sooner than used to be the case, especially among young people.  So nowadays, it probably would be "Veux-tu coucher avec moi ce soir?"

[Dowel Jones]

2 hours ago, BooksRule said:

Although I knew that they would eventually make it back home, I was worried for them for most of the episode (the magic of television story-telling, I guess).

There's something about walking around a French fort in a French uniform with a giant bloodstain on the back that just might raise some questions from the rest of the soldiery. 

[legaleagle53]

3 minutes ago, Dowel Jones said:

There's something about walking around a French fort in a French uniform with a giant bloodstain on the back that just might raise some questions from the rest of the soldiery. 

True dat.  And I somehow think that even if the team had landed among the British, they wouldn't have fared much better.  To paraphrase Rufus, 1754 might be an awesome time to visit, but I wouldn't want to live then no matter where I was.

[thuganomics85]

Interesting how different this episode was with it being Flynn-less (although his off-screen actions certainly drove this plot forward) and automatically starting the team in 1754, instead of seeing them jump like normal.  It was kind of a stand-alone in some ways, but it was good to have them focus on the team again and fix the damage and mistrust that came out of last week's episode.  

It also allowed the rest back in the present more to do.  I'm pretty sure Jiya said more in this episode, compared to all the past episode combined. And Denise getting suspicious of Mason hopefully means Sakina Jaffery will finally get more to do, besides spout exposition and do reaction shots.

Rufus standing up to Nonhelema and saving Wyatt and Lucy, was a good moment.  I like that besides being the funniest one (IMO), he is also capable of brave moments like this.  In general, I like that the team is willing to put their own lives at risk to protect one another.

I did get a kick out of Nonhelema, since I only know the actress from this hilariously, horrible D-movie, Kull the Conqueror, with Kevin Sorbo.

If nothing else, this is the most I liked Wyatt, since he made me laugh out loud twice: first, for his "Unless one of you can barf out a spoon!", and then his "No wonder they lost!", after he realized how much the French's uniform sticks out in the woods (although, I think the winner/loser on that front will be the Redcoats, come Revolutionary War time.) 

Not even going to get into Lucy and the journal stuff.  I suspect she'll end up writing it, but there will be way more to it, and she isn't just "helping" Flynn.

Fun episode all around.  Really looking forward to next week though!