S01.E11: The World's Columbian Exposition

[CooperTV]

Me at every scene Garcia Flynn was involved in:

In other news, this was two-hour episode that was crammed into one hour for some unknown reason. It was rushed and underwhelming and it was barely holding my attention. It has everything and nothing at the same time, and the only saving grace was the Team Eyeball meeting again. Those hugs weer the most adorable cutest thing ever! And Rufus got to hug Lucy twice!

They stuffed Houdini, the Flynn nonsense and two Lucy kidnappings total in one episode? Why?! Did Lucy wasn't traumatized enough by Flynn's ugly mug, his mouthbreathing and strange ticks, she had to be kidnapped by the Mustache Saw Man? Admittedly, the serial killer scene at the end was more intimidating and creepy than the beginning with Flynn. And I liked how Lucy tried to manipulate him and later how Wyatt went ballistic on his ass.

Did Flynn, who is the special ops, couldn't get that door open by himself and needed specifically Houdini for... basic lock-picking? That's why he needed an elaborate ruse with Lucy participating in one of his stuns and luring him in? The show, you're kinda lost me there. Well, Houdini was a badass but he was just there for plot contrivances, not something remotely logical.

Oh, and Wyatt and Rufus were stuck in C plot with the architect lady we also barely got to know due to time constrains. Yay.

PS: Why everyone but Flynn and Lucy was wearing hats in that bar? Where were their manners? Or more importantly, where were the set design people's brains?

[Clanstarling]

7 hours ago, Raja said:

It was like Lucas refilming so Han Solo didn't shoot first. It is why it was such a big deal on Magnum PI when Magnum and Ric murdered Ivan the Soviet spy. TV always gives their hero characters an out.

That Magnum PI episode killed me, no pun intended. It was such a huge moment that completely changed the way I viewed Magnum.

Did anybody notice that Wyatt held the chrome plated gun to (Holmes'?) head, but when he demanded his gun back from Houdini (after patting his jacket and noticing it was gone) it was the black one? Or am I overthinking it?

HH Holmes was mentioned recently in some TV show I watch, but I just can't remember which one. Anybody? I first heard about him in a time travel book where they go back and experience something rather like this episode.

I literally sighed when I realized within the first few minutes that they weren't going to mention anything about how killing Cornwallis changed history. I enjoy all the period characters, but I really want some serious consequences to our timeline, not just one person's family. Time travel is just a travelogue without that.

Flynn is, at least for me, is in immediate danger of becoming Snidely Whiplash, but less fun.

Edited January 17, 2017 by Clanstarling

[blackwing]

4 minutes ago, Clanstarling said:

HH Holmes was mentioned recently in some TV show I watch, but I just can't remember which one. Anybody? I first heard about him in a time travel book where they go back and experience something rather like this episode.

It was probably episode 2 of the current Sherlock season.  "The Lying Detective".  Culverton Smith is a deranged serial killer who says he was inspired by HH Holmes.

[henripootel]

5 minutes ago, blackwing said:

It was probably episode 2 of the current Sherlock season.  "The Lying Detective".  Culverton Smith is a deranged serial killer who says he was inspired by HH Holmes.

He was also taken out the Winchester boys back a few seasons, or rather, they caged up his ghost.

Story of note - Holmes still has living relatives.  I know this because I know one, through Mudgett's sibling, I believe.  Nice mormon family with a horrific ancestor.  

Edited January 17, 2017 by henripootel

[ketose]

14 hours ago, green said:

Look on the bright side.  Tesla would like have become THE inventor of the era and we probably would be far further advanced by now had he gotten the larger funding and backing he needed.  He was far more creative an inventor than Edison and was obviously right about AC over DC. 

We might have been far better off without Edison.  Especially when you consider some of those latter patents he got credit for were actually the fruit of his employees and not himself.  Get them out from under his control and shadow and you might have had a dozen budding Edisons each one with their own labs instead.

Ironically, everything now actually runs on DC, even LED light bulbs. If the US kept localized DC, wind turbines might have sprung up instead of millions of miles of high tension power lines and electronic devices all running off little space heater AC to DC converters.

 

9 hours ago, kariyaki said:

I also like that they make it humorous. Rufus saying he also went to MIT, only to have Sophia Hayden declare, "Oh, you must be Robert Robinson Taylor!" Whoops. And then the followup, Rufus: "No, I was the OTHER black guy." Sophia: "There were two?"

Sadly, according to Wikipedia, Sophia Hayden couldn't ever get a job as an architect on account of being a woman and ended up being a teacher.

She did end up teaching mechanical drawing. Plus, didn't die at the hands of THE serial killer.

 

1 hour ago, CooperTV said:

Did Flynn, who is the special ops, couldn't get that door open by himself and needed specifically Houdini for... basic lock-picking? That's why he needed an elaborate ruse with Lucy participating in one of his stuns and luring him in? The show, you're kinda lost me there. Well, Houdini was a badass but he was just there for plot contrivances, not something remotely logical.

Oh, and Wyatt and Rufus were stuck in C plot with the architect lady we also barely got to know due to time constrains. Yay.

PS: Why everyone but Flynn and Lucy was wearing hats in that bar? Where were their manners? Or more importantly, where were the set design people's brains?

I think Lucy picked Houdini, probably because she could charm him into helping her stop Flynn. 

[tennisgurl]

I really feel like this show suffers from a lack of ambition in the writing, which is what holds it back from being the really great show that it could be. It has a cool premise, good actors, a decent of amount of work put into period detail, and its clear a lot of the people working on this show are really trying. But, they seem afraid to break their formula, or do anything interesting with their premise. Look at the deaths of Benedict Arnold and Cornwallis. These should have had some kind of impact on history, even if it didn't completely change everything. It could have been a real game changer to come back to the present and find out some big stuff has changed, and now they have to deal with that, as well as dealing with Flynn. Instead, its just the reset button being pushed over and over, and we just get Our Gang chasing Flynn to yet another historical location, they foil his plan, he escapes, forever and ever. Its already gotten stale, and its still the first season! There should be some real change now, something like now the present has zeppelins as its main form of travel, or everyone still wears hats all the time, or something bigger or smaller or SOMETHING! That is how time travel shows are supposed to work! So many people have been killed or saved by time travelers at this point, and they have screwed around with so many big historical moments, even if the highlights didn't change, something had to have changed that people would notice. But the show seems nervous to leave their format or really explore the possibilities they have set up. 

[green]

9 hours ago, BooBear said:

Houdini was amazing and it honestly MIGHT be a good idea that they take someone from history to help them with things. They don't have to tell them what it is about.

Yes.  I am NOT a Harry Houdini fan.  Find his whole act a bore.  But in this show he was great, the actor was excellent and so more charming and "alive" than you know who and he is just the person you need on the three person team.  Not scruffy-faced Wyatt the Inept.

3 hours ago, JackONeill said:

But should we be rooting for Flynn (and Team Bad Guy)? And I think this has been another problem with this show, and it was admittedly more evident at the beginning. The actor who plays Flynn is colorful and won over many viewers through sheer charisma (IMO). But then he started killing innocent people in cold blood. A lot of people were left going, "WHAT?" And why?

 

Not some of us "Vikings" fans.  We are used to rooting for Ragnar and Lagertha (most awesome female charter on TV) and Bjorn and now even Ivar the total psychopath.  Or even Saxon King Ecbert and his bloody foxy ways.  Come join us on the dark side.  :-)

I agree they have to make Flynn smarter.  But he along with Rufus are my favorite characters.  Show is way more alive when they are on screen.

12 minutes ago, ketose said:

Ironically, everything now actually runs on DC, even LED light bulbs. If the US kept localized DC, wind turbines might have sprung up instead of millions of miles of high tension power lines and electronic devices all running off little space heater AC to DC converters.

 

I for one don't want a noisy windmill right outside my door.  They are VERY noisy and block the view and are a hazard to birds.  Fine for isolated areas away from people.  I'm all for them there.  Or on a farm say.  But no one wants them or their DC plants needed to convert/generate that power to multiple homes all within a block or two of where you live which is DC's effective radius basically.  And where I live my apt complex and the road up to it long ago buried all the power lines under ground.  Trying burying a windmill underground and getting it to work, heh.  Keep them in the ocean or in rural areas and feed their energy into the AC grid.

And LED lights inside my home run on AC as do computers, TVs, microwaves etc.  They all get converted to DC once they enter their device.  And that conversion is a simple small transformer with some caps and diodes.  Power boards are very tiny these days.  Not space heater sized.  So no I will take AC power stations a million times over DC ones any day.  They are far more energy efficient with one servicing up to millions of people as opposed to each one servicing maybe 50 to 300 people tops so way better for the environment as a result.

[Clanstarling]

1 hour ago, blackwing said:

It was probably episode 2 of the current Sherlock season.  "The Lying Detective".  Culverton Smith is a deranged serial killer who says he was inspired by HH Holmes.

Yes, thank you. That's the one. 

[iMonrey]

Quote

Houdini managed to foil Flynn and capture him in like five minutes! And this guy is a magician, not a soldier! What they apparently need to do is gather together a rag tag bunch of misfits throughout history (Houdini, Katherine Johnson, Ian Flemming, Bonnie Parker, etc.) and have THEM hunt down Flynn. They would probably catch him in twenty minutes and be done in time for dinner at the Worlds Fair. 

Excellent idea!

On another note, I think the scene where Lucy volunteers to be Houdini's assistant was a shout-out to Oz The Great and Powerful, in which Abigail Spencer's character does the same thing, in a very similar setting (magic show under a tent) and in a similar time period. 

[BooBear]

58 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

I really feel like this show suffers from a lack of ambition in the writing, which is what holds it back from being the really great show that it could be. It has a cool premise, good actors, a decent of amount of work put into period detail, and its clear a lot of the people working on this show are really trying. But, they seem afraid to break their formula, or do anything interesting with their premise. Look at the deaths of Benedict Arnold and Cornwallis. These should have had some kind of impact on history, even if it didn't completely change everything. 

To me it had its "jump the shark" moment last night.  Defined by me as throwing the popcorn at the screen. I am going to guess it is the network that won't let them push the envelope too far.  That makes me as a viewer wonder why I should tune in. I can just see some network exec walking them back from the fall cliffhanger.  It seemed like there they did try and seemingly got smacked back. 

1 hour ago, green said:

The actor who plays Flynn is colorful and won over many viewers through sheer charisma (IMO). But then he started killing innocent people in cold blood. A lot of people were left going, "WHAT?" And why?

I don't necessarily have a problem with that if he was getting someplace. But he admits (to Lucy) that he has become someone so evil he doesn't want to be around his family "to get them back" and he has no coherent plan "to get them back" ok.  Technically all that talk of a "serial killer" last night, I think Flynn qualifies. That is uninteresting.

[LoneHaranguer]

1 hour ago, green said:

And LED lights inside my home run on AC as do computers, TVs, microwaves etc.  They all get converted to DC once they enter their device.  And that conversion is a simple small transformer with some caps and diodes.

Most modern devices don't need anywhere near the standard 120 volts, so if that was DC, you'd need to convert it to AC anyway, to change the voltage, even if you didn't have to change it back to DC (which you wouldn't for something like an LED).

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

Instead, its just the reset button being pushed over and over, and we just get Our Gang chasing Flynn to yet another historical location, they foil his plan, he escapes, forever and ever. Its already gotten stale, and its still the first season!

The rationale for repeatedly resetting is usually that it lets the episodes run out of order in syndication, but for a show like this, it compromises the story so much, reaching syndication is wishful thinking.

[Clanstarling]

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

Instead, its just the reset button being pushed over and over, and we just get Our Gang chasing Flynn to yet another historical location, they foil his plan, he escapes, forever and ever. Its already gotten stale, and its still the first season!

Exactly. I love time travel in pretty much any flavor, and I'm getting bored and exasperated. I tend to despise the Big Bad (or two Big Bads in this case), but at least most shows with seasons built around that idea don't have it in every.single.episode.

They need to have shows without Flynn and Rittenhouse - for character and story development. So far, only Rufus has really grabbed me as a character, and that may be more due to the actor's ability than the storyline. If they want me to care about Wyatt's wife (which, they don't seem to want, since they're pushing Lucy and Wyatt's "chemistry"), or Lucy's sister, I need to know more about Wyatt and Lucy. So far they're just character sketches, not full characters. Lucy fangirls everywhere they go, Wyatt is...there. Their world is just sketched in too - Rittenhouse is smoke and shadows, Flynn a scenery chewing supposedly good guy gone monster. 

Sigh...

Edited January 18, 2017 by Clanstarling

[KaveDweller]

17 hours ago, possibilities said:

He's in danger because he's refusing to make recordings of the missions, and surely if the recordings showed the team working to destroy Rittenhouse, the current Rittenhouse dude would not like it. Rufus decided not to collaborate in any way with the Rittenhouse agenda.

I get that, but in this episode Mason said Rufus had to go on the run because of killing the Rittenhouse founder. He didn't tell him to go on the run because of deleting the tape or refusing to record. It was a specific reaction to what Rufus told him.

10 hours ago, vibeology said:

I am also disappointed that we didn't get a big change in history as a result of the last episode. I don't expect it every week but considering what all went on with Rittenhouse, Cornwallis etc. some sign that something had changed I think was necessary. You can't be messing about with history and never see any impacts aside from Lucy's sister who we didn't know well enough to care about in the first place.

I would have been satisfied with just a random line that the surrender still happened but was done by someone else. It would fit with Flynn's line to Lucy about how someone else would do it. I mean Booth not killing Lincoln should have made a major change too, so if they can explain that away they could have this. But ignoring it didn't work for me.

19 hours ago, phalange said:

 I liked learning about the architect, Sophia, who, according to the writers on Twitter, really was the first woman to graduate from MIT and designed the Women's Pavilion at the Chicago World's Fair. Between this one and the episode with Katherine Johnson, I appreciate the writers including women whose accomplishments and contributions to history are often ignored.

I liked Sophia too, so much that I looked her up. She was the first woman to graduate from MIT's architecture program, but not actually the first woman to graduate from MIT. That was Ellen Swallow Richards.

8 hours ago, henripootel said:

This is the one that rankles me because it's always a plot point.  'We have to go now, before he gets away!'  No you don't - time machine.  Take a while to get some sleep, or properly equip, or research the time period, or find someone better at fighting.  Take a year to prep, you'll still get there exactly on time. 

They seem to have linked timelines. So if they go back an hour after Flynn leaves, they have to go back to a time that is 4 hours after Flynn arrives.

Edited January 18, 2017 by KaveDweller

[ketose]

5 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Sadly, this leads to my issues. This episode was horribly held back by the fact that Flynn and Rittenhouse is a huge pain and generally sucks the life out of all the fun. Flynn gets some good lines and the actor is charismatic, but his plan is SO STUPID! I mean, whats your plan here, Mr. Brilliant Strategist? Just run around history, screwing with random events and killing tons of people, and just hoping that means Rittenhouse goes away? As several others have already commented, he has probably already made it so that his wife was never born or something, and its sheer luck that he himself has never been written out of existence. For someone built up as this super smart uber badass, he kind of...sucks. Speaking of sucking, its pretty sad that the guest characters are consistently more entertaining and competent than Our Heroes. Its not that I dont like the main characters and they all have their moments, but the fact that they haven't been able to actually stop this one asshole, who we have already seen is a pretty crappy super villain, does not speak much for them. Especially Wyatt, who is apparently a special forces badass, but some across more as just some guy who is pays paintball on the weekends or something. Houdini managed to foil Flynn and capture him in like five minutes! And this guy is a magician, not a soldier! What they apparently need to do is gather together a rag tag bunch of misfits throughout history (Houdini, Katherine Johnson, Ian Flemming, Bonnie Parker, etc.) and have THEM hunt down Flynn. They would probably catch him in twenty minutes and be done in time for dinner at the Worlds Fair. 

Just don't call them the Legends of Tomorrow.

[Ripley68]

Thought this was another good episode.  I guess I'm one of the few who think the team works well together - and likes Wyatt?  He was already in the process of shooting George when George reached for the weapon.  The face he makes at Bonnie and Clydes henchman still cracks me up - in a good way.  Even though his mission is to get Flynn, he makes his actual mission keeping Rufus and Lucy safe.  Please, Please, please don't let this show be cancelled.

[Haleth]

I can't believe neither Rufus or Wyatt read Devil in the White City. 

Houdini was fantastic. Too bad he wasn't brought back to replace Wyatt. 

[henripootel]

1 hour ago, KaveDweller said:

They seem to have linked timelines. So if they go back an hour after Flynn leaves, they have to go back to a time that is 4 hours after Flynn arrives.

Agreed / still makes no sense.  

[dubbel zout]

39 minutes ago, Haleth said:

I can't believe neither Rufus or Wyatt read Devil in the White City. 

Wyatt doesn't strike me as the reading type.

[dargosmydaddy]

1 hour ago, Ripley68 said:

Thought this was another good episode.  I guess I'm one of the few who think the team works well together - and likes Wyatt?  He was already in the process of shooting George when George reached for the weapon.  The face he makes at Bonnie and Clydes henchman still cracks me up - in a good way.  Even though his mission is to get Flynn, he makes his actual mission keeping Rufus and Lucy safe.  Please, Please, please don't let this show be cancelled.

I like Wyatt and the team's overall chemistry! Even if it's no 12 Monkeys, it's a fun show and I hope it sticks around, even if it does have a lot of room to grow.

[legaleagle53]

17 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Houdini managed to foil Flynn and capture him in like five minutes! And this guy is a magician, not a soldier! What they apparently need to do is gather together a rag tag bunch of misfits throughout history (Houdini, Katherine Johnson, Ian Flemming, Bonnie Parker, etc.) and have THEM hunt down Flynn. They would probably catch him in twenty minutes and be done in time for dinner at the Worlds Fair. 

Sure, and then you figure out a way to return them to their own times so that history isn't further disrupted by their absence from it without violating the rule about no returning to a time in which they already exist.  Who's going to perform Houdini's future great escapes in the early part of the 20th Century, take Katherine Johnson's place at NASA in 1969, write Ian Fleming's "James Bond" stories starting in 1952, and yes, even rob the banks that Bonnie Parker is supposed to rob up until her death in 1934 if they're not there to do those things when they're supposed to because they've been galavanting around the timestream pursuing Flynn and can only be returned to a point after they're supposed to have died (1926 for Houdini, 1964 for Fleming, 1934 for Bonnie Parker, and sometime in the future for Katherine Johnson, since she's still alive in 2017)?

Edited January 18, 2017 by legaleagle53

[Cthulhudrew]

23 hours ago, MisterGlass said:

This was a bit disappointing.  I feel like someone read the Cliff's Notes of Devil in the White City, but as usual there is a lack of accuracy on some things.

Ha! I was thinking something similar, that the writer must have just finished that book and just had to write a version of it for the show!

It was kind of a fun episode, but mostly because of Houdini. Until I read this thread, I didn't know he was that smarmy guy on Mr. Robot, and never would have guessed. Too bad they couldn't have brought him along for the ride. He'd have been a lot of fun to have on the show.

BTW, was it me, or were a lot of the costumes pretty ill-fitting this episode? Maybe that was the style, but some of the outfits on the extra muscle seemed like they weren't tailored well at all. Garcia's thug had a hat that was too big, and the big goon guarding Edison's room looked like he would split his jacket if he breathed too hard.

Speaking of Flynn's goons, has he had any on this show with any regularity that Wyatt could actually recognize? Because they've all just been nameless, faceless thugs as far as I can tell.

Edited January 18, 2017 by Cthulhudrew

[KaveDweller]

What they apparently need to do is gather together a rag tag bunch of misfits throughout history (Houdini, Katherine Johnson, Ian Flemming, Bonnie Parker, etc.) and have THEM hunt down Flynn.

Just don't call them the Legends of Tomorrow.

Legends of Yesterday would make more sense for this show.

[Cthulhudrew]

11 hours ago, henripootel said:

This is the one that rankles me because it's always a plot point.  'We have to go now, before he gets away!'  No you don't - time machine.  Take a while to get some sleep, or properly equip, or research the time period, or find someone better at fighting.  Take a year to prep, you'll still get there exactly on time. 

This is the thing that really bugs me about this show (and other time travel shows) when I don't deliberately try to ignore it. As soon as they learn about Flynn's location in the past, it should already be too late because he's had years (or centuries) to complete his nefarious deed before they ever can leave to stop him. 

Unless time is predestined already, in which case it doesn't really matter at all, because they're all just living out a cycle that has already taken place. Which could be kind of an interesting angle to explore, the maddening knowledge that nothing you're doing matters (or all of it does) but you really have no control over it, but that is certainly not the story they're exploring on this show.

So I have to turn my brain off. :(

[shapeshifter]

I loved every scene with Lucy and Houdini together and also alone but acting from inspiration from one another. I'd love a spinoff in which Lucy has a time ship and Harry is her companion much like Doctor Who.

 

6 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

. . . Flynn is, at least for me, is in immediate danger of becoming Snidely Whiplash, but less fun.

Hah! So true. Except if Flynn ties Lucy to the train tracks, hero-to-the-rescue Wyatt will get his boot stuck in the tracks with the train barreling down upon them, Rufus will get Wyatt's foot free, but then Lucy will have to throw the switch to divert the train moments before they all meet a tragic end.

[LittleIggy]

"The Devil in the White City" is one of the most chilling things I've ever read. That guy was a monster.

I wish Lucy had told Houdini not to let anyone punch him in the stomach...

Edited January 18, 2017 by LittleIggy

[j5cochran]

Slightly off topic but fascinating -- Rufus is mistaken for Robert Robinson Taylor, the first black enrolled at MIT and America's first black architect. Taylor designed many of the campus buildings at the Tuskegee University and served as the second-in-command to founder and President Booker T. Washington.

Oh, and he's the great-grandfather of Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to and long-time friend of President Barack Obama.  Pretty cool!

[green]

8 hours ago, LoneHaranguer said:

Most modern devices don't need anywhere near the standard 120 volts, so if that was DC, you'd need to convert it to AC anyway, to change the voltage, even if you didn't have to change it back to DC (which you wouldn't for something like an LED).

The rationale for repeatedly resetting is usually that it lets the episodes run out of order in syndication, but for a show like this, it compromises the story so much, reaching syndication is wishful thinking.

Most devices in your home never have run on 120 volts AC.  Ever.  That is way too much voltage.  But you need that much to push it through the power lines.  AC is to push the electricity through the power lines without the voltage degrading to nothing before it even reaches your home.  In your home pretty much everything has always been converted to smaller amounts DC voltage except the simple Edison (he of pro-DC) light bulb that can pass AC across it's resistor.

I'd like to hear the rationale for WHY syndicated series always skip around.  I hate hate hate hate it.  Why can't they show them in order.  I watch two Big Bang Theories in a row on the same channel in syndication and they are like 6 years apart.  It makes no sense and I don't enjoy the jumps.

But how hilarious would it be if this show went to syndication and was jumping all over time but not in order of it jumping all over time in the original run.  Though I think dramas with actual plot-lines run more in order.

Edited January 18, 2017 by green

[snarktini]

9 hours ago, LoneHaranguer said:

I don't think he'd trust his assistant. It'd make more sense to wait until the air got thin enough for the lights to go out and escape in the darkness using a secret door trigger. Seems like that should have happened well before Wyatt made the hole in the wall. One light already went out; the others should have quickly followed. And Wyatt cut through a brick, which is a lot tougher and time consuming than cutting through mortar, which is what I presumed he'd do.

I'd have hoped the architect could find a secret door! However it's really the only likely "out" for Holmes so that's probably it. I guessed that George = Holmes right away, but to be fair it's easier as a viewer with some outside knowledge about the serial killer hotel and having previously known everyone else in the room. TBH I never read Devil in the White City, I had no idea he killed in a hotel until it was mentioned on Sherlock. That was just last week...many shows seem to be converging on common themes lately.

On Murdoch Mysteries (aka Artful Detective) which starts in 1895, their police department's term for serial killer is sequential killer. FYI.

Edited January 18, 2017 by snarktini

[Camera One]

I found this episode relatively fun to watch.  It was nice to see Lucy using her history knowledge to save herself.  The team does have good chemistry with one another.  Now, they've even dropped the debate of whether they should or should not change history by saving people, and why not, because clearly, nothing has an effect on history except when it involves Lucy's sister.  I still couldn't care less about Rittenhouse and Flynn isn't any brighter than our intrepid heroes.  I do enjoy the show, but it doesn't seem like did much groundwork on worldbuilding and long-range planning.

[henripootel]

2 hours ago, Cthulhudrew said:

This is the thing that really bugs me about this show (and other time travel shows) when I don't deliberately try to ignore it. As soon as they learn about Flynn's location in the past, it should already be too late because he's had years (or centuries) to complete his nefarious deed before they ever can leave to stop him. 

They could easily explain this away, heck make it an interesting part of the process.  "Looks like Flynn's ship is powering up - better put up our time shields" or some such mumbo-jumbo.  The guys in the base would be protected from timeline shifts and would share the horrors of suddenly finding themselves in an altered world.  

Without such a contrivance, we really have to wonder why the Time Team keeps coming back to find their own base largely unchanged, with a base crew who always knows who they are and what their mission is.  Flynn could easily screw things up enough that the Team might try to go back to base and find out the program never existed.  They should take steps to prevent this.

On another note, did anyone else think it weird that Flynn was so easily able to get Holmes to do him a solid?  How'd that conversation go?  "Hi, look, I know you're a serial killer, and I sure would appreciate it if you greased a couple of folks for me."  Something tells me serial killers aren't the trusting type, given to doing favors for folks who somehow know what they're up to.  More likely is that Holmes would do what he actually did do when he knew he was exposed - flee.

Edited January 18, 2017 by henripootel

[CooperTV]

16 minutes ago, henripootel said:

On another note, did anyone else think it weird that Flynn was so easily able to get Holmes to do him a solid?  How'd that conversation go?

His henchman in terribly fitting hat led Rufus and Wyatt to the hotel, right? Maybe Flynn knew Holmes is about to get "in the mood" (yikes!) or maybe he just winged it and thought "Oh well, Holmes will kill them anyway". It's not like Flynn is all that bright in the first place.

[henripootel]

Just now, CooperTV said:

Maybe Flynn knew Holmes is about to get "in the mood" (yikes!) or maybe he just winged it and thought "Oh well, Holmes will kill them anyway". It's not like Flynn is all that bright in the first place.

Pretty sure Holmes mentioned that Flynn put him up to it.  I mean you can't expect Holmes to kill every person he came into contact with - that's a lot of people.

[bros402]

16 hours ago, Boofish said:

Once again it was said that you can't go back to a time where you existed yet there was Richard the day of the moon landing. There is no way that Richard didn't exist in 1969. 

Maybe Richard was younger before the first time they tried time travel - and he was rapidly aged, which is why he was in the hospital for so long?

[CooperTV]

2 hours ago, henripootel said:

Pretty sure Holmes mentioned that Flynn put him up to it.  I mean you can't expect Holmes to kill every person he came into contact with - that's a lot of people.

You're right! I missed that! This episode I just was checking out during everything Flynn-related, I guess...

[Ms Lark]

On 1/17/2017 at 0:01 AM, thuganomics85 said:

Automatically was suspicious of George simply because of the mustache.  It's always the mustache.

I figured that one out quickly. Babyfaced Concierge looked nothing like HH Holmes and George had the mustachios of HH that I remembered from pictures of him, so it had to be him.

18 hours ago, blackwing said:

I don't really buy that Lucy knew so much about HH Holmes (his real name, his family, etc) but wouldn't recognise him as "George".  I get that he's not a major figure of history, but she seems to have read enough about him that she should have seen his picture before.

Yeah, that was a real big plothole there. If I could remember what he looked like, she should have immediately!

I did like this episode a lot, though. Was a big fan of Houdini as a kid (and terrible magician), so that was a lot of fun. Wish we could keep him on as a regular! Didn't realize the actor is on Mr. Robot, too.

[Ripley68]

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This is the one that rankles me because it's always a plot point.  'We have to go now, before he gets away!'  No you don't - time machine.  Take a while to get some sleep, or properly equip, or research the time period, or find someone better at fighting.  Take a year to prep, you'll still get there exactly on time. 

This is the thing that really bugs me about this show (and other time travel shows) when I don't deliberately try to ignore it. As soon as they learn about Flynn's location in the past, it should already be too late because he's had years (or centuries) to complete his nefarious deed before they ever can leave to stop him.

I think it's the X-men time travel theory.  Everything remains the same UNTIL you return to your time period.  So the longer they wait to go after Flynn, the more chance there is of him coming back to current time with everything changed - team's memories would change and they would have no idea of it.  Now, Flynn does have to give himself a window to return to so he doesn't return on himself, so they would have a couple of hours, but I wouldn't think much more.

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I don't really buy that Lucy knew so much about HH Holmes (his real name, his family, etc) but wouldn't recognise him as "George".  I get that he's not a major figure of history, but she seems to have read enough about him that she should have seen his picture before

I think there is only Holmes mugshot.  Lucy could be very familiar with him and never seen a picture.  I read about him last year, but didn't read the book, so never saw a picture.

[GoMocs]

Geesh Flynn, just go back to when Rittenhouse was baby/kid and kill him then. But I guess that would be the end of the show.

[iMonrey]

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The rationale for repeatedly resetting is usually that it lets the episodes run out of order in syndication, but for a show like this, it compromises the story so much, reaching syndication is wishful thinking.

Actually syndication isn't the issue - series in syndication tend to run in the same order they did when they were originally broadcast. It's the network that originally broadcasts the show that tends to dislike serialized shows, because they want to pick and choose the "strongest" episodes for sweeps.

That approach to broadcast TV just isn't realistic anymore. Look at any top-rated, popular show and you'll find at least some level of serialization. I don't think it's actually NBC that is ordering the writers to "reset" every episode. I think it's just as simple as the network and/or the writers only being interested in a fun little action-adventure show you don't have to put much thought into. Unfortunately, time travel does not lend itself to this format. History should be changing, if only incrementally, each time the time travelers make a trip into the past. If the network and/or show didn't want to deal with those ramifications they should have come up with some other premise as I suggested earlier - a la The Wayback Machine. Just have a group of fun-loving historians use time travel to visit the past and observe without screwing anything up. This whole Rittenhouse/Flynn thing just isn't working.

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She seems to have read enough about him that she should have seen his picture before.

Lucy seemed to know a little too much about HH Holmes, even for a historian. She can't possess intricate details of the personal lives of every single historical figure in the world, that's just not realistic. But I didn't find it unrealistic she didn't recognize his face, even with that amount of knowledge. Seeing some old-timey black and white photo of someone isn't necessarily going to make you recognize them when you meet them in person and in living color - especially if it's an earlier or later time than when the photograph was taken. I've seen photos of Lizzie Borden but that doesn't mean I would recognize her if I ran into her unless she looked exactly the same as she did when the photos I've seen of her were taken.

[Tara Ariano]

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

How Will Timeless's Time Come To An End?

And other questions sparked by its rumored untimely demise.

[Clanstarling]

2 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I've seen photos of Lizzie Borden but that doesn't mean I would recognize her if I ran into her unless she looked exactly the same as she did when the photos I've seen of her were taken.

I think context adds a lot to it. If you were, somehow, transported back to Lizzie Borden's house, and there were a number of women there, likely you'd be able to at least guess which one was Lizzie.

[ketose]

17 hours ago, green said:

Most devices in your home never have run on 120 volts AC.  Ever.  That is way too much voltage.  But you need that much to push it through the power lines.  AC is to push the electricity through the power lines without the voltage degrading to nothing before it even reaches your home.  In your home pretty much everything has always been converted to smaller amounts DC voltage except the simple Edison (he of pro-DC) light bulb that can pass AC across it's resistor.

I was mostly putting out the idea of an alternate history where DC power (like in NYC in the early 20th century) would require the localization of power generation. A lot of effort for years has been to put up more wind and solar which will necessarily need to be local (and both are direct current). Every time you use a step down (or up) transformer, there is energy loss through heat. It's very efficient now (Level 6 just came out) but was pretty lossy for years.

AC revolutionized the ability of people to have radios and appliances miles away from the city, but it also facilitated the NIMBY attitude that put electrical generation further and further away from the recipients. Then again, this would be an alternate history if Tesla had died or if Westinghouse hadn't hired him and gotten all his patents for free.

[KaveDweller]

17 hours ago, henripootel said:

On another note, did anyone else think it weird that Flynn was so easily able to get Holmes to do him a solid?  How'd that conversation go?  "Hi, look, I know you're a serial killer, and I sure would appreciate it if you greased a couple of folks for me."  Something tells me serial killers aren't the trusting type, given to doing favors for folks who somehow know what they're up to.  More likely is that Holmes would do what he actually did do when he knew he was exposed - flee.

They aren't the trusting type, but I don't think we can apply logic to a psychopath. The guy likes to kill people. Someone offered him up a treat and maybe offered to pay him too. Why wouldn't he just go for it.

16 hours ago, bros402 said:

Maybe Richard was younger before the first time they tried time travel - and he was rapidly aged, which is why he was in the hospital for so long?

I like that theory and it's something not often explored in time travel stuff. 

[Dowel Jones]

7 minutes ago, KaveDweller said:

They aren't the trusting type, but I don't think we can apply logic to a psychopath.

Logic really isn't this show's selling point, anyway.  As long as the plots are ignoring the consequence of time travel, they're just as likely to inexplicably change people's behavior to suit the situation and the desired outcome.

Edited January 19, 2017 by Dowel Jones

[withanaich]

I ... don't find it that hard to believe that Flynn was able to convince Holmes to help him. He's not exactly thinking reasonably (Holmes, not Flynn, although the latter is up for debate), he'd probably have a hard time turning down a "free lunch" (so to speak) and probably a financial bonus to boot, and all Flynn would have to do to get on his good side was make him think he's a serial killer too who found out what Holmes is doing and wants to help out. (I mean, Flynn actually is a serial killer, or at least a mass murderer, but Holmes doesn't know that.) 

I have a harder time figuring out how Flynn is convincing all these goons to help him murder people throughout history, risking all manner of ugly death (dysentery, musket ball to the gut, smallpox) or possibly getting stranded in the past. Did he break them out of jail, or what? How many of these guys are there? How is he paying them? Are they just adrenaline junkies with no family, friends, or jobs? Where do they go when they're not helping him out?

[kili]

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I have a harder time figuring out how Flynn is convincing all these goons to help him murder people throughout history, risking all manner of ugly death (dysentery, musket ball to the gut, smallpox) or possibly getting stranded in the past.

Probably recruited from the same pool of potential employees as drug dealers. The death rate amongst those guys in my area seems relatively high with various turf wars leading to even the highest level dudes eventually meeting an early demise.

I imagine that Flynn offers bags of cash. That four hours head start he gets he probably uses doing bookkeeping - he picks up a few future antiques, buys a few shares for IBM and Ford and bets on the ponies. Once you get a time machine, there is no reason to ever want for money.

Now I have visions of Flynn on the antique roadshow.

[Netfoot]

On 1/17/2017 at 6:43 PM, ketose said:

Ironically, everything now actually runs on DC, even LED light bulbs. If the US kept localized DC, wind turbines might have sprung up instead of millions of miles of high tension power lines and electronic devices all running off little space heater AC to DC converters.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with DC power, except it's horribly inefficient when it comes to transmission over long distances.  Power transmission lines consume far less power when high voltages are used, and it's far easier to convert AC power to higher voltages for transmission, and back again for everyday use.  Even a distance of a few hundred feet from your windmill to your appliance can burn up energy when using low voltage DC.

Also, I believe that alternators produce AC power more efficiently than dynamos produce DC power.  So your windmill would work better if it produced AC power...

[LoneHaranguer]

On 1/18/2017 at 0:37 AM, green said:

I'd like to hear the rationale for WHY syndicated series always skip around.  I hate hate hate hate it.  Why can't they show them in order.  I watch two Big Bang Theories in a row on the same channel in syndication and they are like 6 years apart.  It makes no sense and I don't enjoy the jumps.

Boston's TV38 is doing that, but if you look closely, the show is going sequentially if you just look at the first or second time slot by itself. Essentially, they're simultaneously running the series twice, with the two showings out of phase by about 50%. I have seen other shows run at random. I suspect the idea is to keep viewers from saying "oh yeah, this season sucks" and tuning out for a while (possibly forgetting to tune back in).

[KaveDweller]

8 hours ago, withanaich said:

I have a harder time figuring out how Flynn is convincing all these goons to help him murder people throughout history, risking all manner of ugly death (dysentery, musket ball to the gut, smallpox) or possibly getting stranded in the past. Did he break them out of jail, or what? How many of these guys are there? How is he paying them? Are they just adrenaline junkies with no family, friends, or jobs? Where do they go when they're not helping him out?

I remember in middle school they told us that when Christopher Columbus sailed for America he couldn't get a crew because most people thought it was a journey to their death. Since the Queen was financing it, they started telling people in prison they could get out if they were willing to sail with Columbus. I don't know how historically accurate this is, but maybe Flynn is using similar logic? People who have no better options than to do a risky job no sane person wants.

[iMonrey]

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I have a harder time figuring out how Flynn is convincing all these goons to help him murder people throughout history, risking all manner of ugly death (dysentery, musket ball to the gut, smallpox) or possibly getting stranded in the past.

He must shop for them at Goons 'R Us.

Honestly, the show has done a poor job of showing us Flynn's side of things (one of this show's many failings, unfortunately). Where's he getting the money he needs to pay these people and come up with costumes and period money? Is someone financing him or is he independently wealthy? Is he robbing banks? The show isn't really interested in explaining anything beyond "he's trying to take out Rittenhouse." 

They could really use an episode told from Flynn's point of view with maybe a few flashbacks to flesh out his story. 

[CooperTV]

20 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

They could really use an episode told from Flynn's point of view with maybe a few flashbacks to flesh out his story. 

I actually thought that after he kidnapped Lucy they'd show us more of Flynn and Anthony. I found it really strange that there was almost no pay-off from that pre-hiatus cliffhanger.