Date of airing: October 31, 2016 (NBC)
Nielsen ratings information: 5.235 million viewers, 3.3/6 in Households, 1.13/4 with Adults 18-49, 0.6/3 with Adults 18-34, 1.6/5 with Adults 25-54
This series is slowly turning into an action-adventure drama with character-defining moments, where you get to face mortality before saving the world or the timeline. That’s what I dig about my science-fiction travel shows, and who knows what UPN's SEVEN DAYS (which aired for three seasons) or FOX’s THE TIME TUNNEL remake from 2002 (which didn't get out of its pilot stage) could have been if the writers had pitched the show with character depth, instead of just the premise and the promise of getting weekly time-travel adventures that don’t necessarily create an ongoing storyline viewers have to remember. TIMELESS is doing what past time travel shows didn’t care about doing, making it one of the better offerings of the genre, even if I’m not particularly a friend of the proceduralized nature of it. But I do understand why it’s part of the show: Every episode is a new adventure, and since TIMELESS is revisiting history, it also gives the audience a little lesson about American history, and dressing that into a time travel action-adventure show with attractive heroes is quite clever.
Wyatt telling his story of how he left behind his group of soldiers (in Afghanistan, I presume), just so he can escape and deliver important intelligence, was extremely touching and meaningful for his character arc, which finally gave him depth and meaning to exist and fight in this crazy world. The delivery of his backstory here is especially clever after the previous episode noted that Wyatt is not cracking during a mission and that he is always in control – turns out he isn’t and there is a reason for that. Besides, I loved that there was some darkness to Wyatt’s character, begging the question if either Rufus or Lucy also have those kinds of character edging hiding in their backstory, soon to be revealed. Wyatt isn’t just a young, hot, and sexy time-traveling superman, there is a core to him. If the same can be said about the other two team members is unclear yet. Lucy has been treated as the central character so far, especially after seeing her reconcile with her mother, but this episode made sure that the guys in the team also get the attention. So, when is it Rufus’ turn?
 |
| It's the calm before the storm. |
What I also started loving about TIMELESS is that the historic events teach me something, even when it’s just little pieces that give me new information about America’s history. I am German, so I mostly learned German history (mostly World War Two stuff) – American history is essentially foreign to me, and while I might have heard the term “the Alamo” in connection with Texas before, I never knew what it meant or what happened when and where. Now I know some of the cliff notes of the events and I can look out for National Geographic or History Channel documentaries, in case I’m bored and want to learn some more.
Although let’s be honest, I could not give less of a damn about NatGeo and History documentaries. Wikipedia is only one mouse click away, and reading history goes over much quicker than watching a 45-minute episode about what happened at the Alamo presented by talking heads. And even though the writers decided to take a lot of liberties with their stories, the episodes manage to get me a little bit interested in the events depicted. I read some stuff about Judith Campbell after “Atomic City,” and I refreshed my memories of Wernher von Braun after the previous episode. I’m pretty sure I will start reading into the Alamo as soon as I’m done writing this wall of text, because I barely know anything about the history of Texas (I have only seen the first episode of TEXAS RISING back when it premiered, and unfortunately, it was a snooze), and this episode gave me nice hints about how the founding of Texas came to be.
While the educational entertainment gives me hope that TIMELESS will be a better show in the future, some story choices in this episode turned out to be dumb. Flynn went to General Santa Anna to declare his assistance, but wouldn’t it have been easier to send one of Flynn’s guys to Santa Anna and help him out, and another one to the Alamo to disrupt the rebellion and maybe even kill some of the important personalities in the war between Texas and Mexico? Colonel Travis has been killed easily, but I can’t imagine that he was the only famous personality of the war who Flynn could have ordered killed, considering he wanted to crush the rebellion and hinder Texas from ever existing. After all, just because Travis is historically known to have written the letter, did Flynn not think about the possibility that someone else may have picked up where Travis left off? Of course, Flynn’s mission to prevent Texas’s existence seems a bit weird, since his only mission seems to be the eradication of Rittenhouse from history, but the show needs to start explaining where Rittenhouse was involved in history, why they were involved, and what all of it is good for Flynn’s mission. As I said before, why not just find out when Rittenhouse first came to be, disrupt their first meeting, and have it be over with? That should be a lot easier than jumping through time dozens of times and changing the timeline.
That Flynn is just another human being with a soul showed during his conflict with Santa Anna, when he found out that the Mexican General would change the timeline by showing no mercy during the assault. In the end, even Flynn was ready to save some victims of the war, but because his only mission was to prevent the letter from being written and distributed, he didn’t have his eye on everything else happening around him. Plus, Flynn knew that Lucy and her team would also be here to stop him, but he didn’t seem bothered by that fact. In fact, Flynn didn’t stick around during the assault and therefore the viewers didn’t get to see how he reacted when the assault happened, let alone after he came back to the present and he found out that the letter still got distributed and Texas came to be. But here is an interesting aspect that this episode just presented: Flynn could either be a hero or a villain. Everyone sees him as the villain because he kills people and destroys American history, but who knows what’s really behind Rittenhouse that could turn him into an ally later?
 |
| The last stand leads you to the gates of Valhalla. |
The side plot of Wyatt being replaced by another superman soldier was good, since it furthered the agenda of the trio growing together as a team and Wyatt facing his mortality. While I was rolling my eyes a bit when Lucy begged him to stay with the team, it showed that the trio was starting to become best friends and that each member knew how to do their own thing to make the mission a success. Lucy turned into the person who made sure that Texas will exist, Wyatt made sure that the soldiers at least try to stay alive against Santa Anna’s army, and Rufus made sure that the women and children could escape, as it was destined. All three members of the group had a specific task, and because they succeeded, it somewhat makes them irreplaceable. Rufus may just be a pilot who can be replaced by another pilot, while Lucy is just a historian who could be replaced with another historian, and Wyatt is just a soldier who can be replaced by another soldier, but it’s not that easy to create a team that managed to keep American history together during five missions. The fact that they succeeded five times means they might already be the best team that could ever exist. Swap out one of them and everything turns to crap.
