Timeless

[Peter Parker]

Once they do go back in time and rescue Rufus (and presumably save Lucy's sister) the whole timeline will be different. If they defeat Rittenhouse there is no time machine (unless perhaps Lucy's sister invents one) and no one will know any of this unless they read this thread or see the show n Netflix.

 

[TheKrell]

I understood that the time travelers who are back in time (to cause or witness a change in history) do indeed remember how it used to be. Am I confused?

 

[DJdish]

I understood that the time travelers who are back in time (to cause or witness a change in history) do indeed remember how it used to be. Am I confused?

I think your recollection is correct, at least talking about Timeless.

When Lucy came back from her fist trip, even though she found a world in which she didn't have a sister, she did remember that before making the time travel she did have a sister. Her mother who didn't travel in time, did not know of any sister, but Lucy who went back in time, and came back to the present, did remember she had a sister before going out on that first time travel assignment.

The team also when coming back from their trips, would look at newspapers, or books, etc, to find a different story, different turn of events but they did remember how things were supposed to be, or how things were in history, before they went out on their time travel assignment.

 

[TheKrell]

The team also when coming back from their trips, would look at newspapers, or books, etc, to find a different story, different turn of events but they did remember how things were supposed to be, or how things were in history, before they went out on their time travel assignment.

Which immediately raises the question of whether Lucy still knows the original timeline if Rittenhouse goes back in time and changes something while she's still in the present.

 

[DJdish]

Which immediately raises the question of whether Lucy still knows the original timeline if Rittenhouse goes back in time and changes something while she's still in the present.

The specific answer to your specific question is: No

Allow me to elaborate on that:

- Last night I traveled in time, well so to speak, what happens is that I watched again the first episode, since I watched it about 2 years ago, I just remembered Lucy had a sister but not much about her.

- Lucy's sister was Amy, she appeared on screen for about 30 seconds total, she even spoke a few lines.

- When Lucy and the team went on that first time-travel assignment, things changed, the Hindenbur didn't explode when it was supposed to, the people who were supposed to die at that moment, didn't, and so many changes to history as Lucy knew it, took place..

- When Lucy and the other time travelers returned to the present, they found out that history books and newspapers of course told the story of the HIndenburg but now the events were told as Lucy and the time travelers witnessed them,
Lucy and the team were even referred to, in news reports from that year, as an anarchist group suspected of putting the bomb that made the Hindenbur explode.

- But note this, while Lucy and the time travelers remembered history in its original version as it was before they traveled back in time, all the people who remained behind, were not aware of that other original version of history.

- When Lucy went back home she found that her gravely ill mom wha was bed ridden when she left, was now healthy and moving about the house, and when Lucy asked about her sister Amy, her mom was baffled, there was no Amy.
It's not that Amy died, but in this version of the world that Lucy came back to (I don't want to use the word timeline) her sister Amy was never born.

- So Lucy remembered the original version of history, because she traveled in time, and therefore she was aware of the changes made to history.

However, the people who remained behind, I mean the people who didn't travel in time, were not aware of any changes made to history, because for them, there had only been one version of history.
Say, for example when the rest of the team (Gia, all the non-travelers) were born, say in the 60s-80s, the events of the Hindenburg in 1937 had already happened as modified by Flynn's and Lucy's team's interventions

- On another issue which could play a key problem for the finale movie:

In that first episode Rufus mentioned that (theoretically) they can never go back to a time when they have already been, because that would mean there would be 2 of them at the same time and place, and that could be bad, whatever that means.

However I think the writers have done away with that paradigm, because in the last episode (season 2 finale) we saw Lucy and Wyatt from the future meet face to face with Lucy and Wyatt from 2018 and there were no issues at all. .

 

[TheKrell]

The specific answer to your specific question is: No

IMHO your example does not prove that any of the good guys would know of the changes wrought by the bad guys while they were not simultaneously following them back in time to stop them. In your example, all that would be required to account for all known events is that the Hindenburg somehow also made Amy cease to be born, and Lucy's mom (forget her name) suddenly gets healthy and possibly (we don't know this) become part of Rittenhouse.

 

[MikeD-C05]

But but... Wasn't it Rittenhouse that killed Lucy's sister? And resurrected Lucy's mom and made her Rittenhouse, and then killed her off again?

Here's a question for all you clockblockers. If they put an end to Rittenhouse, and Rittenhouse orignally funded development of the time machine, how is that going to happen exactly?

Well if they end up preventing Rittenhouse from ever forming, using their Rittenhouse built time machine then all time will reset and the current versions of Lucy and Wyat and Rufus will disappear and they will have never have met and the new timeline created will be the reality.

 

[long_time_DNC]

That'd be pretty weird...

 

[lakebum431]

And now we are back to the classic time travel paradox. Best not to over think it and just go with it. Until time travel is real and there are actual "rules" (which must never happen or we would have run across it by now right?) it is a pointless as arguing about the rules of the dragons in Game of Thrones.

 

[TheKrell]

Best not to over think it and just go with it.

But but... We can't go with anything until Dec 20th, and IMHO time travel will never be real. So why not enjoy ourselves overthinking time travel rules while we wait?

 

[lakebum431]

But but... We can't go with anything until Dec 20th, and IMHO time travel will never be real. So why not enjoy ourselves overthinking time travel rules while we wait?

Fair enough. I agree.

 

[TheKrell]

We can always fall back on discussing The End of Eternity, in which as you might recall from the ending, Eternity never happened and so all paradoxes never occurred. I am hoping for something thought provoking like that for the end of Timeless. That is what I was getting at regarding Rittenhouse never getting started, and the time machine never getting funded or never existing in the first place.

 

[Howard Simmons]

We can always fall back on discussing The End of Eternity, in which as you might recall from the ending, Eternity never happened and so all paradoxes never occurred. I am hoping for something thought provoking like that for the end of Timeless. That is what I was getting at regarding Rittenhouse never getting started, and the time machine never getting funded or never existing in the first place.

Well if that's the case then let's go back to Bobby Ewing in Dallas which was all a dream.

 

[MikeD-C05]

We can always fall back on discussing The End of Eternity, in which as you might recall from the ending, Eternity never happened and so all paradoxes never occurred. I am hoping for something thought provoking like that for the end of Timeless. That is what I was getting at regarding Rittenhouse never getting started, and the time machine never getting funded or never existing in the first place.

That's pretty much what I said earlier. To me it makes sense on how they will solve the dilemma with two Lucys and two Wyatts ( one group further in the time line than the earlier versions) that they have now all traveling back in time to change Rufus's death. They can't all exist at the same time without consequences. Wasn't one of the time rules in the show? You can't travel back to a time that you have already been to or that you are alive in . This trip back with all 4 of them, will have to reset the time line so that the time line is fixed once and for all and it will have to also prevent Rittenhouse from forming , so that there would never have been a reason for them to have met in the first place. Of course if they kill off the ancestors of Rittenhouse , that would also prevent Lucy , a direct descendant of Rittenhouse from ever being born .

Now I 've gone cockeyed and it makes my head hurt.

 

[TheKrell]

Of course if they kill off the ancestors of Rittenhouse , that would also prevent Lucy , a direct descendant of Rittenhouse from ever being born .

I don't read it that way! If one Rittenhouse is killed before the episode we saw, that does not mean that Lucy wasn't from some other branch of the family that wasn't killed. There is also the possibility that Rittenhouse's son, who was saved by Lucy as you may recall, is allowed to grow to adulthood and is then prevented from continuing the evil ways. He could be killed, or he could be turned.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I don't read it that way! If one Rittenhouse is killed before the episode we saw, that does not mean that Lucy wasn't from some other branch of the family that wasn't killed. There is also the possibility that Rittenhouse's son, who was saved by Lucy as you may recall, is allowed to grow to adulthood and is then prevented from continuing the evil ways. He could be killed, or he could be turned.

Ok that is a different take on the time travel thing. I am thinking like the movie" Sound of Thunder" where a tour group time travels back to the prehistoric days and steps on a butterfly and brings it back to the present on their shoe. This causes the entire time line to ripple and change evolution wise till eventually humans become catfish people. So one change in the past changes everything in the present.

 

[wormil]

movie" Sound of Thunder" ... steps on a butterfly and ... humans become catfish people.

Wait, what???? Sounds like a Ben Stiller movie, or an episode of ST Enterprise.

 

[TheKrell]

Wait, what???? Sounds like a Ben Stiller movie, or an episode of ST Enterprise.

The trailer for your enjoyment.

 

[TheKrell]

From here: Timeless Series Finale: Abigail Spencer Teases the Very. Final. Scene.

“The final, final scene? I’m not in it,” [Spencer] told TVLine with a laugh. “The plot thickens. The final, final scene, I’m not in it. So I’ll tell you that.”

 

[TheKrell]

Another teaser this time from Goran Visnjic. From here: Timeless star Goran Visnjic says series finale will make for very unconventional television

We're going to close all the loops. We're going to tie all the loose ends. We're going to come back with a storm of words that our fans love and memories from previous episodes. Every day, we come in and I'm like, 'Oh my god, can I say this because they are going to remember I said that in episode two!' And the writers are like, 'Yeah, great!' So it's a very unusual two-part series finale."