Tag: Time Travel

Time Travel TV Comparison: Dark vs 12 Monkeys vs Travelers

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A reader requested that we write up a compare and contrast review between 12 Monkeys and Dark. Now that all of the Dark recaps are done, we thought we’d do that, and add in Travelers, the other fan favorite time travel show around here.

All 3 shows premiered and completed their runs between 2015 and 2020. They are all anchored in the present day, but also take place in the future and the past. They all deal with dystopian futures which the main characters want to prevent using time travel and the knowledge of events they’ve gained through time travel and advanced technology. All 3 also have ensemble casts that include time travelers, their handlers and mad scientists, though the groups tend to be fluid- almost everyone will time travel or have a good idea eventually.

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Dark: What Did It All Mean? Thoughts on Season 3 and the Ending

~ Metacrone ~ 4 Comments

Dark S3Ep8 Jonas & Martha Disintegrate from Bridge

Because of the odd structure of season 3 of Dark, there were several ideas that I wanted to write about that didn’t fit into any of the recaps. I’m going to discuss some of the ongoing metaphors and and plot points here that I couldn’t easily explain in my regular posts without spoiling future episodes or making the final recap overlong.

Reader beware- spoilers for all 3 seasons and 26 episodes of Dark ahead!

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Dark Season 3 Episode 5: Life and Death Recap

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In episode 5, we lose some beloved characters in some violent interactions with some hard characters. It’s a tough episode to get through.

Teen Charlotte learns her origin story from Old HG Tannhaus and meets Teen Peter. The two Adult Claudias meet for the first time. Alt Claudia gives Prime Claudia the triquetra diary. Child Elisabeth finds Young Noah in the caves.

Recap

The episode begins in the Prime world, 2020, with Prime Adult Claudia burying Adult Regina, who was recently murdered by Alt Old Tronte under orders from Alt Adult Claudia. Regina was dying anyway, so it was basically a mercy killing, but Prime Claudia wasn’t read to let go.

It’s raining, of course, as Claudia digs a hole in the ground by herself. She’s placed a wooden cross as a grave marker. The body is wrapped in plastic. As we know from our world’s 2020, it can be hard for suppliers to keep up with a heavy demand for caskets.

Sirens blare in the distance as Claudia finishes. A warning that other natural disasters are still occurring or that serious crimes, such as arson or riots, are out of control in the post apocalypse Prime world? Or a warning that this turn of events signals a new, even more dangerous direction for Claudia’s plans?

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Agents of SHIELD Season 7 Episode 11: Brand New Day Recap

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By Metamaiden and Metacrone

Episode 11 is the final installment of Agents of SHIELD before the 2 hour series finale. Nathaniel and Garrett have kidnapped Jemma and Deke and stolen the Zephyr in order to extract Fitz’s location from Jemma’s mind. They take the Zephyr into space, where the team can’t follow them, for the interrogation. In an attempt to foil Sibyl’s predictions, Daisy, Mack and Sousa use the quinjet like a rocket and follow anyway.

Back in the Lighthouse, Azula Kora tries to convince the team that she wants to join SHIELD while she also openly helps Sibyl. It’s a reversal of the S1 split between HYDRA and SHIELD and the reveal of Grant Ward as a HYDRA agent. The Triskelion pays the price, as it always must.

In season 7’s rewind through Agents of  SHIELD’s history, this episode brings the show back to the break point in S1 when HYDRA came out of the closet, SHIELD went underground and AoS became the show that it’s been for most of its run.

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Agents of SHIELD Season 7 Episode 9: As I Have Always Been Recap

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ELIZABETH HENSTRIDGE, JOEL STOFFER

In episode 9, the team get stuck in a time loop inside a time storm heading toward a time vortex. Every loop brings them closer to the event horizon, but the loops turn around quickly, so they have to work together to find a solution. Coulson and Daisy, who both start the episode unconscious, are the only ones who remember previous loops.

The episode was directed by Elizabeth Henstridge, who also plays Jemma Simmons. It’s a fast-paced, tragicomic episode that must have been hella complex to put together, but it came out great, so kudos to Elizabeth, writer Drew Greenberg, editor Kelly Stuyvesant and rest of the cast and crew. It’s hard to pull off either an episode full of tonal shifts or an episode full of repetitive scenes. To do both at once, on your first try as a director, is amazing. Joel Stoffer, Chloe Bennet, Clark Gregg and Enver Gjokaj also shine in this episode.

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Agents of SHIELD Season 7 Episode 8: After, Before Recap

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MING-NA WEN, NATALIA CORDOVA-BUCKLEY

In season 7, episode 8 we find out what the rest of the team were doing while Mack and Deke were stuck in the early 80s. Jemma and Enoch attempt to fix the time drive, but realize it requires a quick fix, as in, the skills of a speedster. Now that we need them to save the team, it’s time to get serious about solving the issue with Elena’s powers.

Her powers didn’t matter to the team when the loss only affected her. It’s every man for himself in S7. There’s so little trust that even a crew of fewer than 10, who are fighting for their lives, are forming factions.

Daisy suggests they visit her mom, Jiaying, at Afterlife for a consultation on inhuman genetics and powers, so May and Elena fly there in the quinjet. Jiaying hasn’t yet been tortured by Dr Whitehall, met Daisy’s Dad, Cal, or given birth to Daisy yet, so we meet a younger, more compassionate version of the character. Spending a little quiet time at Afterlife is as illuminating and refreshing for May and Elena as it was for Daisy and Raina. The two agents also run into some new and old acquaintances.

Wait- can I put in a request for a visit from pre-terrigenesis Raina before the season ends? We should be getting to her storylines soon.

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Agents of SHIELD Season 7 Episode 7: The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and the D Recap

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Agents of SHIELD’s lucky double 7s episode is just what it says on the tin: Deke and Mack’s excellent and not so excellent adventures while stranded in the 1980s after the Zephyr’s time drive goes on the fritz. They get stranded when Mack needs some alone time after the untimely deaths of both of his parents in 1976 at the hands of the Chronicoms. Introvert Mack takes the rest of 1982 and much of 1983 as much needed “me time” to process everything that’s happened to him, probably going back to when he joined SHIELD in S2. Maybe even back to the death of his infant daughter, Hope.

Extroverted Deke makes himself at home in the Lighthouse- wait, that is his home. Poor guy, he can never get away from it. At least he always knows where he can live, rent free, in every era. Always landing on his feet is Deke’s talent, so he gets to work exercising it by creating a cover band that’s also his spy team, with the band as their cover identity. Get it?

He also keeps an eye on Mack, whether Mack wants him to or not.

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Agents of SHIELD Season 7 Episode 6: Adapt or Die Recap

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In episode 6 of season 7, Agents of SHIELD continues to celebrate July 4, 1976 in the Lighthouse. Coulson and May are interrogated by Rick Stoner while the Chronicoms quietly steal the faces and personalities of SHIELD agents. Mack and Elena break his parents out of the cell Hydra and the Chronicoms have locked them in. Deke discovers that Nana Jemma has become a cyborg. Enoch helps Nana Jemma with her malfunctioning cybernetic implant, Diana, which helps her stop thinking about her missing husband, Bobo Fitz.

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I need one of those implants. This is a fun season, but I miss Fitz. What if they can’t get back to him at the end of this adventure? Will he be lost in time and space FOREVER? Isn’t the real world bad enough without making us worry that FitzSimmons won’t find their way back together???  #BringFitzHome

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Agents of SHIELD Season 7 Episode 2: Know Your Onions Recap

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In episode 2 of season 7, the Agents of SHIELD have to protect Freddy and get him to his rendezvous point before the Chronicoms can kill him. Knowing who he will become makes the job more difficult for some. Ernest Koenig comes along for a ride in the Zephyr.

Recap

Mack drives the getaway car as he and Deke help Freddy escape the Chronicoms with the vial of serum and some cases of bootleg liquor. Freddy convinces them the liquor is what he’s transporting to his contact and hides the vial of serum in one of the bottles.

Deke tries to contact the rest of the agents using his radio. Mack explains to Freddy that it’s like a phone. Freddy tells him it’s not working because he needs to plug it in to something.

Koenig figures out that Daisy and Coulson aren’t who they say they are and gives them a hard time. Jemma and Elena arrive, dressed in period clothes, so that Jemma can remove the bullet from Freddy’s Hydra contact. Koenig goes through more fussing over his lack of control in the situation and their dislike of his ward, Freddy.

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12 Monkeys: Review of Entire TV Series

~ Metacrone

12 Monkeys was a Syfy network series, loosely based on the 1995 Terry Gilliam film of the same name, which ran for 4 seasons/47 episodes, from 2015-2018. It focused on a near future post-plague world and the survivor, James Cole (Aaron Stanford), who is sent back in time from 2043 to the decades before the plague in order to stop the deaths of 7 billion people.

Though the series uses concepts and characters from the film, it’s largely left the plot of the film behind by the end of the pilot. In the original 12 Monkeys film, the Army of the 12 Monkeys is a red herring. In the series, it’s a vast, secret organization which is responsible for the plague. Cole and Katarina Jones (Barbara Sukowa), the scientist who sends him back in time, assemble a time traveling team who oppose the Army of the Twelve Monkeys and their mysterious leader, the Witness, in a war to control the fate of the timeline.

In the future, post-plague world, Katarina Jones and her people find a damaged recording made in 2017, at the height of the pandemic, by Dr Cassandra Railly (Amanda Schull), a CDC virologist who specializes in epidemics. The recording asks “Cole” to hurry and names “Leland Frost” as the originator of the plague. With this starting point and a time machine that barely works, Dr Jones sends James Cole, a barely civilized scavenger, back in time to interview Dr Railly in order to learn further details about the start of the pandemic. His mission is to use the knowledge he gains from Dr Railly to stop the plague virus from being released.

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