![]() ![]() True to the show’s title, the first season takes place in cloistered rooms and pitch-black caves, with the motif of soaked northern forests bringing to mind all those sober, rainy days on “The Killing,” another show about missing children and buried secrets. At one point, a mother discovers that she is the daughter of her own daughter. Language fails to do this time-warped series justice. All the actors are strikingly handsome, though it’s sometimes hard to remember who is who, or how anyone is related. There’s time travel, nuclear physics, Christian mysticism, and good old teen drama. But it’s also because of the intricacy of the plot, which centers on a handful of families in the fictional town of Winden, whose secrets and betrayals unfold in the course of multiple time lines, going back to 1921 and forward to a postapocalyptic future in 2052. Some of that has to do with the fact that the series is in German, and so you’ll probably need to read the subtitles to follow along. But look down for a moment while watching “Dark,” whose second season recently premièred, on Netflix, and you’ll find yourself lost. Sometimes, Outlander’s sci-fi concepts get lost amid the show’s growing ensemble of characters and subplots, but then an episode will drop a fantasy sequence where time merges together, and we remember that this isn’t just a richly told historical drama - there’s magic to it, too.It is one of our time’s animal-brain comforts, if also one of its moral challenges, that our smartphones are always at hand, offering distraction. ![]() It sustains the show’s high narrative stakes, as time travel is less a solution and more of a problem.īut beyond the actual time travel, the series also finds clever and poignant ways to marry Claire’s past and present together. ![]() And even then, it doesn’t always go as planned. Time travel in Outlander requires a series of conditions to be in place - which I won’t spoil here - for it to be possible. As is (and should be) the case with time travel, manipulating time isn’t easy. This is Outlander at its most riveting when it fully leans into the ideas and mysteries of Claire’s time-travel ability.Īs the series progresses, the time-travel rules of Outlander become a little clearer but also more complex. With Claire’s knowledge of what’s come in the 1740s - in this case, the Battle of Culloden - the couple try to change the course of history. Once Claire tells Jamie that she traveled from the future (and he believes her), the two unite on a path to test the limits of time. While Claire and Jamie’s romance is a significant part of Outlander, the series expands further in scope after its first season. THE RULES OF TIME TRAVEL is an Inverse special issue exploring the evolution of science fiction's most imaginative sub-genre. With Season 5 dropping on the streaming giant this week, there’s no better time to catch up on the best time-travel epic on TV. The series has become one of the cable network’s most popular shows ever, partly aided by the fact that Outlander is also available to stream on Netflix. Since premiering in 2014 on Starz, Moore’s TV adaptation of Outlander has only increased its fan following. It would eventually earn an ardent fanbase and get the attention of Hollywood - specifically Battlestar Galactica producer Ronald D. First capturing the hearts in 1991, Diana Gabaldon’s sci-fi/fantasy book series gave readers a star-crossed (time-crossed?) romance for the ages. They either fall into a mysterious hole, are born with an erratic genetic ability, or unknowingly come into contact with an ancient time portal.įalling through time aptly describes the impetus for one of the most famous time-travel stories of the last three decades. ![]() While many time-travel stories have time machines and other mechanisms that allow a person to maneuver through the past or future, the most exciting ones are when the characters have zero control. Unexpected time travel is one of the more fascinating motifs in science fiction. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |