Spoilers Timeless Season 2 - SPOILERS

[Morpheus 02]

The next episode, "Hollywoodland", is shamelessly ripping off a Legends of Tomorrow episode as the team goes to Hollywood in the 40's to save Hedy Lamarr.

Given how close together they were made, there's no way it was a "ripoff." Timeless season 2 may only be airing now, but it began filming back in November, and since "Hollywoodland" is only the third episode, it was undoubtedly written months earlier, probably during the summer, since the show got the season 2 order back in May. The "Helen Hunt" episode of Legends didn't air until November, by which point the Timeless script was surely too far into pre-production to abandon. It's the kind of accidental parallel that happens quite frequently when different shows are drawing from the same pool of concepts and subjects, and that creators generally try to avoid if they're aware of it. Nobody wants to be accused of imitation.

In the case of the Hedy Lamarr story, it's been part of popular awareness for many years now. Ever since cell phones became a major part of life, the story of how they depend on a wartime technology invented by a gorgeous movie star has been frequently told. It's a romantic and unexpected story, it involves Hollywood glamour, and it's a great story to tell if you want to showcase the overlooked achievements of women in history, so it's not at all surprising that two current time-travel shows would use it. Indeed, a feature documentary about Lamarr's career, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival last April. So maybe both shows' writers were independently inspired by the film and the new attention it brought to Lamarr's story.

It's not even the first time the shows have used overlapping ideas. They've both done Apollo-program episodes, although Timeless focused on Apollo 11 and LoT on Apollo 13. They've both done Al Capone episodes. And there will surely be other parallels as the shows continue.

Aren't they more ripping off Agent Carter's storyline of a pseudo Hedy Lamarr character, only this one was a bad guy?

 

[RJDiogenes]

He's Lucy's maternal great grandfather, and as we learned at the end of last season her mother's family is another old Rittenhouse family, so that would have to mean that he is.

If that's the case, I wonder how they will explain him fighting on the front lines in the Great War.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Haven't you seen Black Adder goes Fourth?

"Up to this point, we've never fought anyone with a more dangerous weapon than a sharpened grapefruit."

 

[Christopher]

If that's the case, I wonder how they will explain him fighting on the front lines in the Great War.

Maybe he was a subordinate Ritt. member whose manifesto wasn't taken seriously at the time he wrote it, so he didn't get the plum assignments that the senior Ritties did.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The highest up in Rittenhouse knew that they were fighting Time travellers.... So they didn't need to ponder what if Time Travel was possible, because they knew it was real.

 

[Christopher]

Well, one thing that both recent time-travel episodes about Hedy Lamarr have in common is that they both ascribe her to the wrong studio. She was actually signed to MGM at the time, but Legends of Tomorrow made her a Warner Bros. contract player for obvious reasons. I was a bit confused that Timeless, a Universal show, made her a Paramount star, but I just now realized why: Since the plot revolved around Citizen Kane, they needed to set the story at Paramount because its lot was adjacent to the RKO Studios lot -- better known to us Trekkies as the Desilu lot (from 1957), which was merged with the adjacent Paramount lot in 1967.

The actress who played this version of Hedy did a better job with the accent, though I think the LoT actress was maybe slightly closer in appearance. And I think this one told her story more accurately, aside from the studio swap.

I have to wonder, if that modern-day Rittenhouse agent had been working for 15 years to get to a prominent position in the film industry, and if he was willing to pass off ideas for modern movies like Jurassic Park as his own, how much damage did he do to the history of cinema? Although I admit, I like the idea of Jurassic Park with dinosaurs animated by Willis O'Brien. (By the way, my father once wrote and unsuccessfully tried to sell a short story based on the same idea, a time traveler plagiarizing future works as his own in order to get rich. The story was called "Time Enough to Loaf.")

 

[Aragorn]

Did they need a sleeper agent for this plot to work? Would Hearst have agreed to the deal anyway even if a total stranger had handed him Citizen Kane? Or did it need to be someone he knew?

 

[Guy Gardener]

It was more about the studio head robbing his own studio.

 

[Timewalker]

Lucy's "singing"... I had to mute the TV. That was just awful.

So... to see if I have it straight: Wyatt sees a Wikipedia entry for the actress that is very different from original history, and he runs off to a bar on the off-chance that his dead wife might not be dead anymore? And he does this after he presumably realizes he loves Lucy?

 

[Christopher]

Did they need a sleeper agent for this plot to work? Would Hearst have agreed to the deal anyway even if a total stranger had handed him Citizen Kane? Or did it need to be someone he knew?

We're talking about the sole existing copy of a movie with a ton of security around it, apparently. So it wouldn't have been easy to steal. The sleeper needed to get into an influential enough position to gain access to it.

Also, I imagine that if some random nobody had shown up and said "I'll give you Citizen Kane if you put our column in your paper every week from now on," Hearst might well have gone "Sure, whatever," burned the film, then reneged on the deal. After all, that would be a major, long-term commitment, and he'd be attaching his paper to these people's ideology. For the plan to work, Hearst had to recognize that the other party had enough power and influence to enforce the deal, and was someone whose ideas could be taken seriously rather than just some crackpot who'd turn out to be an embarrassment.

 

[sttngfan1701d]

Lucy's "singing"... I had to mute the TV. That was just awful.

So... to see if I have it straight: Wyatt sees a Wikipedia entry for the actress that is very different from original history, and he runs off to a bar on the off-chance that his dead wife might not be dead anymore? And he does this after he presumably realizes he loves Lucy?

He got a text before he ran off. Wasn't the whole situation with his wife because she never replied to a text he sent, and then she ended up dead? I don't remember, but I thought that was the way it went. So I guess that tipped him off more than the Wikipedia article. Still, the whole thing seemed rushed. It was at the very end of the episode so I guess that's understandable, but if he get a text from his dead wife, you'd think it would bowl him over. The shock would at least show on his face.

Maybe if they cut a bit of Lucy's "singing," they would've had time for a proper reaction on Wyatt's part. As for the "singing," couldn't they have just dubbed that with another voice? That was painful to hear. Sorry, Abigail.

Besides, who would text Wyatt anyway? They're in a bunker, presumably hiding. Who from his life knows they're down there? Wouldn't Lucy immediately ask that? Gah...the more I think about it, the sloppier it gets.

 

[Romulan_spy]

Besides, who would text Wyatt anyway? They're in a bunker, presumably hiding. Who from his life knows they're down there? Wouldn't Lucy immediately ask that? Gah...the more I think about it, the sloppier it gets.

Would they even get a cell phone signal to receive a text message? They would have to install some cell boosters because there is no way an abandoned missile silo bunker from the 60's out in the middle of nowhere would be able to send/receive calls or texts.

But more importantly, they are trying to hide from Rittenhouse as you pointed out. Allowing cell phone signals in and out of the bunker would be a bad idea.

 

[Christopher]

He got a text before he ran off. Wasn't the whole situation with his wife because she never replied to a text he sent, and then she ended up dead? I don't remember, but I thought that was the way it went. So I guess that tipped him off more than the Wikipedia article.

He never saw the Wikipedia article. He got the text and left before Rufus called Lucy over to look at it. Presumably the text was from his wife.

Still, the whole thing seemed rushed. It was at the very end of the episode so I guess that's understandable, but if he get a text from his dead wife, you'd think it would bowl him over. The shock would at least show on his face.

Again, he left pretty promptly after getting the text. He probably didn't know what to make of it at first, and was off-camera by the time the emotions would've really set in.

Besides, he's a soldier, and he's a pretty reserved, stoic person in general. So he'd tend to keep his emotions internalized. Not everyone emotes to the rafters when they get a shock -- sometimes they just get more tightly bottled up.

Maybe if they cut a bit of Lucy's "singing," they would've had time for a proper reaction on Wyatt's part.

The amount of reaction we got was entirely appropriate for the intended effect. We weren't supposed to know what happened right away. It was supposed to be a surprise, to us as well as the other characters, that Wyatt had disappeared. So we weren't supposed to know anything was wrong until then.

As for the "singing," couldn't they have just dubbed that with another voice? That was painful to hear. Sorry, Abigail.

Given that Lucy was a non-professional singer out of her depth, it was entirely appropriate for her performance to be merely adequate.

Besides, who would text Wyatt anyway? They're in a bunker, presumably hiding. Who from his life knows they're down there? Wouldn't Lucy immediately ask that? Gah...the more I think about it, the sloppier it gets.

Why would anyone have to know where he was in order to send him a text? That's kind of the whole point of smartphones and texting, that you can contact someone no matter where they are. I rarely know the location of the people I correspond with on e-mail or Facebook or whatever. I just know that the messages I send will reach them wherever they are. (Well, usually. I recently missed out on a writing gig because the proposal I sent was lost in the e-mail.)

As for why his wife sent the text, we'll presumably find out next week. Not every question is meant to be answered immediately.

But more importantly, they are trying to hide from Rittenhouse as you pointed out. Allowing cell phone signals in and out of the bunker would be a bad idea.

Well, they are still working for Agent Christopher, and she still seems to have government resources to call on. And Mason is a tech genius. They probably have ways to secure their communications and mask their location.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The next episode, "Hollywoodland", is shamelessly ripping off a Legends of Tomorrow episode as the team goes to Hollywood in the 40's to save Hedy Lamarr.

 

[Greg Cox]

It's not even the first time the shows have used overlapping ideas. They've both done Apollo-program episodes, although Timeless focused on Apollo 11 and LoT on Apollo 13. They've both done Al Capone episodes. And there will surely be other parallels as the shows continue.

Exactly. You're doing a time-travel adventure series, you're inevitably going to gravitate to the same historical touchstones that other time-travel shows have done or are doing: the western episode, the gangster episode, the Salem Witch trials, the Alamo, the Titanic, Lincoln's assassination, etc. TIMELESS hasn't done a pirate episode yet, but it's probably only a matter of time . . ..

But, yes, there was surely a moment in the TIMELESS offices when somebody said, "Shit! LEGENDS is doing the Hedy Lamar thing too!"

Were they then going to abort their own episode? Of course not. They'd go crazy trying to anticipate what LEGENDS or DOCTOR WHO or whomever was going to do next. Plus the actual stories were completely different. They both just happened to feature the same real-life figure, who is having a bit of "moment" right now.

Meanwhile, about Wyatt's wife: maybe that random studio security guard who got killed during the Hollywood caper was actually the grandfather of Jessica's killer, so the killer was never born and Jessica never died . . . ?

 

[Christopher]

Plus the actual stories were completely different. They both just happened to feature the same real-life figure, who is having a bit of "moment" right now.

Yup. In LoT, Lamarr was central to the plot; the change to history erased her career and her invention, so the Legends had to put her career back on track. Also, her scientific genius helped save the day. Here, the plot was about saving Citizen Kane and Lamarr (already established in her career) was just in a supporting role -- and rather than undoing a change for the worse in her life, Rufus caused a change for the better.

 

[shapeshifter]

Since the plot revolved around Citizen Kane, they needed to set the story at Paramount because its lot was adjacent to the RKO Studios lot -- better known to us Trekkies as the Desilu lot (from 1957), which was merged with the adjacent Paramount lot in 1967.

If I am not mistaken, the teaser act for this episode appears shot on the same exterior set location as A Piece of the Action. The scene in the street appears shot exactly where Kirk, Spock and the kid have their scenes, and where Kirk attempts to drive.

Also, a couple of shots are filmed pointing towards the (slightly redressed) facade in the background. A couple of costumed characters are hanging around near the steps featured in the episode.

http://www.nexusroute.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/trekpieceoftheaction2.jpg

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/2x17/pieceoftheaction_337.jpg

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x17hd/apieceoftheactionhd0729.jpg

 

[Mr Awe]

^ I'm pretty sure that the backlot where A Piece of the Action was shot doesn't exist any more.

I mostly thought this was a fun episode. I enjoyed it greatly--even the love story. I groaned at the end. When Wyatt got the text and had the constipated look, I knew he heard from Jessica. He and Lucy finally get it together, and there's a previous mention of Jessica in the story for good measure, and voila, you know it's going to happen. I "look forward" to the inevitable story where he can save only one of them and has to choose.

I was surprised by Rufus altering history to such a degree so that Hedly gets $30 billion! That's a huge change and who knows how that changed technology. They used to get fussy over change history, no not so much. I understand not wanting to stop and saving the guard, which also must have ramifications.

And, what's the deal with girl having the hallucinations. I guess we know why she didn't want to draw attention to her condition. But, now her heart murmur is gone. Does she have the body from one timeline and the memories from another? Not sure how that causes her to see the future!

 

[RJDiogenes]

Well, that was a cool little plotline-- trade Citizen Kane to Hearst for media exposure over the course of decades. It's more subtle and interesting than the usual blunt trauma plot of, say, blowing up a bunch of people at a NASCAR event. Speaking of which, I'm getting a kick out of Wyatt being the odd man out among the time crew-- last week, nobody knew what he was talking about with NASCAR and this week he was the only one who never saw Citizen Kane.

Hedy Lamarr made a nice, if somewhat unwitting, co-conspirator. She wasn't quite taken in with either their lies or their backup lies, but she was savvy enough to go along. And I liked her bonding with Rufus over science. It was a nice, though scary, moment when Rufus gave her the tip about hanging onto her patents and moreso when they returned and learned the results. The changes to the timeline could be far ranging and we haven't seen much of what's outside the bunker at this point. I wonder if it was that or the shooting of the guard that resulted in Jessica's revival.

The thing about Jessica's revival is that she didn't seem too pleased to see him. I have a feeling that in this timeline all is not well between them. Perhaps they are divorced or he has gone missing-- after all, he still seems to be hiding out in that bunker. I wonder who sent that text and why.

The romance between Wyatt and Lucy was well done. Their dialogue and chemistry by the pool and the next morning and back at the bunker had a nice, natural feel-- naturally, as a viewer, I'd like to see that relationship succeed over his resurrected wife, although the character of Wyatt will undoubtedly see things differently.

 

[Christopher]

I wonder who sent that text and why.

The simplest answer is that she did, for some entirely routine reason. In this timeline, she's been alive the whole time, so she'd have no reason to expect that sending him a text would be a huge deal.