The Flash, Season 1

written and directed by multiple people

Release: 7 October 2014
Format: TV Episode
Genre: Superhero
Audience: YA and Up
Content: Definite Time Travel
Original Language: English

Time travel is implied right from the first episode of the CW’s rendition of The Flash where a newspaper from the future is seen in the closing scene. The rest of the first season builds a fine time-travel arc that includes a nefarious time traveler from the far future, a classic grandfather paradox with a twist (sadly not examined), a do-over day for the Flash (which Harrison Wells calls “temporal reversion”), and a final episode that sees the Flash travel back to his childhood (as well as a hint that Rip Hunter himself will soon appear on the CW scene).

— Michael Main

Wells: Yes, it’s possible, but problematic. Assuming you could create the conditions necessary to take that journey, that journey would then be fraught with potential pitfalls: the Novikov Principle of Self-Consistency, for example.

Joe: Wait—the what, now?

Barry: If you travel back in time to change something, then you end up being the causal factor of that event.

Cisco: Like. . . Terminator.

Joe: Ah!

Wells: Or is time plastic? Is it mutable, whereby any changes in the continuum could create an alternate timeline?

Cisco: Back to the Future.

Joe: Ah, saw that one, too.

DEBUT

The Flash, season 1 (The CW, USA, 7 October 2014) to 19 May 2015).

VARIANTS

1 English variant

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Time Periods

Circa AD 2000 to 2099: mostly 2015–16

Timeline Models

Do Over: in “Rogue Time” (s01e16)
Multiple Naive Timelines
Narrative Time: The first season had at least two examples of Narrative Time. The first was when the whole future existence of the Flash was threatened in “Power Outage” (s01e07), and Gideon showed Dr. Wells a future newspaper from a timeline where the Flash never existed. The second was when Eddie is dies in “Fast Enough” (s01e23), and everyone sees Eobard Thawne disappear before their very eyes.
Remembering Different Timelines: Both Cisco remembers bits and pieces of the timeline where he was killed.

Time Travel Methods

High Speed, Angular Momentum, Gravity, Cosmic Strings, etc. Cause Time Warp: “You’re actually so fast that the resulting kinetic energy build-up smashes a hole in the space-time continuum”
Time Spheres, Cubes, etc.: Cisco and Ronnie build a time sphere for Thawne to traverse the expected wormhole.

Themes

Causal Loops: The workings of the multiple timelines are never explained, so we don’t really know whether Dr. Wells’s creation of the Flash to become Wells’s own rival is a causal loop or not—but it might be. Cisco also mentions a possible causal loop when he and the others see a future Flash wearing a different uniform.
Grandfather Paradox: When Eobard Thawne’s ancestor Eddie kills himself, the situation is not quite that of a Grandfather Paradox, but the effect is the same.
Media from Another Time: Gideon provides access to the news of the future via a digital newspaper.
Meeting or Viewing Ancestors or Descendants: In the final episode, Barry meets his dying mother. And Eobard Thawne (as Wells) meets his ancestor Eddie Thawne.
Messing with Someone’s Younger Self: Thawne’s original plan was to kill young Barry.
Never Change the Past!: On the Do-Over day, Dr. Wells warns Barry not to change anything, but it really is a cursory warning given all the other cavalier changing that goes on.
Save Your Family!: Barry hopes beyond hope to save Nora Allen.
Self-Defeating Acts: There are at least two self-defeating acts: (1) when the Reverse Flash comes back to kill young Barry, and (2) when Eddie kills himself.
Selves-Visitation: In the final episode, Barry meets both a younger Barry and an older Barry.
Time Montages: When Barry enters the wormhole, he sees a montage of different times in his life.

Fictional Tags

The Atom
Barry Allen
Black Canary: in “Who Is Harrison Wells?” (s01e19)
Firestorm
The Flash
Green Arrow
Parallel Universes or Dimensions: In the Season 1 finale, a construction helmet flying through the wormhole and into the particle accelerator provides the first hint of a parallel universe with a different Flash.
Smart Simians: Grodd

Groupings

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY (SPOILERS!)

From the late 22nd century, unknown location ⋙ to Central City, circa 2000. Note: Some 15 years before Season 1, Eobard Thawne arrived with the goal of killing young Barry Allen.
From Central City as a tidal wave approaches, early 2015 ⋙ to a time earlier in the same day. Note: at the end of “Out of Time” (s01e15), Flash runs so fast that he and the rest of the world revert to an earlier time the same day. They all relive the day in “Rogue Time” (s01e16), but initially only Barry remembers the first time around. Wells calls the feat a “temporal reversion,” but it's just a Do-Over in our parlance.
From the particle accellerator in Central City, mid-2015 ⋙ to Barry’s childhood home in Central City, 15 years earlier. Round trip. Note: In the season finale—“Fast Enough” (s01e23)—Barry plans to save his mother from the Reverse Flash.