Fix Your Time Travel Screw-Up!

Tag Area: Time Travel Trope
Short Story

The Time-Traveler

Mathematics professor John D. Smith rues the day he saved his college room-mate from drowning only to have the ungrateful cad thwart his every career move for the next decade. Oh, if only Smith could redo that fateful day!

Fun note: Under the pen name Ralph Milne Farley, Massachusetts state senator Roger Sherman Hoar carried out explorations of all the early time travel paradoxes, most of which are available in his Omnibus of Time. —Michael Main
If I could go back into the past, there is one event which I should most certainly change: my rescue of Paul Arkwright!
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  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Debatable Time Travel
TV Episode

Star Trek (s01e28)

The City on the Edge of Forever

After a delirious Bones hurtles through a time portal to the 1930s, Kirk and Spock follow to save him and stop dangerous changes to the timeline, no matter the cost. —Michael Main
Joan Collins (as Edith Keeler) and William Shatner (as James T. Kirk), dressed in duffle coats, on a city sidewalk, looking toward the night sky.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Cartoon

SpongeBob SquarePants [s7:e09A]

Back to the Past

SpongeBob, Patrick, and their two superhero friends head back to the days when the old superheroes were young. Can you guess who it was back in that past who ate all of Mermaid Man’s tartar sauce, unintentionally altering the future? Note: The old superheroes were voiced by Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway; their young counterparts were Adam West and Burt Ward. —Michael Main
This device allows us to transport into the future or past, at a date or destination of our choosing. Unfortunately, the consequences of altering the order of history are so dangerous [thunder], we’ve chosen to leave it alone. So you mustn’t touch!
Former superhero sidekick Barnacle Boy stands beside a stylized control panel of a time machine.
  • Superhero
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Film

One-Minute Time Machine

James takes his one-minute time machine to a park bench to try to pick up quantum physicist Rachel.

The gang up in the ITTDB Citadel showed this five-minute film to me on my first prime birthday of the 2010 decade. —Michael Main
Rachel: What’s that?
James: Huh? Oh, nothing.
Rachel: Sure it’s not a One-Minute Time Machine?
Erinn Hayes (as Regina) gazes skyward from a park bench while Brian Dietzen (as James) stares straight-ahead beside her.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Romance
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Picture Book

Mr. Peabody and Sherman

Time-Travel Trouble!

  • by Billy Wrecks
  • (Random House Children’s Books, July 2014)
A short picture book of the 2014 Mr. Peabody and Sherman movie. The images are all from the movie’s CGI (or at least generated by the same process). —Michael Main
Sheman was supposed to keep the time machine secret, but he broke the rules. He took his friend Penny back in time to ancient Egypt.
Animated characters Sherman and Mr. Peabody peek out of a door frame.
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Season

12 Monkeys, Season 1

Same pandemic backstory as the movie, similar names for the characters, no Bruce Willis, and a mishmash of time-travel tropes along with tuneless minor-key chords in place of actual tension and slowly spoken clichéd dialogue in place of actual plot. Random discussions of fate brush shoulders with an admixture of possible time travel models from narrative time (when a wound sprouts on old JC’s shoulder while watching young JC get shot), to skeleton timelines (JC thinks that his timeline will vanish if he succeeds), to a fascination with a single static timeline (you’ll see it in Chechnya) and time itself has an agenda. Primarily, we’d say that the story follows narrative time from Cole’s point of view.

By the end of the first season, one principal character has seemingly been trapped in the 2043, and Cole is stuck in 2015, having just gone against fate in a major way, but with a third principal character poised to spread the virus via a jet plane.

P.S. Whatever you do, whether in narrative time or elsewhen, don’t bring up this adaptation as dinnertime conversation with Terry Gilliam (but do watch it if you can set aside angst over a lack of a consistent model and just go with Cole’s flow). —Michael Main
About four years from now, most of the human race will be wiped out by a plague, a virus. We know it’s because of a man named Leland Frost. I have to find him.

—from “Splinter” [s01e01]
A man
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Cartoon

Arthur (s20e01a)

Buster’s Second Chance

According to Brain, the past cannot be changed, but Buster still tries to do so when he’s thrown back to preschool by a time vortex. —Manachu
Buster: What’s the square root of 49? [Buster thinks] I don’t know. I don’t know! . . . I’m baaaaack!
An animated white rabbit wearing rectangular red glasses looks shocked to be falling into a green-and-white vortex.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

The Thundermans (s04e15)

Save the Past Dance

Superhero teens Phoebe and Max and their younger siblings have heard their parents tell a hometown hero legend once too often, so they “borrow” Cousin Blobbin’s time machine to find out the truth. But they manage to screw up the past and create a disaster in their own time, so they have to make a second round trip to sort it all out.

And just for fun . . . we get to see a flying pig three times! [Sadly, we have no Flying Pig tag. —the curator] —Tandy Ringoringo
If we see ourselves in the past, the whole universe could close in on itself. Watch a movie, you bookworm!
Jack Griffo (as Max) and Kira Kosarin (as Phoebe) pose in a leather jacket and poodle skirt for a 1950s dance.
  • Superhero
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

7 Splinters of Time

While on medical leave for his mental health, police detective Darius Lafaux is called back in to investigate a case that turns into multiple murders of men who look exactly like himself. —Michael Main
Alise: You died ten years ago.
Darius: I was born ten years ago.
Two versions of Edoardo Ballerini (as Darius and Daniel) are merged into a single photo beside four other movie scenes.
  • Science Fiction
  • Mystery and Crime
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

Remington Mansion 2

The Tinseltown Murderer

Josie Matthews and her husband, David Remington, travel to 1936 Los Angeles after discovering that her prior trip to 1929 has changed history—specifically by prolonging World War II. They meet up with friends from 1929 and attempt to find and fix the problem. While doing so, they encounter communists, Nazis, the Los Angeles chapter of the Hitler Youth, movie studio executives, and several murders. —Tandy Ringoringo
“What? You live almost a hundred years in the future and you’ve never seen microfilm before?” asked Grant, who shook his head. “Women.”

“We have computer code which can store a warehouse of microfilm in a space the size of a pinhead.”

“How the hell do you do that?”

“With a series of zeros and ones.”

“That makes no sense whatsoever.”

“Yeah, I don’t really understand it myself.”
No image currently available.
  • Romance
  • Mystery and Crime
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Season

The Umbrella Academy, Season 2

  • by multiple writers and directors
  • ten episodes (Netflix, USA, 31 July 2020)
Five’s plan for the Umbrella siblings to escape the apocalypse by going into the past ends up scattering them throughout different years of Dallas in the 1960s. They manage okay on their own until shortly after 11/22/63, when secondary effects from changes to the timeline cause a nuclear holocaust that can be averted only by recently arrived Five jumping back to 11/15/63 to exert his unique charm into getting the gang to work together. —Michael Main
Hazel to Five: If you want to live, come with me.”
All seven siblings of the Umbrella Academy walk in a straight line in their blue uniforms over a background of 1960s psychedelic black lines.
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Day of Destiny

In 2020, Nigerian brothers Chidi (the black sheep) and Rotimi (think of Carlton Banks) are thrown back twenty years, giving them a chance to fix the ruinous financial path their parents embarked upon way back when. —Michael Main
When you change your destiny, you can never change it back.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

Da Vinci’s Cat

As a hostage to Pope Julius II in 1511 Rome, 11-year-old Federico is lonely until he receives a visit from a tawny cat, an art collector from the 20th century, and an 11-year-old kid named Bee from the 21st century. —Michael Main
All we need is to get Raphael to draw me and make sure he signs it.
Illustration of part of the Sistine Chapel with left side showing a cat above a modern kid climbing a tree and the right side showing the same cat above a medieval kid riding a horse.
  • Science Fiction
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Series

De Volta aos 15

  • Back to 15
  • Back to 15
  • written and directed by multiple people
  • 3 seasons (Netflix, 25 February 2022 to 24 February 2024)
Thirty-yeasr-old Anita feels that her life is a failure. If only she could do things over again, starting with that miserable first day of high school at age 15. In the case of the six-episode first season, Anita travels back-and-forth multiple times, with each round of new-found self-assertiveness and fresh mistakes at age 15 creating a new life at age 30. In Season 2, she gains a traveling companion in 17-year-old Joel. —Michael Main
Que vontade de pedir desculpes pra você.
translate If I could press undo in real life, I would do everything differently.
No image currently available.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Young Adults
  • Definite Time Travel
Flash Fiction

The Hero of Your Own Story

A bad egg creates chaos by leaving time portals open between various times in various parts of the multiverse. —Michael Main
Your time portals are not big enough for any of the really exciting monsters.
Stylized outline of a rocket launching in a green circular seal for Daily Science Fiction.
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Season

The Umbrella Academy, Season 3

  • 0
  • (Netflix, 22 June 2022)
After stopping the JFK-induced apocalypse in Season 2, the six Umbrella siblings return to 2019 where they no longer exist and their still-living father has founded The Sparrow Academy in their stead. —Michael Main
Well, someone killed our mothers, so we shouldn’t exist, but clearly we do exist, and the universe can’t handle it, which is a problem.
The six living siblings of the Umbrella Academy gather in colorful garb on a luggage rack along with their dead brother and new friend from 1963.
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel