Meeting or Viewing Ancestors or Descendants

Tag Area: Time Travel Trope
Short Story

Factor, Unknown

In order to save the world, wealthy young Houghton travels back fifty years to set straight his great-uncle’s world-threatening mistakes, but it’s Alison—Houghton’s fiery tempered cousin-once-removed—who has a more genuine interest in saving the future than her father does. —Michael Main
“This is most extraordinary,” he said in an unexpectedly high-pitched voice, regarding Houghton benignly from the tall white fortress of his collar. “You say that you have come back through time to instruct me how to arrange my affairs so that they will not be instrumental in destroying the world some fifty years hence.”
Pen-and-ink drawing of a young man in sporty 1950s clothes leading a young woman in old-fashioned clothes into a domed time ship.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Journey into Mystery #2

The Pact

Frances Conrad learns the dark truth about an unholy pact made by his ancestor from the horse’s mouth itself. —Michael Main
The year is 1693, the month is June, and the day is the fifteenth. Come and watch with me.
No image currently available.
  • Weird Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Debatable Time Travel
Comic Book

Journey into Mystery #47

The Blinding Flash!

In order to retrieve his cigarette lighter from a crime scene, a small-time thief agrees to be a test subject for Professor Mark Hanson’s atom-powered machine that sends an astral projection of a person into the past. Oh, I almost forgot: There’s one other volunteer, too. —Michael Main
Professor Mark Hanson has tus far been unable to get a single person to use his remarkable discovery for recovering the past!
No image currently available.
  • Science Fiction
  • Weird Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

The Man Outside

When young Martin’s mother abandons him, a gaggle of his descendants descend from the future to ensure his safety. —Michael Main
His face was pallid, because he spend little time in the sun, andhis speech rather overbred, his mentors from the future having carefully eradicated all current vulgarities.
A castle sits atop a vaguely drawn hill, possibly shrouded in mist.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

The Twilight Zone (v1s01e05)

Walking Distance

Stopped at a gas station outside of his boyhood hometown, burnt-out executive Martin Sloan decides to explore the town, which surprisingly has not changed at all in twenty-some years. —Michael Main
I know you’ve come from a long way from here . . . a long way and a long time.
Michael Montgomery (as young Marty) carves his name into a post on a bandstand, while Gig Young (as old Martin) looks on.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Fantasy
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Only Yesterday

Near the start of the Great Depression, a man waits for college student Donna Smith—someday to be Donna Albright—at the trolley stop near her rural Virgina home. —Michael Main
Nervously fingering his narrow lapel, he broke the silence, saying, “I’d like to tell you some things . . . Totally outrageous things. You have to promise me just one thing first.”
A painting of a spaceport with rockets, a rocket plane, and a futuristic yellow car with a tail fin, wings, and a bubble cockpit.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e01–02)

Genesis

Physicist and all-around good guy Sam Beckett rushes his time machine into production—funding is about to be cut!—and as a consequence, he leaps into the life of a USAF test pilot, where Sam and his holographic cohort Al have a moral mission. And after setting things right in that pilot’s life, Sam—“oh, boy”—takes a few moments to win the big baseball game in 1968. —Inmate Jan
One end of this string represents your birth, the other end your death. You tie the ends together, and your life is a loop. Ball the loop, and the days of your life touch each other out of sequence, therefore leaping to one point in the string to another . . .
A worried Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett), dressed as a test pilot, stares out of the small cockpit of the experimental X2 plane.
  • Eloi Gold Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Sports
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Horrid Henry stories 13.2

Horrid Henry and the Mega-Mean Time Machine

  • by Francesca Simon
  • in Horrid Henry and the Mega-Mean Time Machine [four stories] (Orion Children’s Books, 2005)
Henry builds a time machine out of the box that the washing machine arrived in, and he’s his usual horrid self in bringing with his little brother Peter up to speed about the whole thing. —Michael Main
“I’m going to the future and you can’t stop me,” said Peter.
Drawing of a scowling boy strapped into a chair at a panel with multiple clocks, switches, and other controls.
  • Mainstream
  • Audience: Children
  • Time Phenomena
Cartoon

Horrid Henry [s01e16]

Horrid Henry’s Time Machine

In the cartoon version of the short story, Henry imagines that his time machine is an elaborate time ship, at least until his perfect little brother brings him out of his daydream and back to the real world of cardboard. —Michael Main
Peter: “I'm going to the future. I want to see it for myself!”
  • Mainstream
  • Audience: Children
  • Time Phenomena
Novel

Miri and Molly 2

Magic in the Mix

  • by Annie Barrows
  • (Bloomsbury Children’s Books, December 2007)
After their first adventure united Miri and Molly as twins in the 21st century, the pair discover more about the magic of time travel via doorways and other openings in their house. Unfortunately, their twin brothers also go traveling, getting into hot water in 1864 Virginia. —Michael Main
Molly, that’s totally crazy. You can’t stop yourself from existing because you do exist, you have to exist.
Twin twelve-year-old girls, one in a knee-length purple dress, and the other in jeans and a t-shirt, hold hands in a doorway beside a white kitten.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

Edelstein Trilogie, Book 2

Saphirblau

  • Sapphire blue
  • Sapphire Blue
  • by Kerstin Gier
  • (Arena Verlag, January 2010)
Apart from amusing blustering from the Count during her trips to the 18th century, time travel took a back seat to Gwenny’s on-again-off-again romance with Gideon in this second book of the trilogy. Gwenny’s new pal, the ghost/demon/gargoyle Xemerius, was enjoyable, though we wish that he would be time traveller #13. —Michael Main
Rubinrot, Begabt mit der Magie des Raben, Schließt G-Dur den Kreis, Den zwölf gebildet haben.
translate Ruby Red, with G-major, the magic of the raven, brings the Circle of Twelve home into safe haven.
Black silhouettes of a young 18th-century man and woman on a blue background.
  • Fantasy
  • Romance
  • Audience: Young Adults
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Season

The Flash, Season 1

  • written and directed by multiple people
  • (The CW, USA, 7 October 2014) to 19 May 2015)
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.
The Flash, in his red costume, zig-zags through an empty city street, leaving a yellow electric bolt behind him.
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Season

The Flash, Season 2

  • by multiple writers and directors
  • (The CW, USA, 6 October 2015) to 24 May 2016)
After Barry aborts his mission to the past in Season 1 in order to prevent his own present from being erased, he finds that his travel has caused even bigger problems! Yep, a rift has been a-opened to a parallel world with an alternate Flash and an evil speedster and—it would seem—more time travelin’ and another attempt to save his mom and dad! —Michael Main
No, that’s not how it works. In our timeline, Barry’s mother’s already dead, and her death is a fixed point. And nothing can change that.
Surounded by yellow lightning, Grant Gustin (as the Flash) races towards us in his red costume with a new white logo on his chest.
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Creeped Out (s01e05)

A Boy Called Red

After his parents break up, Vincent visits his Dad’s childhood home where Auntie Jeanne encourages him to explore—without even putting that cursed well off limits, the very well where Dad lost his best friend back in the summer of ’85! —Inmate Jan
When your dad was younger, he had a best friend, a boy called Red. Red disappeared down that well.
Young Malen Clarkson (as Vincent) reaches out in amazement at a glowing white globe larger than his head.
  • Horror
  • Audience: Families
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

In the Shadow of the Moon

Nine years after a gruesome mass murder, the case is reopened in the face of a copycat. As you might expect, Detective Thomas Lockhart poo-poos the notion that time travel is the only explanation for the set of present-day keys that were in the sealed evidence box of the nine-year-old case. —Michael Main
Last year? How in the hell did she have these keys in 1988?
An image of Boyd Holbrook (as Locke) blends into a nighttime scene of modern Cleopatra Coleman (as Rya) walking down an old-time city street.
  • Science Fiction
  • Mystery and Crime
  • Definite Time Travel
Novella

Not This Tide

Through the eyes of young Rosemary (in 1944 London during the time of buzz bombs and V-2 rockets) and old Rosemary (now called Mary in 2035 Oslo), we see the picture of her whole life from her imaginary friend during the war to her physicist grandson at Princeton. —Michael Main
A World War 2 Maunsell Fortress on tall pylons in the English Channel with purplish concentric circles and a list of years behind it.
  • Science Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

Oona Out of Order

On Oona Lockhart’s 19th birthday, her mind leaps into her 51-year-old body where she learns that she’s fated to leap into a random year on every coming birthday, living each year once in a normal manner except for her discontinous consciousness. —Michael Main
Do I ever find any kind of stability? Or do I live life year after year like some kind of existential hobo?
Drawing of the face of a startled young woman with red lipstick, straight brown hair, and bangs.
  • Mainstream
  • 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

The Christmas Chronicles 2

Two years after the first Christmas Chronicles movie, young Kate Pierce is sitting on a beach in Cancun, missing her father and losing her status as a True Believer, all of which causes her to try flying back to Boston on her own—a plan that plays right into evil Belsnickel’s plan to overthrow Santa Claus and Mrs. Santa Claus. —Michael Main
Santa: [shaking head] Only Belsnickel would power a time machine with triple-A’s.
Kurt Russell (as Santa) and Goldie Hawn (as Mrs. Santa) pose in front of his village and two sleighs in the sky.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Families
  • 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
Flash Fiction

Giving Up the Ghost

An assassin jumps back into her 17-year-old body where she takes care of her mission and has a little time left over. —Michael Main
My target is a few blocks from here, which is why the Department of Temporal Enforcement chose me for the assignment. Proximity is important. The less you move around, the less likely the time stream gets fucked up.
Yellow steam rises from two coffee cups into an abstract outer space design and brown background.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

The Tomorrow War

Forty-year-old high school biology teacher Dan Forester is drafted for a seven-day tour of the future where he must fight what seems to be a losing cause in the war against bug/T-rex aliens. —Michael Main
We need you to fight beside us if we stand a chance at winning this war. You are our last hope.
As a purple wormhole opens in the sky, Chris Pratt (as Dan Forester) holds his machine gun high, standing defiantly at the lead position of three others.
  • Science Fiction
  • War
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Fantasy Island (v3s01e03)

Quantum Entanglement

The new Fantasy Island inches closer to actual time travel when Elana helps “invisible” Eileen understand her relationship with her grown daughter by acting as a Dickensian guide and showing Eileen how her daughter experienced growing up. And young Ruby receives news of how her family is managing without her. —Michael Main
Eileen: She absolutely loved it here.
Elena: Are you sure?
Kiara Barnes (as young Ruby Akuda), dresseed in white, looks wiser than her years with tropical trees behind her.
  • Fantasy
  • Debatable Time Travel
TV Episode

Fantasy Island (v3s01e04)

Once Upon a Time in Havana

Finally! Some Actual Time Travel™ as Elena takes young drummer Alma Garcia back to 1967 Havana to learn the real story of the musical grandfather who abandoned his family decades ago—and the role Alma played in that single, static timeline. —Michael Main
Grandfather: Who are you? Where do you really come from? Elma: Just an Americana who plays the drums.
Gigi Zumbado (as Alma) smiles at night in front of a chain-link fence.
  • Fantasy
  • Music and Musicals
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Fantasy Island (v3s01e05)

Twice in a Lifetime

The Island takes Nisha into two different versions of her future life in order to help her decide which man to marry. Only the Island knows whether Nisha is actually time traveling or merely experiencing potential futures, but the story’s ending suggests the latter. And meanwhile, out in the Island wilderness, Elena and Javier share intimate moments. —Michael Main
Let the future unfold.
John Gabriel Rodriquez (as Javier with a five-o
  • Fantasy
  • Debatable Time Travel
Feature Film

Flashback

After high-powered lawyer Charlie Leroy gets her client cleared from a rape charge by claiming that the accuser’s lacy underwear was consent to have sex, Charlie finds herself transported by a divine cabdriver to historical moments that were key for women’s rights. —Michael Main
Attends . . . si maman n'épouse pas papa, je vais pas naître. Je viens de me tuer.
translate Wait . . . if Mom never marries Dad, I won’t be born. I just killed myself.
Issa Doumbia (as cabdriver Hubert) leans on a cab in front of Caroline Vigneaux (as Charlie), who is surrounded by lots of people from history.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Pera Palas’ta Gece Yarısı, Season 1

  • Midnight at Pera Palace
  • Midnight at the Pera Palace
  • by Elif Usman, directed by Emre Şahin and Nisan Dağ
  • (Netflix, worldwide, 3 March 2022) [8 episodes]
While researching an article about the 130th anniversary of Istanbul’s Pera Palace Hotel, dedicated journalist Esra Koksuz finds herself at the hotel back in 1919, investigating the murder of her own doppelgänger and racing to stop the murder of Turkey’s founder. —Michael Main
Mustafa Kemal 16 Mayıs günü o gemiye sağ salim binemezse Kurtsuluşı Savaşı başlamayacak. Cumhuriyet kurulmayacak. Türkiye diye bir ülke olmayacak.
translate If Mustafa Kamal doesn’t board that ship on May the 16th, the War of Independence won’t begin, the Republic won’t be founded, and Turkey will never come to be!
No image currently available.
  • Mystery and Crime
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

The Adam Project

In 2050, time jet pilot Adam Reed steals a jet and heads back to 2018 to save his stranded wife, but he gets waylaid in 2022 where his 12-year-old self is the only hope to save the mission. —Michael Main
Young Adam: I mean if this is happening to me, that means that it already happened to you—right?—unless it works more like a multiverse where each ripple creates an alternate timeline—
Middle-Age Adam: It isn’t a multiverse! My god, we watch too many movies.
Ryan Reynolds and Walker Scobell (as the two Adams) pose in superimposed pictures along with three other cast members of The Adam Project and a timejet.
  • Science Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Flash Fiction

Slight Courage

A woman moves back and forth through her own life, processing her mother’s death. —Michael Main
Why do you have to leave me? Why now? Her lips move, a gentle separation, but hold a wordless tenure.
Stylized outline of a rocket launching in a green circular seal for Daily Science Fiction.
  • Fantasy
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Totally Killer

It’s fortunate that Jamie’s best friend in high school is building a time machine so that Jamie can go back to when Mom was in high school to stop the serial killer who killed Mom’s three friends—and just now killed Mom, too! —Michael Main
If your parents don’t get married and have kids, then basically you just have no life to go home to because everything woud be different. No one would have any idea who you are.
No image currently available.
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel