Time Itself Has an Agenda

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

The crash of a 1941 World War II plane in a 21st-century Kansas field sets off a chain of plots and subplots involving the pilot, a mother on the run, a precotious young boy, a government agency, and multiple jumps through a time rift. —Michael Main

After a dogfight, a World War II plane flies through a time rift and into a 21st-century field near Dayton, where a single mom saves the pilot from the wreckage and her step-son saves the pilot from other dangers. —Michael Main

Hang on to your Tesseracts! Apparently, in Endgame, when the Avengers traveled back in time to swipe various things from the 2012 Avengers, they inadvertantly started a branch in time where Loki ended up with the Tesseract. Of course, once that occurred, the Time Variance Authority spotted him as a Variant and quickly recruited him to help in their fight against even more variant Variants. —Michael Main

The universe decides that Megan Givens and Tom Prescott—a pair of immature, judgmental thirty-somethings—deserve to repeat the disastrous day before their wedding until they figure out a thing or two about themselves. —Michael Main