Timeless Jesse James episode
Just saw the Timeless episode on Jesse James, and OMG you guys, I have seriously not screamed aloud at my TV this much since "The Pandorica Opens."
This show. THIS SHOW. It's not always wonderful -- last week's episode was every kind of mediocre -- but when it gets it right, wow, does it get it right. All the stuff in this episode about which deeds are right and which are wrong, against the background of everyone's conflicting motivations, was gorgeous character-driven drama. This is a time-travel show that really makes you think about time travel, with all of its temptations and pitfalls, and with no Time Lord around to conveniently hand-wave away the fixed points, or the not-so-fixed ones. Then there's the history part of it. Jesse James was great, but the real star of this episode was the Lone Ranger and Tonto, or rather, Bass Reeves and Grant Johnson. They're real historical figures, guys, and I'd never heard of them before this! That is an outrage. Of course, I probably wouldn't have heard of Katherine Johnson before the NASA episode either if the movie "Hidden Figures" hadn't been about to come out. Anyway, that's another thing that Timeless does extremely well -- it highlights important but lesser-known historical figures, especially if those historical figures were black. In fact, I love how many Characters of Color are all over this show, including the wonderfully menacing Mason, played by the wonderful Paterson Joseph, who just might turn out to be far more of a mover-and-shaker of Rittenhouse than he currently appears to be . . . or will he? I honestly don't know! In fact, I really don't know where any of this show is going, and that is part of what makes it so great to watch.
This show. THIS SHOW. It's not always wonderful -- last week's episode was every kind of mediocre -- but when it gets it right, wow, does it get it right. All the stuff in this episode about which deeds are right and which are wrong, against the background of everyone's conflicting motivations, was gorgeous character-driven drama. This is a time-travel show that really makes you think about time travel, with all of its temptations and pitfalls, and with no Time Lord around to conveniently hand-wave away the fixed points, or the not-so-fixed ones. Then there's the history part of it. Jesse James was great, but the real star of this episode was the Lone Ranger and Tonto, or rather, Bass Reeves and Grant Johnson. They're real historical figures, guys, and I'd never heard of them before this! That is an outrage. Of course, I probably wouldn't have heard of Katherine Johnson before the NASA episode either if the movie "Hidden Figures" hadn't been about to come out. Anyway, that's another thing that Timeless does extremely well -- it highlights important but lesser-known historical figures, especially if those historical figures were black. In fact, I love how many Characters of Color are all over this show, including the wonderfully menacing Mason, played by the wonderful Paterson Joseph, who just might turn out to be far more of a mover-and-shaker of Rittenhouse than he currently appears to be . . . or will he? I honestly don't know! In fact, I really don't know where any of this show is going, and that is part of what makes it so great to watch.