One more thought that didn't make it into my previous post on Umbrella Academy

[conuly]

Putting aside the question of whether or not preserving the way the timeline is "supposed" to go is a worthy cause - not to mention the question of who, exactly, decides how things are supposed to go! - is murder really the only solution to free will oopsies? Can't they find some other way to put things back on track?

Actually make that two more thoughts - this show takes place in 2019, right? Something has gone very badly wrong with tech development in that universe, am I right?

Comments

[jack]

"is murder really the only solution to free will oopsies"

Yeah, I wondered about that. Why all the murder, where's all the "ask someone directions and delay them five seconds which eliminates the critical events"?

My best answer is that the time people are just gratuitously evil for no particular reason.

Or possibly, they have lots of departments, and 90% of them work on non-murder timeline fixes, but we just happen to have concentrated on all the characters who specialise in murder.

"Something has gone very badly wrong with tech development in that universe, am I right?"

There seems to be a trend for TV shows to be set in some sort of retro-present, which HAS mobile phones, but people only ever use them occasionally. I can see why, but it's still quite weird.

[the_siobhan]

That was very much my question about the baddies. Who is making the decision about what is the correct timeline and how are they benefiting?

I haven't read the comics but I get the impression the story isn't finished yet.

[moon_custafer]

Yeah, even leaving aside ethics, you'd think that going back and murdering someone would alter the timeline even further from whatever it's "supposed" to be, since you'd have stopped that one person's pertinent action at the cost of eliminating their every subsequent action.

[movingfinger]

It's the Connie Willis approach---rather than work out how something affects the plot and adjust the plot to account for it, handwave it out of existence.

[conuly]

Yeah, but they also didn't have present day cards or, it looks like, modern computers - I've never seen a library with so many microfilm machines.

[konsectatrix]

The bad guys were probably someone's Bright Idea that went off the rails in a horrific way.

Yeah, that was feeding into the whole off-kilter AU feeling for me. I liked both that a world in which these kids could happen and time-traveling assassins exist also had things changed in other ways, but I suspect the world-building may not hold up beyond broad brushstrokes of "categories of stuff will be different, preferably in ways convenient to this plot."

I wasn't sure at first, but I'm guessing it was still 2019, because a few of the songs (that weren't covers) were released within the last decade.

[conuly]

On that note, the actors for the time agency were, again, stellar. But somebody needs to have sat down and worked out the worldbuilding.

And it's definitely 2019. At one point Big Bad Boss Lady mentions Five's "arrival in 2019", and they were all stated to be 30 years old, born in 1980. (Well, except Ben, who's dead, and Five, who's timey-wimey in the worst ways.)

[conuly]

That was very much my question about the baddies. Who is making the decision about what is the correct timeline and how are they benefiting?

The writers left it as this hanging dangling mystery, but it would've been better to give us at least a partial answer now and then have more reveals next season.