Seems like this show had no respect for not changing the timeline (as Star Trek did). At least with Quantum Leap, the whole purpose of each episode was to try and set things right. Here, its just to safely get the guys back (failing miserably each time).
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Seems like this show had no respect for not changing the timeline (as Star Trek did).
Well actually, there's no question of 'changing the timeline', since this show operates on the 'fixed time' theory of time travel. Under such a theory, it is impossible for the time traveler to change the past because everything that has happened in past, present or future is set in stone and thus ALWAYS happened and will ALWAYS happened. The time traveler cannot change the past because he is/was always PART of the past...there was never an 'original' timeline which played out without the time traveler's 'interference'...
So basically, Tony and Doug can never change history because any action they take was always a part of history...at most, their attempts to alter history will result in them creating the very history they remember.
A particularly tragic example of this is seen in the Pearl Harbour episode. Tony grew up knowing his father died during the Pearl Harbour attack, so when he and Doug end up in 1941 on the night before the attack, he visits his father and warns him of the impending attack. It is because of Tony's warning that his father heads back to his naval base in order to investigate Tony's claims, and thus ends up being killed in the attack. So basically, Tony warned his father of the attack because he remembers his father dying on that day, and his father ends up dying BECAUSE Tony warned him...its a closed loop, and a very tragic one, because Tony's attempt to alter history to save his father is what doomed him all along!
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Not being able to change timelines was also practiced with the early Superman comics. Many times Supey went into time to change something only to be thwarted by another event.
THWARTED---Good Word!!
It was probably easier to do this than to change things. One episode that comes to mind was Superboy's going to save Lincoln only to be thwarted (that word again) by adult Lex Luthor.
Only in the Superman movie of late 1970s does Superman find success by time traveling into recent past to save Lois after she is kiled in the earthquake caused by Luthor.
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