Time After Time: Pilot; I Will Catch You

March 5, 2017 8:28 PM - Season 1, Episode 1

A young H.G. Wells travels in the time machine he created to modern-day New York in pursuit of Jack the Ripper. (previously on Fanfare, the 1979 film)

Den of Geek - Time After Time Premiere Review (Spoiler-Free)

CBR Interview - Star Genesis Rodriguez Has The Time of Her Life On Time After Time

Vulture - Making History and Time After Time: Which Time-Travel Show Should I Watch?

EW recap - Really, if “confused Freddie Stroma” is what you’re into, then boy is Time After Time the show for you.

posted by oh yeah! (9 comments total)

As a fan of the movie, I watched this more out of morbid fascination than with any expectation that I'd like it, but, I gotta say, it kinda worked for me. There were definitely too many idiot-ball moments (why in the world would Jane give Wells the gun when they went to the rooftop to save the second victim? It made sense in the movie, since Steenburgen's character just got the gun that day from a pawn shop I think, but if Jane is supposed to be a gun owner raised in Texas gun culture, then it makes no sense for her to push her weapon onto Mr. never-touched-a-gun Wells when it's her own life at stake), and I'm still leery of how much glamorized Ripper there may be on a weekly basis. But I'm intrigued by the new elements they've introduced with Vanessa and the letter, and whoever the conspiracy-theorist-wall baseball cap dude is. Like, I don't think the pursuit of Jack the Ripper plot is sustainable for an entire season let alone multiple ones, so it seems like these other elements might give them somewhere else to go if/when they kill Stevenson.
posted by oh yeah! at 8:57 PM on March 5, 2017

This really is the year of time travel shows. Someone really needs to do a cross show special, say set at MIT in 2005.
posted by sammyo at 4:21 AM on March 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

This seems like a variation on Forever (or Forever was a variation on the original movie). It's not bad, but the formula shows too much, and the pursuit of Jack the Ripper is just there to distract from this being an ordinary, crime-of-the-week series.
posted by cardboard at 6:01 AM on March 7, 2017

What makes you the think this is going to be a crime-of-the-week structure, cardboard? I haven't looked at any promos, but I didn't get that vibe from these first 2 episodes, unless you mean Jack having a victim/potential victim each week? I can see how they could easily have made this another 'Cop/Not A Cop' show a la Forever, Lucifer, etc. if they'd made Jane a cop instead of a museum curator, though I'm glad they didn't.
posted by oh yeah! at 12:51 PM on March 7, 2017

Hadn't gotten around to watching the 4th & 5th episode yet, guess I can delete them unwatched: Time After Time Cancelled by ABC After Five Episodes
posted by oh yeah! at 6:53 PM on March 29, 2017

Well, damn.
posted by litlnemo at 11:46 AM on April 2, 2017

Is that bizarrely early to cancel a show, or is that just me?
posted by corb at 8:06 PM on April 7, 2017

It happens all the time, but usually to shows we're not watching, because no one is.
posted by litlnemo at 1:54 PM on April 30, 2017

Yeah, networks have killed plenty of shows after only one or two episodes, but I think that happens more often in the fall-season-premiere-onslaught, whereas with the mid-season replacements they're more likely to air all the filmed episodes before quietly announcing that they're canceled, or just not making any kind of official announcement and just letting everyone infer the show's defunctness by the fact that the actors are moving on.
posted by oh yeah! at 3:51 PM on April 30, 2017