Time travel conundrums

[Roland]

I would like to point out a few nagging inconsistencies about the time travel plots and to get others' input on them, but I have to confess total ignorance as to how to use the "spoiler alert" function.  I sure would appreciate some help in that area (I already went to the "Help" section above, but couldn't find anything to help me much there).

Thanks in advance.

[retzev]

type [*spoiler] before the spoiler, and [*/spoiler] after the spoiler (without the asteriks!) and your spoilers will be hidden 

[spoiler]see  [/spoiler]

[Joeytrom]

The return to the present time 1971 reminds me of the same problem the end of Back to the Future had.

At the end of "Back to the Future", [spoiler]Marty McFly returns to a revised timeline where his family had a happy/positive life as opposed to the negative one we saw at the beginning of the film.  This is after he goes to 1955 and changes history ( inadvertently) for the better.   In the new timeline, there is a revised Marty who time travels to 1955, from the postive 1985.   We even see this as his "present" self arrives in the present time a few minutes before his "past" self goes back in time.

When Marty wakes up at the end, he seems to be surprised when he sees that things have changed when no surprise should have been on his face.  He shouldn't remember the original timeline as that one no longer exists, so there shouldn't be any reaction at all other then he is back home safe and sound.  This is apparently for the sake of the audience to confirm that severe changes have been made and to see it thru Marty's eyes.

Now, there has been a revised Marty who goes back to 1955, and apparently a slightly revised third and final 1955 we do not see.  This is the one flaw of the movie that always got me, but I suppose had to be done as movies need big endings to hit a note with the audience.[/spoiler]
Now, on to Dark Shadows and the return of Barnabas, Julia, & Professor Stokes to the present time from 1840.

[spoiler]In this revised timeline, there is a peaceful summer of 1970 without any hauntings of Gerard & Daphne and a Barnabas, Julia, & Stokes who have existed in this revised timeline.  This is evidenced by Elizabeth's remark that the three of them know all about the night's Historical Society opening that has been months in preparing.  She does not seem startled that they have suddenly appeared after being gone for five months.  There has been a Barnabas, Julia & Stokes that Liz and the others have been seeing, probably since Parallel Time ended.

The trio we see here should no longer have memories of that violent haunting of Gerard but they do, again it is largely on the writers part going for full drama.  They apparently did go to 1840 as they undid all of Gerards ghostly existence.

Most likely, they did go back in time as we see in 1840, but perhaps for a different reason.  One of them most likely saw in an old diary that there was a Barnabas, Julia and later Eliott Stokes who took part in the events of 1840 and realized that they had to go back in time for some reason to make sure history went along as written.  And the events played out as we saw, but maybe slightly altered.  Like BTHF, there is a third and final 1840 sequence we do not see based on the three of them arriving from a peaceful present time and trying to sort things out.[/spoiler]

[BuzzH]

Okay, now I'm confused!  

[Roland]

type [*spoiler] before the spoiler, and [*/spoiler] after the spoiler (without the asteriks!) and your spoilers will be hidden

Thanks so much!

[Roland]

OK, here are some of the problems I've noted when it comes to the use of time travel in DS.  The biggest one is that the writers often have people CAUSING the event that is affecting the future who wouldn't have been there the first time around!

Here are two examples:

[spoiler]  In the 1897 storyline, Angelique turns out to be the one who kills Quentin in the past, thus setting him up for being a ghost.  Yet, would Angelique have been there if Barnabas hadn't gone back in time?

The other, more serious, one involves how Roxanne can be a vampire in 1970 and not recognize Barnabas, even though we are shown that it is his love for her that inspires Angelique to MAKE her a vampire in 1840.  So who made her a vampire the "first" time around in 1840, the 1840 which bypassed Barnabas as he lay waiting for Willie to finally free him in 1967? [/spoiler]

Ouch, my head is hurting!

[arashi]

[spoiler]Actually it was Beth who killed Quentin in the past. Angelique was the cause and consequence, but it was Beth who shot him.

I assume that even if Barnabas hadn't been in the past, it wasn't like Quentin and Evan hadn't tried to conjure up hell beasties before. Perhaps in a bid to end the curse on him Quentin and Evan conjured up Angelique at a later date.[/spoiler]

[Roland]

[spoiler]Actually it was Beth who killed Quentin in the past. Angelique was the cause and consequence, but it was Beth who shot him.

I assume that even if Barnabas hadn't been in the past, it wasn't like Quentin and Evan hadn't tried to conjure up hell beasties before. Perhaps in a bid to end the curse on him Quentin and Evan conjured up Angelique at a later date.[/spoiler]

Ah, yes, thanks, it's been close to a year since I'd seen that episode, and, even as I was writing it, I knew I was getting some of the major details wrong.  My bad.  I guess I just felt that it would have been better not to have had Angelique play a role in that part.

[Ian]

Hello, all. I disappeared, but I've returned.

Anyways, I tend to take the thought that when something in the past is changed, not only that thing in the original "traveler's" time, but in every time up until then. I think the closest thing to that (that has been discussed before) would be [spoiler]when Gabriel killed Edith in 1840. Now, to be honest, I've never seen the 1840 episodes, only read about them, sadly. I don't know, did Edith mention having children already? If not, that creates even more of a conundrum. How did she become the great "grandmama" that everyone "revered" in 1897?[/spoiler]See? If you try to think about problems with continuity (or about time travel in general), you'll get a major headache. XD

[BuzzH]

Anyways, I tend to take the thought that when something in the past is changed, not only that thing in the original "traveler's" time, but in every time up until then. I think the closest thing to that (that has been discussed before) would be [spoiler]when Gabriel killed Edith in 1840. Now, to be honest, I've never seen the 1840 episodes, only read about them, sadly. I don't know, did Edith mention having children already? If not, that creates even more of a conundrum. How did she become the great "grandmama" that everyone "revered" in 1897?[/spoiler]

The situation described above in the spoiler is sorta the same as what happens in Back To The Future 2.  Marty goes to the future w/Doc and buys a sports almanac w/all the winners of major sports events (Super Bowls, World Series, Kentucky Derby etc...) for like 40 years.  He foolishly leaves it unattended in the Delorean and future, 1985, Biff, in the already altered 1985, steals the Delorean, goes back to 1955 and gives the almanac to himself as a teenager.  He tells 1955 Biff to "just bet on the winner and you can't lose!" and leaves.  1955 Biff does as he's told and totally alters the already altered 1985 from BTTF. 

[Josette]

Anyways, I tend to take the thought that when something in the past is changed, not only that thing in the original "traveler's" time, but in every time up until then. I think the closest thing to that (that has been discussed before) would be [spoiler]when Gabriel killed Edith in 1840. Now, to be honest, I've never seen the 1840 episodes, only read about them, sadly. I don't know, did Edith mention having children already? If not, that creates even more of a conundrum. How did she become the great "grandmama" that everyone "revered" in 1897?[/spoiler]See? If you try to think about problems with continuity (or about time travel in general), you'll get a major headache. XD

[spoiler]Gabriel and Edith DID have children.  I don't remember if they said how many.  For some reason I've always thought 3, perhaps they did say that.  I think they were said to be away at school.  At any rate, they were away, not at Collinwood, but they did exist!![/spoiler]

[MagnusTrask]

The problems have been laid out very well here, except for the most glaring one... Barnabas refusing to get back into his box not once, but twice, when returning to the 'present'.    So his body was never there for Willie to set free.   So he never went back into the past, etc., etc.. 

The show was pretty naive about time travel.    These weren't science-fiction writers. 

Angelique dead in 1841.   Oops.

Roxanne could have recognized Barnabas without saying so.   Anyway, it's not that some people "originally" caused events in the distant past, but in their own "future".... it's that it's all so inconsistent.     Either you see the effects of your future actions upon the past (in the present) before you go back and make them, or you don't.    If Roxanne [spoiler]was a vampire in 1970 the "first time around",[/spoiler] then Quentin should have already been saved and never a ghost.

some of us have talked before about possible third or fourth timelines (but "before" trhe ones we see), which we don't see because they of course never happened, and aren't remembered.

I like the idea of BC etc getting back to 1971, and having two sets of memories, for both timelines.

Petofi thinking he could travel to 1969 as Quentin might be the most boneheaded time-travel idea.    How's Quentin's body going to be there in 1969 without Q having physically lived through all those intervening years?   A short cut with the I Ching will just end up with Petofi as Quentin just sending his astral self there, since the bizarre hijacking is preventing Q from ever getting to 1969.    He needs to inhabit the 100 year old Q not the young one.