I love the history on So Ministerio del Tiempo (Timeless is soooo limited) but I ended up not caring so much for the characters. I think I need to go back to it.

thelibraryiscool replied to your post “Soooo I started watching El Ministerio Del Tiempo, and ‘first contact’...”

As someone who also gave up on timeless after 2 tries, this sounds so incredibly promising!!

OK so to be clear I’ve only JUST NOW started watching EMdT, and I’m not dumping on Timeless, which I’m still v much enjoying (apart from them not giving credit for a clear and direct remake - not cool NBC), but they’re definitely made with 2 very different mindsets - I did end up being very invested in the characters on Timeless, but on the other hand the very American-ness of it’s premise makes my brain a little itchy: not travelling to the same 300 yr span thing, i actually mean how they’re so focussed on an extremely *individual* value system. Like, a) history is made by the strength and purpose of a SINGLE INDIVIDUAL making an individual contribution with their single and devoted special-ness, and b) it leads to version of the United States in the current timeline, which apparently is the *best possible* timeline, and must be maintained at all costs. All the exposition scenes each episode where Lucy explains ‘this person is about to Do The Thing which Only they Can Do because they are A Special Individual and this leads ~directly to everyone being Free and Happy now’ always takes me out of the ep a little, it’s just an odd sentiment coming from an historian. Idk, the focus on individuals being the sole drivers of ‘history as narrative’ as opposed to humanity stumbling forward together via a melange of individuals AND community motivations, money, weather, political landscapes, disease, water, generational social movements, population levels, footwear fashions, ducks, our fixation on cats (to say nothing of the dog, ahem), and dumb fucking luck. So, I really like Timeless for Rufus and Jiya, and for Lucy and her dynamic with Flynn, I really like Agent Christopher and her wife and her backstory, I think they’re all of them super-cute and have very much enjoyed their back to the future shenanigans

But having said that

EMdT seemed to describe the mission to prevent the French from wining the Guerra de la Independencia only partially because of later events in Napoleon’s campaigns, but primarily because ‘fuck those guys’, and the mission to save Lope de Vega as a young man not because he needs to perform some kind of pivotal single act that ensure all our present freedoms ...but just because that guy is just kind of cool, ya know? Fucking superb, you funky little poetic dinosaur. (also of note: ‘Is this guy the *only* guy worth saving? what about literally everyone, anyone else? who decides that anyway?’: NIIIICE.)