12 Monkeys 2.11: Teleportation

Another blockbuster episode - 2.11 - of 12 Monkeys this week, which featured yet another time-travel gambit:  use of the time-travel device not to travel to another place, but another time, instantly.  In other words, teleportation.

There have always been two kinds of time travel in both literature and movies.   In one, you travel in time, to the past or the future, and arrive in the same place or location.  This is the kind I used in The Plot to Save Socrates, Loose Ends, and Ian's Ions and Eons series.   In the other, you can not only travel through time but through space, and therefore end up not only in a different time but a different place from where you started.   Quantum Leap excelled in this approach on television.

12 Monkeys has always used that approach as well.  But, if you think about it, you can also use it not to travel through time at all - or maybe just a split second into the past or future - and to a completely different location.   In that case, the time machine becomes a teleportation device, which is a nice touch in a time travel story.

In the end, our heroes don't use the time travel device for that at all, but we still get a fine story leading up to it - a story about Jennifer.  As I've said before, Jennifer is in many ways the most important and memorable character in the series, and any story about her is compelling.  But in 2.11, we get a story of her death, and her rebirth - via time travel - and you can't get much more compelling than that.

12 Monkeys in its second season has become a veritable compendium of time-travel gambits and their possibilities, and you can't get much better that that, either.

See also 12 Monkeys 2.1: Whatever Will Be, Will Be ... 12 Monkeys 2.2: The Serum ... 12 Monkeys 2.3: Primaries and Paradoxes ... 12 Monkeys 2.4: Saving Time ... 12 Monkeys 2.5: Jennifer's Story ... 12 Monkeys 2.6: "'Tis Death Is Dead" ... 12 Monkeys 2.7: Ultimate Universes ... 12 Monkeys 2.8: Time Itself Wants Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 2.9: Hands On ... 12 Monkeys 2.10: The Drugging

And see also this Italian review, w/reference to Hawking and my story, "The Chronology Protection Case"

And see also 12 Monkeys series on SyFy: Paradox Prominent and Excellent ...12 Monkeys 1.2: Your Future, His Past ... 12 Monkeys 1.3:  Paradoxes, Lies, and Near Intersections ... 12 Monkeys 1.4: "Uneasy Math" ... 12 Monkeys 1.5: The Heart of the Matter ... 12 Monkeys 1.6: Can I Get a Witness? ... 12 Monkeys 1.7: Snowden, the Virus, and the Irresistible ... 12 Monkeys 1.8: Intelligent Vaccine vs. Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 1.9: Shelley, Keats, and Time Travel ... 12 Monkey 1.10: The Last Jump ... 12 Monkeys 1.11: What-Ifs ... 12 Monkeys 1.2: The Plunge ... 12 Monkeys Season 1 Finale: "Time Travel to Create Time Travel"

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podcast review of Predestination and 12 Monkeys