Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress

reviewing 3 Body Problem; American Rust; Bosch: Legacy; Citadel; Constellation; Dark Matter; Fauda; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; House of the Dragon; Luther; Outer Range; Outlander; Reacher; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Surface; The: Ark, Diplomat, Last of Us, Lazarus Project, Orville, Way Home; Tokyo Vice; True Detective; You +books, films, music, podcasts, politics

George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.

Sunday, July 2, 2023

Outlander 7.3: Time Travel, the Old-Fashioned Way

Well, not time travel, but communication from the past to the future, was a central -- and endearing -- part of Outlander 7.3.

[Spoilers follow ... ]

Of course, if you think about, written messages from the past show up and inform the future all the time. That's what happens every you read one of Plato's dialogues, a Charles Dickens novel, etc. And of course it happens any time someone brings one of Mozart's works to life -- and, more recently, you can hear the Beatles singing as if they made the record just yesterday.

But Brianna and Roger getting that box of letters from Claire and Jamie was just wonderful, and in some important ways very different from Plato and Dickens. Brianna and Roger didn't know whether Claire and Jamie had survived -- indeed, there had been an obituary in the papers which said that Claire and Jamie had perished in a fire. The box of letters proved what I think it was Ian who aptly said -- you can always believe what you read in the papers.

Of course, where time travel is involved, that unreliability of newspapers is especially true. Every drop of the time travelers hat can change what a future looking at a newspaper from the past is proclaiming. Time travel can supplant what that newspaper is saying with something much better or much worse.

I'm very glad the change was for the much better in Outlander 7.3. Claire and Jamie deserve it. The episode was also a great proclamation of their deep love, and that was also so good to see.

And I'll see you back here next week with my review of the next episode in this so far splendid seventh season of this classic.

See also Outlander 7.1-2: The Return of the Split

And see also Outlander 6.1: Ether That Won't Put You to Sleep

And see also Outlander 5.1: Father of the Bride ... Outlander 5.2: Antibiotics and Time Travel ... Outlander 5.3: Misery ... Outlander 5.4: Accidental Information and the Future ... Outlander 5.5: Lessons in Penicillin and Locusts ... Outlander 5.6: Locusts, Jocasta, and Bonnet ... Outlander 5.7: The Paradoxical Spark ... Outlander 5.8: Breaking Out of the Silence ... Outlander 5.9: Buffalo, Snake, Tooth ... Outlander 5.10: Finally! ... Outlander 5.11: The Ballpoint Pen ... Outlander Season 5 Finale: The Cost of Stolen Time