History Series / ElMinisterioDelTiempo

* EvilVersusEvil: The Sons of Padilla and the Exterminating Angel are not exactly fond of each other, [[spoiler:which leads to both factions' downfall as Salvador sets a trap for them when they brawl in the Ministry headquarters.]]

** Susana Torres is one for [[spoiler:Darrow Ltd.]].

** [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] by Levi when he reveals the time doors to Queen Isabel. "Science before its time is always called magic."** [[ExploitedTrope Exploited]] by Alonso when he pretends to be a demon to scare a couple of university students in 1520. All he does is shouting and [[ThisIsMyBoomstick shooting a handgun in the air]].

** [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] by Lev** [[spoiler:Ernesto discovers that he has another child, this one in modern times.]]
** [[ExploitedTrope Exploited]] by Alonso when he pretends to be a demon to scare a couple of university students in 1520. All he does is shouting and [[ThisIsMyBoomstick shooting a handgun in the air]].

* MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight: What the villains seek to do.i when he reveals the time doors to Queen Isabel. "Science before its time is always called magic."

* InferredHolocaust: In "Time of Slaves", Pacino overrules orders to free Tomasín and his mother only and sets all the slaves free. Except for Tomasín and his mother, all the slaves immediately jump on their hated overseer and begin to kick him, presumably to death. The slaves don't speak Spanish, and the patrol [[PoorCommunicationKills cannot tell them]] that there is no time to lose or how they can escape, so they are left behind in the 1850s.

** "Time is what it is" is about ensuring a Portuguese victory at Aljubarrota.

** Lope de Vega appears first as an unknown 26 year-old soldier in the 1588 Spanish Armada, who has only written some short comedies and comes across more as a fanboy of ''Orlando Furioso'' than as a writer in his own right. In the next episode he appears in, set in 1604, he is now a celebrity, but Miguel de Cervantes is not. In the next episode they are in, also set in 1604, Lope teases Cervantes about how ''he'' will be remembered as [[ThisIsGoingToBeHuge the greatest Spanish writer of all time]], [[ItWillNeverCatchOn while Cervantes will be forgotten]].

** The Huesca castle crew speaks Spanish in 11th century, when Aragonese would be appropriate.

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: In episode 13, one of the nurses taking care of infected Irene absentmindedly scratches the back of his head with his gloves, spreading the infection into the Ministry. [[spoiler:He becomes the only casualty of the epidemic.]]

** In episode 25, Francisco Goya.

** In episode 27, Sagasta and Alfonso XII.

** Amelia is surprised to learn that Sevillean dancer figurines are sold as souvenirs in her native Barcelona in modern times.
** The only time bullfighting is mentioned at all is when Amelia ''thinks'' that the "Torete" Pacino mentions once must be a famous bullfighter, but he actually was [[FreakierThanFiction a street delinquent turned actor]].

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: All the old garb ([[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld and people]]) at the ministry's headquarters.

* WeaksauceWeakness: Amelia's proffessionality is compromised the two times she coincides with Lope de Vega.

* YouWillBeBeethoven: In Episode 19, Lombardi becomes the one who discovered America.
** In Episode 9, Rogelio Buendía [[spoiler:is plainly told to replace "El Cid" after he has him killed earlier by accident.]]

** Creator/LuisBunuel appears as a college student who has no interest in filmmaking yet.

* AlternateHistory: Episode 19, "Tiempo de lo Oculto", is the first time where this happens, and it seems to be just a few cosmetic changes. Then comes Episode 21, "Cambio de Tiempo", and Philip II completely changes history, openly using the Ministry to ensure the Spanish Empire remains together and pretty much unchanged (and demonstrating ''why'' the Ministry should not be used to change history).

* ArcWords: "Pobre viejecita..." from the song that Enriqueta keeps listening to on Episode 18. [[spoiler:It's the same song she sings to herself sadly seconds before deliberately poisoning herself in prison and subsequently dying.]]

* BadBadActing: Cristóbal Colón when Julián shoots at him with a handgun full with blanks.

** In Episode 19, the team convinces the La Rábida monks to let them take Lombardi away by saying he is an heretic.

* BeenThereShapedHistory: the protagonists - and even more secondary characters - happen to have important (and not-so-important) roles in the history of Spain.

* CelebrityParadox: the second season establishes ''Series/{{Isabel}}'' as fictional in-universe, yet in the first season, Queen Isabella of Castile was played by the same actress starring in it.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Alonso comes from a time where patriotism, honor and respecting the given word were important matters. He is dismayed to learn that Amelia is the team chief, but will defend a woman that he feels is being disrespected.

** In the first episode, Thibaud murders two cops but steals only one handgun when he returns to 1808. Once in his time, he treats the gun as a personal trophy and makes no attempt to have it reverse-engineered. His plan to make Napoleon win is instead to learn what strategic decisions will be blunders from future textbooks and avoid them, and later to kill the Spanish guerrilla leaders before they even come up with the concept.

** Rogelio Buendía in episode 9, combined with YouWillBeBeethoven. [[spoiler:After accidentally getting El Cid killed in 1079 while he filmed him fighting, he took over his life, spending twenty years without seeing his family and playing someone he is not, even dying when the historical Cid did. And, according to his wife, being a much better husband that the original Cid was.]]
** In episode 23, [[spoiler:William Martin]] sacrificing himself to ensure the success of Operation Mincemeat, which requires a corpse.

** In episode 21, King Philip II.

* KickedUpstairs: The team doesn't want to get Velázquez in harm's way when a confrontation with Darrow seems imminent, but he stubbornly refuses to be left behind. They only get him to cave when they name him "responsible of communications" (which he, being from the 17th century, doesn't actually know much about).

* LeaningOnTheFourthWall / SelfDeprecation: In episode 9, Salvador tells Ernesto about the things that could happen if the secret of the Ministry is ever revealed to the public, mentioning the possibility of "some absurd television series about this Ministry" being made.

** [[spoiler:Ernesto discovers he has another children, this one in modern times.]]
* MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight: What the villains seek to do.

** [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] by Levi when he reveals the time doors to Queen Isabel. "Science before its time is always called magic."

* MoodWhiplash: Episode 11, "Tiempo de hidalgos", is a fairly funny one, with Amelia and Alonso driving Cervantes mad with their antics at the theater rehearsals, but when the King orders all theaters closed, it turns to [[spoiler:Cervantes attempting to commit suicide]].
** Episode 17, "Óleo sobre tiempo", has King Philip, whose madness episodes can be quite fun... until the scene that shows he is a broken man, controlled by his wife and unable to gain some happiness.

** The TropeNamer himself turns up on episode 12, but true to reality, he is neither short nor phisically weak.

** The Argentinian Lombardi is a self-aggrandized man who never stops talking and thinks the whole world is against him. Of course, he swears on Diago Armando Maradona.
** While pretending to be Portuguese in Episode 19, the patrollers say that they are merchants of cod and towels.

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: two time-traveling Americans buy Literature/DonQuixote's original manuscript before Cervantes sends it to the printer. After Amelia, Alonso and Pacino arrange things to get him to rewrite the book, Cervantes cannot remember the name of the town he had put in the original version... and he hits on ''the name of which I don't want to recall''.

* NoNameGiven: Until Episode 13, the Security Clerk was just credited as "The Clerk" (''El Bedel''). In an example of HypocriticalHumor, Angustias scolds Pacino for not knowing the Clerk's name in this episode, and finally identifies him as Germán.

** Alonso's lack of Sevillian accent is {{lampshaded}} by Elena Castillo [[spoiler: the mysterious modern activist that looks just like his late wife]] in Episode 17 but is not elaborated on. Meanwhile, Velázquez's accent [[OohMeAccentsSlipping slips sometimes]], implying that he changed it when he moved to Madrid aged 12.

* NotSoDifferent: Salvador reveals to Julián that he, too, considered changing the past to save his wife, but never did.

--> '''Angustias''': I joined the Ministry after my husband died during the war.\\

* OnlyOneMeAllowedRightNow: some doors work in this way, running on a GroundhogDayLoop. If you enter it at the beginning of the day, what the previous you has done before is erased.
* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Lorca and Dalí in episode 8. Both start with Andalusian and Catalan accents but they lose it on the way.
** Episode 14 [[spoiler:takes place in New York: Most of the American characters slip back to Spanish accent in a couple of words, specially when pronouncing "Argamasilla". The most surprising fact, however, is that Amelia speaks a pretty good British-accented English, which is strange even for a 19th Century Spanish College girl.]]

** In episode 6, Julián wonders whether the "Lazarillo de Tormes" would have existed if him and Amelia had not given Lazaro the idea of getting it written down.

* ReedRichardsIsUseless: Lola Mendieta tells Amelia this is the reason why she deserted, because she believes the Ministry should be doing its best to fix history and help the people, instead of just keeping history as it is.

* TheAgeless: Subverted. Time travelers age all the same, but they can be mistaken as not aging by people that don't know better. In Episode 11, Alonso is recognized in 1604 by a retired soldier that fought alongside him 35 years earlier. The man concludes that Alonso's lack of aging must be the result of witchcraft.

* AlternateHistory: Chapter 19, "Tiempo de lo Oculto", is the first time where this happens, and it seems to be just a few cosmetic changes. Then comes chapter 21, "Cambio de Tiempo", and Philip II completely changes history, openly using the Ministry to ensure the Spanish Empire remains together and pretty much unchanged (and demonstrating ''why'' the Ministry should not be used to change history).

* HeroOfAnotherStory: The increasingly referenced agent Ortigosa is this. He debuts in Episode 8 as a Ministry's contact in 1924, which seems to be his home year given that he claims to be a 1924 gardener first and that the Ministry job is just [[CrowningMomentOfFunny a way to get extra cash at the end of the month]]. He appears again in the prologue to Episode 9 as Rogelio Buendía's companion in a mission to the Middle Ages, implying that he later moved to 1960 [[MindScrew when 1960 was the "current" year]] and became a time patroller. Then he is mentioned in Episode 17 again, implying that he moved again forward, to 2016, and is now the leader of his own patrol, which is regarded by Salvador as the modern Ministry's second best after Amelia's. Unfortunately, he is unavailable because he is off to secure a trade mission with the ''[[OffScreenMomentOfAwesome Phoenicians]].'' And episode 20 takes place in the backdrop of his wedding.

** In episode 3, Ángel, the Spanish fugitive that was forced to show the time door to the Nazis, is killed as soon as they take Lola Mendieta prisoner.
** In episode 7, Armando Leiva at the 1844 Ministry agents after they capture Alonso, Amelia and Ernesto.
* YouWillBeBeethoven: In episode 19, Lombardi becomes the one who discovered America.

** The Velázquez that works for the Ministry is still years away from painting ''Las Meninas''. [[{{Narcissist}} Not that this refrains him from claiming credit for it.]]

** Lope de Vega appears first as an unknown 26 year-old soldier in the 1588 Spanish Armada that has only written some short comedies and comes across more as a fanboy of ''Orlando Furioso'' than a writer of his own. However, the next episode he appears, in 1604, he is already a celebrity.

** ''Columbus'' (during his time living in Portugal) replaces Agustín de Argüelles's part in "Change of Time." The main plot is mostly the same, but the main characters car a lot more for the fact that Portugal is part of Spain in the altered timeline.

* It is 1569. [[DashingHispanic Alonso de Entrerríos]], a Spanish soldier, is in prison and facing execution by hanging. His "crime" was attacking his superior after the latter said that the cause of the massive loss of soldiers was the fault of a badly timed attack started by Alonso, when it is actually [[NeverMyFault the superior's fault]]. The day of his execution, a mysterious man offers him to work for the Crown.
* It is 1880. [[BrainyBrunette Amelia Folch]] is one of the first female university students in Spain. This has caused her no little grief as most of her family and friends consider her a bit mad. During a class on Lope de Vega, an unknown woman hands her a note. She follows her.
* It is 2015. [[TheMedic Julián Martínez]] is an emergency worker that has become a bit of a DeathSeeker ever since his wife died in a hit and run, and, as such, barely any of his partners want to work with him. During an answer to a fire, he enters the building against orders and finds three people dressed in ancient garb, but the roof comes down on him before he can get out. No one believes him when he reports on what he saw, as there was no one else in the building, and he loses his job.
* It is 1981. [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight Jesús Méndez, nicknamed "Pacino",]] is a police officer chasing a SerialKiller that gruesomely murders single mothers in front of their children. But the killer leaps into a closet and Pacino chases him unbeknownst to him that he is in the 21st Century. After being arrested as the primary suspect of the killings, he is approached by a man who offers him to find the killer that can vanish through a closet, the same one that caused his father to commit suicide.

* CurbStompBattle: The duel between Sancho, the young shepard who loves Constanza, and Don Fadrique. The former is untrained and the latter is a master swordsman, so it's easy to guess how this one ended.

** In episode 27, Alonso, Amelia and Pacino are captured by three masked gunmen of the "Sons of Padilla" conspiracy. Alonso defiantly yells at them to shoot already, and one of them prepares to do just that... when suddenly another one turns around and shoots their two companions, saving the patrol. [[spoiler:The rogue assailant is then revealed to be Lola Mendieta, whom Salvador had sent to infiltrate the society.]]

* It is 1569. [[DashingHispanic Alonso de Entrerríos]], a Spanish soldier, is in prison and facing execution by hanging. His "crime" was attacking his superior after the latter said that the cause of the massive loss of soldiers was the fault of a badly timed attack started by Alonso, when it is actually [[NeverMyFault the superior's fault]]. The day of his execution, a mysterious man offers him work with the government.

* ImprovisedWeapon: While trying to fight off the Soviet agent in Episode 22, Pacino lands a ShovelStrike on him.

* BrokenPedestal: Amelia's admiration for Lope de Vega takes a hard hit on episode 26 when Lope caves in to the Duke of Lerma's demands of not representing a play that derides him to avoid having his theatre license revoked indefinitely. And yet another one when she catches him about to brawl with Cervantes later on.

* ChristmasCake: Brought up by Amelia's mother, who fears that nobody will want to marry her if she takes too long to find a husband. She also tells Amelia in no uncertain terms that [[IWantGrandkids she wants grandkids]].

These three people from different times are approached by two mysterious individuals who offer them work for something greater. A place that works with the interesting suggestion of what if there were doors that led to past times, and there was a dedicated Ministry in charge of protecting these gates to prevent their misuse by others with an interest in changing history? A place called the Ministry of Time.

[[PowerTrio Julián, Amelia and Alonso]] become the newest team of the Ministry, taking charge of keeping control of the many, many temporal gates existing in Spain, and to prevent people, both in the past and the present, from using them to profit from the changes in history, among them legendary former agent Lola Mendieta, who was thought to have gone missing years ago, but appears to have her own agenda...

So far, there has been a first season (eight episodes, aired in 2015), and a second season (thirteen episodes, aired between February and May 2016 with a two-week midseason break). After months of speculation regarding its renovation or cancellation, a third season of thirteen episodes was announced on September 22nd, 2016.

* It is 1569. [[DashingHispanic Alonso de Entrerríos]], a Spanish soldier, is in prison and facing execution by hanging. His "crime" was attacking his superior after the latter said that the cause of the massive loss of soldiers was the fault of a badly timed attack started by Alonso, when it is actually [[NeverMyFault the superior's fault]]. The day of his execution, a mysterious man offers him to work for the government.

This Ministry is a secret organization within the Spanish government created in 1491, after a Jewish rabbi called Abraham Levi told the secret of the doors to Queen Isabella of Castile in exchange of protection for him and his family. The Queen set up a secret office that would protect these gates, but in the end [[UngratefulBastard the rabbi ended up being burned alive]] (although behind the Queen's back). Its existence is only known to a few people from outside (such as the King and the Prime Minister), and civil servants from all times work to ensure the well-being of Spanish History.