History Series / Timeless

''Timeless'' is a 2016 Creator/{{NBC}} series, created by Creator/EricKripke (''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', ''Series/{{Revolution}}'', ''Series/{{The Boys 2019}}'') and Shawn Ryan (''Series/TheShield''), about an unlikely trio of time-travellers. When criminals steal a time-machine, our heroes -- Dr. Lucy Preston (Creator/AbigailSpencer), a history professor, Sergeant 1st Class Wyatt Logan (Creator/MattLanter), a US Army Green Beret, and Rufus Carlin (Creator/MalcolmBarrett), a genius engineer who helped design the time machine -- must travel back in time to protect history as we know it.

Compare with ''Series/TheTimeTunnel,'' a 1960s series with a similar premise; ''Film/Rewind2013'', a {{Made For TV|Movie}} PilotMovie with a similar premise and cast; ''Series/TheMinistryOfTime'', a similar Spanish series; ''Literature/{{Timeline}}'' which has a similar title complete with time travel and [[Creator/DetectiveComics DC Comics']] ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'', which has a near-identical premise but with superheroes instead.

What follows is the crew going to famous points in history, foiling [[AncientConspiracy Rittenhouse's]] plans, and attempting to maintain the status quo of the pre-established timelines, in order to stop Rittenhouse shaping history to their will and taking over the world.

* CuffsOffRubWrists: Lucy's hands were tied with rope, but once Flynn cuts her restraints, her hands immediately go to her wrists.

* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler: Flynn in Season 2]] appears to have made a complete turn but as usual to the trope continually reminds the viewer that GoodIsNotNice.

* PlayingGertrude: Pooja Batra, who plays Denise Christopher's mother, and Karen David, who plays the young Denise, are only six years away from each other in age.

[[spoiler: who Flynn interrogates and kills.]]

* MotiveMisidentification: Flynn insists that Lucy is doing this; she thinks he's an anarchist out to bring down America before it's formed, but he insists he's a patriot trying to "save" the country from Rittenhouse.

** Season 2: Nicholas Keynes, [[spoiler:before [[TheStarscream Emma kills him]].

** In the series finale, "The Miracle of Christmas", [[spoiler: Rufus becomes this to Jiah, Wyatt and Lucy and vice versa, after Flynn altered the timeline by killing Jessica in 2012 to bring Rufus back. Notably, Rufus remembers Wyatt and Lucy being involved, while the others of course remember Rufus being killed during the events of "Chinatown".]]
** When they get back from their trip in the pilot episode, they find that history is recorded the way they witnessed it, instead of how it originally happened in the unaltered timeline. "Anarchists" (a.k.a. the time travelers) bombed the ''Hindenburg,'' [[spoiler:Lucy's comatose mom is perfectly fine, Lucy is engaged to someone, and her sister never existed.]]

** The series finale "The Miracle of Christmas" [[spoiler: has Flynn creating yet another AlternateTimeline by killing Jessica in 2012. This rewrites the events of Season 2 - most notably, the absence of Jessica meant that Lucy and Wyatt became a couple after "Hollywoodland", and Jessica never kidnapped Jiah, meaning that the events that led to Rufus being killed in the Wild West never happened.]]

* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: When Wyatt sees Kate under the ''Hindenburg,'' he rushes over to pull her out of harm's way, despite her death having been a matter of history, and him having been warned about the effects of saving someone who died in the past. [[spoiler: In the end, she's killed by Flynn anyway, and winds up recorded as one of the new ''Hindenburg'' victims.]]

* AncientConspiracy: Rittenhouse has apparently been controlling America since it was founded during the Revolutionary War, and is intent on further cementing their control through manipulating time.

** Garcia Flynn is ruthless, but his objective is to prevent the murder of his wife and daughter [[WellIntentionedExtremist by any means necessary]].
** [[spoiler: Connor Mason is connected to Rittenhouse somehow, but he's also terrified of them. Nevertheless, he still tries to protect Rufus and later Agent Christopher from them.]]

* ArtisticLicenseMedicine: A young John F. Kennedy is admitted to the hospital in 2018 with a bout of colitis. He notes that he felt better almost immediately after treatment. Colitis is diagnosed by a colonoscopy and treatment can take several weeks, including steroid injections and a series of medications. In some cases, an elimination diet is also necessary. It's unlikely that JFK would feel almost immediate relief from his symptoms (let alone from the colonoscopy).

** Wyatt’s haircut is way outside of Army grooming regulations, although it’s possibly justified as SOCOM personnel on special/covert assignments are sometimes allowed to grow their hair and beards out in order to blend in more easily.
%%** Undoubtedly the ''weakest'' security ever seen in a facility holding experimental nuclear weapons.

** In "The Salem Witch Trials", Flynn is able to fire a musket four times in the space of two minutes with pinpoint accuracy, a remarkable accomplishment for someone who presumably does not use a musket regularly. While it's possible that Flynn may have been able to steal four muskets and have them prepared, carrying four loaded (and stolen) muskets in a small town like Salem isn't exactly inconspicuous. PlayedForDrama, as the team has never had an issue carrying modern firearms and even ordnance like grenades into the past before.
* ArtisticLicenseNuclearPhysics: There's no way to accidentally "set off" a nuclear core with a sudden shock such as a car crash. Making the nuclear chain reaction not only start, but fission enough to release the bulk of a bomb's energy before the detonation blows the core apart too far for the chain reaction to continue, requires incredibly sensitive explosives and triggering mechanisms that had to be invented by the Manhattan Project for that specific purpose. If the characters knew as much about atom bombs as they seem to, they would know this.
** For that matter, the bad guys should definitely know that you need a lot more than just a core to set off a nuclear explosion. [[spoiler: Except their actual plan was just to use the core as a sustainable battery for their time machine.]]
** The casual way in which plutonium was handled should have killed every single person involved in that operation.

* BackForTheFinale: [[spoiler: Lucy's father returns during the GrandFinale, when Agent Christopher allies with him to defeat Emma and save Lucy.]]
* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler: Rufus is gunned down by Jessica in the Season 2 finale. In the GrandFinale, Flynn goes back and kills Jessica before she could ever infiltrate the team, averting the events that led to Rufus's death and saving him.]]

** In "The murder of Jesse James", Lucy shoots and kills Jesse James (despite Bass Reeves trying to convince Wyatt not to kill him throughout the whole episode and in that particular scene), presumably because she reluctantly believed that Wyatt was right; if Jesse James had been allowed to live and been taken into custody, he eventually would have escaped and killed more people who weren't supposed to die.

* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: As Flynn and the protagonists mess with history, their actions are noted in history books of the changed timeline.
** Lucy, Wyatt, and Rufus were the Black Cross anarchists blamed for the ''Hindenburg'' disaster.
** Flynn is the unknown assassin who killed Abraham Lincoln. Lucy as Juliet Shakesman is credited with saving General Grant, and even has a high school named after her. On the other hand, Rufus's heroic actions were overlooked, and the credit for stopping another assassin was given to a white soldier who was present in the area.
** The team's encounter with Creator/IanFleming served as the basis for one of his most popular Bond novels.
** Flynn kills William Travis before he can write his "Victory or Death" letter, so Lucy has to write a new one, signed anonymously, that serves the same historical purpose.
** The missing 18 minutes from the Watergate scandal were about Rittenhouse, of whom Nixon was ''terrified''.
** The trip to the French and Indian War is comparatively innocuous as Flynn only wanted to strand the team there, but they still end up being America's new first UFO sighting.
** The moon landing experiences a near-catastrophe due to Flynn's interference, but its successful completion is credited to Katherine Johnson, who is claimed to have single-handedly fixed a computer error due to a "Communist attack" on NASA. She later becomes the first female flight director because of this.
** Henry Ford was apparently part of Rittenhouse, given that Bonnie and Clyde stole a key from him that unlocks a secret safe belonging to the organization.
** Flynn becomes part of the posse that takes down Bonnie and Clyde, posing as a bounty hunter hired to retrieve Henry Ford's key.
** Benedict Arnold was a founding member of Rittenhouse [[spoiler: and was killed by its leader for bringing Flynn and the team to kill him.]]
** Flynn kills and takes on the identity of famed spy Austin Roe, under which he [[spoiler: kills Charles Cornwallis]].
** David Rittenhouse, a contemporary and friend of several Founding Fathers, founded a conspiracy to secretly control America from the shadows. [[spoiler:His murder by Flynn in 1780 implies that diffraction grating was either never invented or was invented by someone else]].
** "The World's Columbian Exposition" confirms that Ford was a member of Rittenhouse, as were Thomas Edison and J. P. Morgan.
** Wyatt decides to execute infamous serial killer H. H. Holmes, saving the lives of several of his future victims and preventing Holmes from profiting off his fame as a murderer.
** Flynn saves Jesse James from being shot in the back by his own men by killing them first. Later, Lucy is the one who ends up shooting James in the back during a standoff.
** Charles Lindbergh was a member of Rittenhouse, and all his famous antisemitism and rabble rousing was just a distraction from the organization's plans.
** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hale_Thompson William Hale Thompson]] was also a Rittenhouse member [[spoiler: who Flynn interrogates and kills.]]
** Flynn steals the government's evidence against Al Capone, allowing him to beat the tax evasion charges. [[spoiler: Flynn also gives Capone the location of Elliot Ness' safe house, leading to his death, and murders the mayor of Chicago--a Rittenhouse associate--after beating the date and location of the next Rittenhouse meeting out of him.]] To counter this, Lucy convinces Capone's brother [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Vincenzo_Capone Jimmy Capone/Richard Hart]] to confront his brother and arrest him [[spoiler: leading to a shootout that kills Al.]]
** Joe [=McCarthy=] was also Rittenhouse.
** Rufus convinces Creator/HedyLamarr to not let the patent lapse on her frequency hopping technique upon which many other technologies like wi-fi have been based. Thus, when the navy finally uses it in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, she's able to get her deserved profits from it and quits acting to become a full time inventor, and in the present is still the record holder for the wealthiest person in history.
** They cause the Salem Witch Trials to instead be known as the Salem Witch ''Revolt'', where the accused women fought their way out and all escaped to safety. This also prevents the term "witch hunt" from entering the vernacular.
** After Don Law is killed before recording Robert Johnson's legendary album, Mason does it himself, and it's credited to his alias [[Franchise/StarWars Lando Calrissian]]. He also can't help letting out a "Yeah!" which ends up faintly audible on the LP.

** Season 1: Garcia Flynn [[BigBadEnsemble and]] Benjamin Cahill.
** Season 2: Nicholas Keynes, before [[TheStarscream Emma kills him]].

* BlackAndNerdy: Rufus. Easily the smartest member of the team (as far as science is concerned), he's also one of only two people who know how to pilot a time machine. And he's extremely shy around his LoveInterest Jiya, sitting six feet from her and preferring to text her rather than open his mouth. In the pilot, Anthony pretty much has to force him to take Jiya on a taco run, just so they might strike up a conversation. Interestingly, Jiya is a nerd too, but she's much more sociable. During their first meeting, Rufus saw her Tribble toy and joked that they could never be friends due to her being a [[Franchise/StarTrek Trekkie]] and him being a ''Franchise/StarWars'' fan (although he at least knew enough about ''Trek'' to know what a Tribble is). Rufus knows a bit more about ''Star Trek'' than he lets on, as he can translate Klingon script on sight. Jiya takes advantage of his nerdiness [[spoiler: to WriteBackToTheFuture in Klingon with the Lifeboat's coordinates and a warning not to come after her]] in "Chinatown".

* BombThrowingAnarchists: Lucy pretends they are anarchists hijacking the ''Hindenburg'' to get it down before the bomb goes off (specifically the Anarchist Black Cross, an actual anarchist organization, though they're not really terrorists, but only support imprisoned anarchists and other radicals). When the ''Hindenburg'' explodes anyway then, it's recorded as if that's what happened, and they're the suspects.

** To chase after the stolen TimeMachine, the protagonists use the prototype.
** Subverted and PlayedForDrama in "The Lost Generation" when Wyatt's replacement uses an authentic 1920's firearm (keeping with protocol) rather than a modern firearm for the mission as Wyatt would. Either because he was unfamiliar with the weapon or the 90-year-old firearm misfired, he ended up getting killed on the mission.

* KillEmAll: How did Frank Hamer and his lawmen stop Clyde Barrow in both the original and altered timelines? By shooting him (and Bonnie Parker) multiple times with no attempt at making an arrest. Given the pair's documented history of violent and sociopathic behavior (murders committed ForTheEvulz, spraying bullets at police officers without warning and with no concern for bystanders), it's pretty well justified.

** ''Richard Nixon'' considers Rittenhouse a twisted and dark organization who are threatening his family.

* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: Rufus [[InvokedTrope invokes this one]] in "The World's Columbian Expedition", using the voice recorder to remind Rittenhouse that there's no one else but him capable of piloting the Lifeboat. [[spoiler: RealityEnsues in the following episode, when Mason tells Rufus that Jiya is now training to operate the Lifeboat and will eventually replace him.]]

** Wyatt's raids on Rittenhouse's facilities in the present qualify. RealityEnsues with each of the raids, however: while Wyatt is a Green Beret, he's only one man against a heavily fortified facility and while he does throw Rittenhouse off balance he's unable to take control of significant assets such as the time machine or intact computers.

* RealityEnsues:
** Rufus sadly accepts it when the history books credit his saving of Johnson to a white soldier, knowing there was little chance a black man of the time would be recognized as a hero.
** In "The World's Columbian Expedition", Rufus tells Mason that he refuses to work with Rittenhouse anymore, stating that, because he's the pilot, he's indispensable. In "The Murder of Jesse James", Mason responds by having Jiya trained as a "co-pilot", in reality, Rufus's replacement if he doesn't reconsider.
** After the events of "Hollywoodland" [[spoiler: when Wyatt and Lucy consummate their relationship]] Wyatt's wife Jessica reappears in the timeline. While happy for Wyatt, Lucy nonetheless is thrown into a bout of depression and self-doubt.
** The events of the Season 1 finale and Wyatt's subsequent raids on Rittenhouse facilities have taken their toll. [[spoiler: As of the ending of "King of the Delta Blues" the organization is on the run and consists only of Nicholas, Lucy's mother, Emma, and whatever operatives they've managed to insert into the past.]]

** Jiya uses this to [[spoiler: return the Lifeboat to the team after escaping from Rittenhouse custody in "Chinatown"]]. RealityEnsues when [[spoiler: Mason and Rufus have to make extensive repairs to the 130-year-old electronics in the Lifeboat over and above the damage done during Jiya's escape]].

** In "The Salem Witch Trials", Flynn is able to fire a musket four times in the space of two minutes with pinpoint accuracy, a remarkable accomplishment for someone who presumably does not use a musket regularly. While it's possible that Flynn may have been able to steal four muskets and have them prepared, carrying four loaded (and stolen) muskets in a small town like Salem isn't exactly inconspicuous.

** [[spoiler: H. H. Holmes, Elliot Ness, William Hale Thompson, Al Capone, Don Law, and Alice Paul all die decades before they're supposed to.]]

* NotSoDifferent:

** Jesse James
** Harry Houdini

* AnOfferYouCantRefuse[=/=]DealWithTheDevil: How Rittenhouse appears to recruit its operatives. Followed up with ShameIfSomethingShouldHappen as necessary.

* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: Wyatt’s haircut is way outside of Army grooming regulations, although it’s possibly justified as SOCOM personnel on special/covert assignments are sometimes allowed to grow their hair and beards out in order to blend in more easily.
** Undoubtedly the ''weakest'' security ever seen in a facility holding experimental nuclear weapons.

* BlackAndNerdy: Rufus. Easily the smartest member of the team (as far as science is concerned), he's also one of only two people who know how to pilot a time machine. And he's extremely shy around his LoveInterest Jiya, sitting six feet from her and preferring to text her rather than open his mouth. In the pilot, Anthony pretty much has to force him to take Jiya on a taco run, just so they might strike up a conversation. Interestingly, Jiya is a nerd too, but she's much more sociable. During their first meeting, Rufus saw her Tribble toy and joked that they could never be friends due to her being a [[Franchise/StarTrek Trekkie]] and him being a ''Franchise/StarWars'' fan (although he at least knew enough about ''Trek'' to know what a Tribble is).
** Rufus knows a bit more about Star Trek than he lets on, as he can translate Klingon script on sight. Jiya takes advantage of his nerdiness [[spoiler: to WriteBackToTheFuture in Klingon with the Lifeboat's coordinates and a warning not to come after her]] in "Chinatown".
* BlackAndWhiteMorality: Bass Reeves in "The Murder of Jesse James".

* BreakOutTheMuseumPiece: To chase after the stolen TimeMachine, the protagonists use the prototype.

* BrokenPedestal: In 1962, Rufus is stunned to discover that Anthony, a key scientist of the project to whom he had looked up, hasn't been kidnapped at all but rather is working with Flynn willingly. This gets even worse in ''Space Race'', when Rufus sees just how far Anthony is willing to go in order to assist Flynn.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: When the team is stranded in 1754 Pennsylvania and needs to sneak into the French Colonial garrison at Fort Duquesne, the French Army surgeon who wants to address Wyatt's supposed wound comes across to modern viewers as a sexist asshole, and his medical skills seem downright horrifying. Except that he's following contemporary medical science of the 1750s [[InnocentlyInsensitive (including his casual dismissal of Lucy)]] to the letter. As far as he knows, he really is doing his job and taking the best possible care of a man with a potentially life-threatening injury. Remember, he's a trained surgeon, and Lucy is just some random woman claiming to be a nurse and talking about "infection" (a word he's probably never even ''heard'' before) in French that's grammatically correct, but in an accent he probably can't quite place. All things considered, why would he listen to her? This doesn't change the fact that certain aspects of medical science in the 1750s ''were'' [[{{Squick}} genuinely horrifying]], of course.

* DidntThinkThisThrough: Rufus thinks he's gotten the upper hand in refusing to do Rittenhouse's dirty work as they need him to pilot the Lifeboat. He's honestly stunned when informed that Jiya is being trained as his replacement and Mason mocks him on his "plan."

* EnemyMine: In "The Capture of Benedict Arnold", the team and Flynn work together to use Benedict Arnold to get close to David Rittenhouse and assassinate him. [[spoiler: It falls apart when they won't also let him kill David's young son John, and Flynn kidnaps Lucy.]]

* FakingTheDead: [[spoiler: Emma Whitmore was the original pilot for the time machine but realized the dark plans Rittenhouse had as they threatened her family. She and Anthony thus faked her death in an accident as she hid out in the 1880s until Flynn finds her.]]

* JerkassHasAPoint: Von Braun is dismissive over the damage of his creations when Rufus confronts him on it. Rufus is astounded.

* NewMeat: When Wyatt is taken off the team, he is replaced by Sergeant Dan Baumgartner. Dan is a veteran special forces soldier but this is his first trip through time and he makes a rookie mistake. Wyatt ignores the rule about not taking anachronistic weapons into the past but Dan obeys the rule and takes a period appropriate revolver rather than his standard service pistol. He is not familiar with the gun and during a gunfight it misfires. [[spoiler: Dan is killed as a result.]]
* NiceGuy: Harry Houdini in "The World's Columbian Exposition". Even after [[spoiler: being tricked by Lucy into helping Flynn break into the Rittenhouse meeting]] Houdini is still willing to help her [[spoiler: escape from Flynn and rescue Wyatt and Rufus from H. H. Holmes]]. He's one of the most helpful people the team has dealt with in the past.

* NotSoDifferent: Flynn says this to William Travis right before killing him, stating that they're both patriots who are viewed as fanatics due to their actions.

* OneRiotOneRanger: When Flynn tries to put pressure on Frank Hamer[[note]] Hamer was a Texas Ranger for over thirty years, during which he was instrumental in tearing down the Ku Klux Klan in Texas, before retiring at the rank of Captain when Miriam "Ma" Ferguson was re-elected Governor. Hamer joked that it was because they made a woman governor, but Ferguson had been flagrantly corrupt in her first term, and Hamer was one of ''dozens'' of Rangers who refused to act as her personal goons. He came out of retirement with a special deputization as a Captain of the Texas Highway Patrol and federal authorization to work across state lines to go after Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker.[[/note]] to get to Rufus, Hamer [[DeathGlare stares him down]] and quietly explains how he once faced an angry mob 2000-strong in Nacogdoches when they tried to lynch a black man ("guilty as sin, by the way") without trial. Hamer didn't back down then, and he doesn't back down now. Flynn recognizes that he's BullyingADragon and lets it drop. The best part? The story is true, and was in fact just one of ''fifteen'' lynch mobs he faced in his career, losing only one prisoner when the mob burned down the courthouse to get him. Hamer ''really was'' that badass.

* RealityEnsues: Rufus sadly accepts it when the history books credit his saving of Johnson to a white soldier, knowing there was little chance a black man of the time would be recognized as a hero.

* RunningGag: It's not that funny except in terms of BlackHumour, but Rufus keeps encountering racism because of his skin colour — or, in the case of Las Vegas, using it as an advantage to slip beneath notice. And since a RunningGag gets stale after a while, his skin color comes in extremely handy when the team is captured by Indians who set him free thinking he's an escaped slave, or has to enter the Black Panthers.
-->Rufus: She? Oh, I fuck her.
-->Lucy: (speechless)

* StableTimeLoop: At the end of "The Lost Generation", Lucy's mother gives her a gift: [[spoiler: the journal that Flynn was using to know the future.]] Then, in the GrandFinale, [[spoiler: the team goes back to 2014 so that Lucy can give Flynn the journal, sending him on the path that leads to the events that start the series]].

* TerminatorTwosome: More like Terminator Two-groups.

* TookALevelInBadass: All of the team, but particularly Rufus, who's leveling up under Wyatt's tutelage and after each interaction he has with historical badasses like Creator/IanFleming, Bass Reeves, and Creator/ErnestHemingway. He's now more of a BadassBookworm than TheLoad.

** Played with in "Space Race" when Flynn seems to be targeting a widow and her young son. It looks like he is there to kill the boy but his conscience is holding him back till the very end. However, it turns out that [[spoiler: the boy is Flynn's half-brother and Flynn is there to save his life.]]

* ArtisticLicenseHistory:
** The team goes back to Nazi Germany in December 1944, less than a week before [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bulge Germany's last major offensive]] in which very cold weather played a key role. Nonetheless, there is no sign of winter anywhere (probably due to CaliforniaDoubling) nor are any of the characters dressed as though there could be a blizzard in a few days.
** Clyde Barrow never used a Thompson submachine gun in his crime spree. His preferred streetsweeper was the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, of which he stole at least a half-dozen from a National Guard armory. In the show, he empties a drum magazine from a Tommy Gun at Ranger Frank Hamer's posse before switching to the BAR.
** The electrical grounding is presented as a solidly known fact for the cause of the ''Hindenburg'' crash, when it's actually just one of numerous theories. The actual cause is unknown.
** The idea that Lincoln's death is all that prevented the post-Civil War South from turning into a racial paradise is, to put it charitably, quite naïve. However, in context, Lincoln's death did cause reprisals against the South which affected race relations. Also, his death did slow down the advance of civil rights for African-Americans.
** According to Lucy, the Department of Energy conducted atomic tests near Las Vegas in the early 1960s. That agency was created in 1977. Its existence in 1962 rather than its predecessor the Atomic Energy Commission may be due to a historical change brought about by a previous mission.
** While Judith Campbell was intimate with both President Kennedy and mob boss Giancana, her autobiography states that their relationships were entirely personal and that Giancana did not ask anything about Kennedy. Judith did say in later interviews that she transferred information and money between them, as we see in the show, but both liberals and conservatives have pointed out that this doesn't match with what is known about Kennedy and his staff, and that she is likely an unreliable witness, especially in light of her history of mental health issues and cancer diagnosis.
** Zigzagged with Creator/IanFleming's appearance: the official record says he went on only a single field mission which was at a different time, but the real truth of wartime espionage naturally remains mysterious - so who's to say there weren't more? He also says he's with [=MI6=], when in reality he was with the Royal Navy's Naval Intelligence Division. His brother Michael Fleming did die in 1940, but he wasn't killed by a V-2 attack; while serving as a captain in the BEF, he was severely wounded and captured during the fighting retreat to Dunkirk, and later died in a POW hospital.
** Katherine Johnson helps the team get back in contact with Apollo 11, when she wasn't actually at mission control that day but at a meeting in the Poconos, watching it on the news like everyone else. Of course, it's possible that the slight changes to history made by Flynn and the Lifeboat team have resulted in her being at mission control instead of at the meeting.
** The series has portrayed the outcome of the Cold War as having been on a razor's edge, with characters speculating that the failure of the moon landing or Von Braun being captured by the Soviet Union could have led to the United States losing the Cold War. In reality, the forty-year standoff of the Cold War was decided on much more than who was currently leading in ballistics technology.[[note]]Leadership in electronics played a much larger role, with the West providing the innovation and the Soviets pirating US, Japanese, and British designs. This was due to Brezhnev's de-emphasis on electronics and computing for ideological reasons. Not until the 1980's did the Soviets attempt to close the gap, and they did have some good computer designs, but the damage had already been done.[[/note]]
** Bonnie and Clyde are shown to be the dashingly handsome and daring bank robbers who are folk heroes. The real pair were unattractive sociopaths who weren't that famous in their own time. Also, rather than go out of their way not to hurt people, the pair had no problem killing innocent people in their robberies. Clyde Barrow ''did'' try to cultivate a "Robin Hood" image, but he tended to get homicidally violent if anyone stood up to him or didn't comply with his demands fast enough for his liking.
** Subverted with H.H. Holmes as the real man and his "Murder Home" were even ''worse'' than what the show has. And unlike in the series, Holmes lived longer to commit more murders and then gain infamy by being America's first well-known serial killer.
** In order to capture Jesse James, who escaped assassination in St. Joseph, Missouri, the team enlists the help of Bass Reeves, a federal marshal for western Arkansas and the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). The distance involved precludes the team contacting Reeves in a timely fashion. Additionally, the theory that Reeves was the inspiration for the Lone Ranger (on which Wiki/TheOtherWiki casts doubts -- see [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bass_Reeves here]]), despite never actually being a Texas Ranger, is treated as fact.
** In "Karma Chameleon" Rufus is trying to strike up a conversation with a lady in the bar. He notices ''Series/{{Manimal}}'' playing on the bar's TV and mentions he's a fan, whereupon she mentions she likes the show too. Leaving aside the probability of Rufus even being ''aware'' of a show that was cancelled ''the month he was born'' after only 8 episodes[[note]]Rufus mentions he was born in December 1983 and thus would have been conceived sometime in March--hence his concern about travelling to that time period. Manimal is widely regarded as one of the worst TV shows ever and was not released on video until a limited DVD run in 2012.[[/note]] the episode takes place in March 1983. The show didn't even premiere until September 30. They're watching a show that ''doesn't even exist yet''.[[note]]What's even more amusing is that ''Manimal'', like this series, was also an NBC property--part of NBC's disastrous Fall 1983 lineup in which ''none'' of the nine new shows that premiered were renewed for a second season. The production staff (if nobody else) should have been aware of this.[[/note]] The lady is also a fan of ''Film/{{Flashdance}}'' and ''Staying Alive'', both of which came out in 1983... on ''April 15'' and ''July 15'' respectively. (Not to mention the fact that the latter was (and is) nowhere near as popular as [[Film/SaturdayNightFever the movie it was a sequel]].) Not to mention that March 3, 1983 was a '''Saturday''' and ''Series/TheATeam'' aired first-run on Tuesdays... (and Rufus states the episode they see on TV is "The Beast from the Belly of a Boeing"... which first aired in May. Given that both ''The A-Team'' and ''Timeless'' were co-produced by Universal, you'd think someone would have noticed).
** Additionally from "Karma Chameleon", the characters are trapped in a hotel bar during a storm so severe that the police have advised everyone to stay off the roads. [[https://weatherspark.com/history/31786/1983/Toledo-Ohio-United-States Weather records for the area in March 1983]] show no unusual weather patterns.
** In "Public Enemy #1" after [[spoiler: Eliot Ness is killed]] the team enlists the help of Richard Hart (a/k/a Jimmy Capone), another Treasury agent. Hart was based in Omaha, Nebraska, which is a seven-hour drive from Chicago in a modern car on a modern interstate highway. In a 1930's vehicle at night[[note]]Most cars had a top speed of 40 mph and their headlights were significantly dimmer than those on more modern cars[[/note]] on less-than-optimal roads[[note]]While most cities had paved roads, most rural areas did not[[/note]] the trip should take much longer, and yet the team manages to make the round trip in the space of one evening. This doesn't address the team's ability to get gas for the car without period currency...or why, given the transportation situation in the era, they wouldn't have simply grabbed the next train out. A day train out/night train back (or vice-versa) combination would have been much more believable than betting on driving.
** A minor case is Ernest Hemingway being said to have invented the term "the lost generation" to describe the people who fought in World War I. He popularized the term in his novel ''The Sun Also Rises'', but he actually borrowed it from his friend Gertrude Stein.
*** Which is {{lampshaded}} in the episode when Josephine Baker confesses to Lucy she believes Hemingway 'stole it' from Stein.
** The real David Rittenhouse had no son, though he did have two daughters and two stillborn children of unknown gender.
** In "The Darlington 500", the team travels to 1955 to prevent the assassination of the heads of Ford, GM, and Chrysler by a sleeper Rittenhouse agent at the titular race. The head of Ford Motor Company at the time was Henry Ford II, the grandson of Henry Ford--established in "Last Ride of Bonnie and Clyde" as a Rittenhouse member himself. Given what we know about the organization, Henry Ford II is also a member of Rittenhouse. The conspiracy is trying to assassinate one of its own members. Additionally, Wendell Scott, the first sanctioned black NASCAR driver, is shown assisting the team. Scott would not race in NASCAR events until 1961. The race is also shown taking place on a dirt track. The actual race took place on a paved track.[[note]]Darlington also holds the distinction of being the world's first true "Superspeedway" with high banking in the turns which allowed cars to build up speed[[/note]] Also, the race was (and still is) [[BlandNameProduct called the "Southern 500", not the "Darlington 500"]].
** In "The Salem Witch Trials", William Stoughton is identified as the governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony. Although Stoughton was the chief magistrate in charge of the trials, he was in fact the lieutenant governor. The governor himself, William Phips, is credited with stopping the trials and executions.[[note]]Perhaps not coincidentally, Phips' own wife was among the accused.[[/note]]
** In "Mrs. Sherlock Holmes", the events of the episode result in the death of women's suffrage activist [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Paul Alice Paul]] while in police custody. Lucy notes upon their return to 2018 that she was completely erased from history. While Alice Paul's enormous achievements in her 92-year lifetime would not have come to pass (or would have been otherwise accomplished by others), it's important to note that, as of 1919, she was a leading voice in the suffrage movement and had already endured a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Sentinels#Occoquan_Workhouse_and_the_Night_of_Terror five-week prison sentence during which Paul and others were beaten and tortured]]. While Paul may be known to scholars of the movement only in the new timeline, it seems extremely unlikely she would have been forgotten completely. If anything, she would have become even ''more'' influential as an InspirationalMartyr for the cause, given the circumstances of her death. Also, the very premise of the episode (that Paul's arrest would stop her delivering a speech for suffrage that would persuade President Wilson to support it) is wrong. Wilson had already come out in favor of it a year before in his State of the Union address, after which his support succeeded in getting it passed through Congress. Her protests had already changed his mind.

''Timeless'' is a 2016 Creator/{{NBC}} series, created by Eric Kripke (''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', ''Series/{{Revolution}}'') and Shawn Ryan (''Series/TheShield''), about an unlikely trio of time-travellers. When criminals steal a time-machine, our heroes -- Dr. Lucy Preston (Creator/AbigailSpencer), a history professor, Sergeant 1st Class Wyatt Logan (Creator/MattLanter), a US Army Green Beret, and Rufus Carlin (Creator/MalcolmBarrett), a genius engineer who helped design the time machine -- must travel back in time to protect history as we know it.

* CatchingUpOnHistory: After Rittenhouse saved him from his death in World War II, Nicholas Keynes decides to learn about what he missed by reading Wikipedia. Except instead of using a computer, he has it printed out for him so that he can read it on paper.