Orphan Jeffrey Jones sets out on the journey of a lifetime when time-traveler Phineas Bogg crashes outside his window and an accident forces Bogg to take him on a time jump. Unable to return Jeffrey to his proper time, Bogg takes him on a series of adventures through history with the two of them setting right alterations to the time stream.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Bogg is chewing Jeffrey out and listing the events that could happen as a result of him losing his guidebook: empires falling, wars raging, and Bogg losing his job.
- Comforting Comforter: Jeffrey lies down on the rocks at Kitty Hawk, physically and emotionally worn out after the events of the day and telling Bogg the story of how his parents died. Bogg covers him with his coat.
- Cooldown Hug: At the beach, Bogg pushes Jeff too far with his comment that he probably irritated his dad to death. Jeff runs off and Bogg chases him down. After catching him with a lunge, Bogg continues hugging him, partially to keep him from running away and getting into trouble and partially to comfort him.
- Crisis Catch And Carry: When they land in the Battle of Hastings, Bogg grabs Jeff and runs for both their lives.
- Disney Death: Bogg flies the Wright Brothers' glider off a cliff to prove it works...and unfortunately doesn't know how to land it smoothly. He winds up lying unmoving amidst the wreckage for a few minutes, causing Jeffrey to think he died in the crash. He's fine, if a bit battered.
- Great Big Book of Everything: Bogg loses his "Voyagers Manual". Jeffrey tags along to help, as he is a history buff (and Bogg can't return him to his own time, as his omni only goes up to 1970).
- Hate Sink: Jeffrey's Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Tom are only present for a few minutes (and are never even seen), but those few minutes paint them as utterly uncaring about their orphaned nephew and his trauma. Conveniently, this means that the audience (and Jeff) sees Jeffrey being yanked out of his normal life as an upgrade.
- Here We Go Again!: Just after their dogfight with the Red Baron, Bogg and Jeffrey find themselves dropped into the middle of the Battle of Hastings. The last words of the episode are essentially Oh, No... Not Again!
- Indulgent Fantasy Segue: The action sequence that opens the episode is Jeffrey Jones' daydream as he imagines him and his family being attacked by pirates and himself trying to rescue his parents. Cut to reality, and it turns out Jeff is an orphan. He tried but couldn't save his parents during an accident.
- It's All My Fault: Jeff's voice breaks as he tells Bogg that he tried but couldn't get anyone to stop to help his parents. Bogg tells him that he shouldn't blame himself and urges him to rest.
- In Love with Love: Bogg explains that the situation between Agnes and the Wright Brothers isn't so much a legitimate Love Triangle as it is a misconception on all sides.Bogg: This is a case of three people being confused about what they really want. Agnes thinks she wants love, but all she really cares about is romance. Orville and Wilbur think they want Agnes, but all they really care about is flying.
- Is the Answer to This Question "Yes"?: Inverted for laughs. Bogg says that Eddie and Mary should escape while he distracts the Red Baron. When Eddie asks Bogg if he can fly the plane, Bogg asks if Marie Antoinette's legs were attractive. When Jeff calls him on lying, Bogg answers that he didn't lie; Marie Antoinette had awful legs.
- Meaningful Echo: When they meet Mary and Eddie the first time, Jeff says that he's Bogg's son, and Bogg explodes at him when he finds out. When they meet them in the new timeline, it's Bogg who says Jeff is his son.
- Parental Abandonment: Jeffrey's parents died in a car accident before the beginning of the show (and his aunt, who was boarding him, wasn't too keen on having him there; consequently, he latched on fiercely when the time-traveling Phineas Bogg showed up in his life, having nothing in particular to leave behind.
- Resentful Guardian:
- Jeffrey's Aunt Elizabeth is not incredibly happy about suddenly becoming the guardian of her 11-year-old nephew, and neither is Tom, her boyfriend/husband. As the story opens, they're discussing how Jeffrey's presence might mess up a planned trip to Cancun.
- Bogg fills this role initially; he had never intended to have a kid along with him while he's time-traveling and trying to flirt with the ladies. Once he realizes how traumatized Jeffrey is, he lightens up.
- Sibling Triangle: Bogg and Jeffrey find out the reason that airplanes have disappeared from the time stream is that the Wright Brothers fell out over a girl called Agnes. Jeffrey is baffled over how something that big could happen because of a girl. Bogg, amused, informs him that wars have happened over girls.
- Single Parents Are Undesirable: Inverted; while Mary and Bogg are flirting, she tells him that she thinks it's wonderful how he's stepped up to care for his son after his wife's death. Bogg had not been aware that Jeff had called himself Bogg's son, and he yells at him for potentially jeopardizing his chances with her.
- Time Travel Escape: When Bogg stumbles into Jeff's room, Jeff's dog, Ralph, grabs onto the Guidebook and refuses to let go. As Jeff tries to make him turn loose, he falls out the window. Bogg jumps after him, grabs him, and activates the Omni, ensuring they land somewhere that doesn't involve concrete.
- Trapped in the Past: As the Omni is only supposed to go up until 1970 and Bogg's arrival in 1982 was a fluke, he can't return Jeffrey to his own time.
- Was Too Hard on Him: Bogg keeps acting unkind to Jeffrey and trying to leave him behind during the first part of the episode. However, at Kitty Hawk, he snarks that Jeffrey probably killed his dad (with irritation), which Jeffrey doesn't take well. Bogg listens to the story of how his parents died, and is much less hard on him from that point forward.
