Funny / The Ministry of Time

aka: El Ministerio Del Tiempo

In general

• Julián's Deadpan Snarker quotes.
• Salvador's Straight Man personality against Diego Velázquez's Bunny-Ears Lawyer schemes.
• Any time Alonso displays his Deliberate Values Dissonance and when he has to wear an anachronic disguise.

Episode 1 ("El tiempo es el que es")

• "We are Spanish, no? Improvise!"
• Irene teaching Amelia how to use a tampon.
• Ministry agent Carrasco in 1808 getting annoyed because of the decreased Christmas salary.
• When Julián is first told about time travelers: "Wait a minute, what is this? A joke or some new psychological treatment? What is this?"
• Alonso doing an elaborate reverence when introduced to Julián, and then asking who is "this Alatriste everyone mistakes me for."
• Thibaud and the Afrancesado visiting the famous bookstore in Gran Vía, La Casa del Libro, and running away from the security guard when the alarm goes off.
  Thibaud: "War of Independence?" This is a bad start.
• This from Irene:
  Miss Folch, Mister de Entrerríos, it is time you discover the 21st Century. (Cut to the characters sitting in a car in the middle of a traffic jam) For fuck's sake! What's your problem, you idiot?! What an asshole...
• Alonso encounters some oddities with his new partners.
  Carrasco: There? It's not far by horse.
  Alonso: The lady can't ride a horse.
  Amelia: I most certainly can!
  Julián: But I can't.
  Alonso: You can't ride a horse?
  Carrasco: Well, it is a little far going on foot.
• Alonso shows up at breakfast with a wealth of information on their target.
  Julián: You learned all this last night?
  Alonso: While others were sleeping, I was dedicating myself to the service of my country. (shares a long look with the busty barmaid from last night)
  Amelia: Well, I hope you left your country satisfied, because I need your friend to enter the Frenchman's bedroom.

Episode 2 ("Tiempo de gloria")

• Any time Julián faces the womanizer Lope de Vega's Rhymes on a Dime. From reciting a Rosendo song to some balls rimes.
• The One-Scene Wonder agent disguised as a caveman:
  Agent: Off to Atapuerca again. I hate this job.
• "The Esquilache Riots stay as they are!"
• Gil Pérez's Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking quote.
  Gil Pérez: There are two questions in the Ministry that no one has an answer for. One is Ernesto's origin.
  Alonso: And the other?
  Gil Pérez: Why did Di Stéfano play for Real Madrid F.C. if he signed for Barcelona F.C.?
• The untranslated rant of the Portuguese tavern wench after Lope drops her for Amelia.
• Amelia's much renewed interest in reading Lope de Vega by the end of the episode.

Episode 3 ("Cómo se reescribe el tiempo")

• Velázquez complaining about his restored paintings being too illuminated like a Spanish TV series. This is a Take That! to rival Telecinco's decision to light the Alatriste TV series' chiaroscuro cinematography.
  • Later in the episode, when the Nazis take over the Ministry, Velázquez doesn't stop drawing and is making Salvador nervous.
  Salvador: Could you please stop drawing!
  Velázquez: If I stop drawing, I shit myself!
  Salvador: Then keep drawing!
• Franco's Truth in Television high-pitched voice. And him asking Ernesto what Hitler is saying at every moment, because he has no idea of German.
  • Ernesto tactfully declines to translate Hitler's last sentence.
• After Julián hears a Nazi speak in Spanish:
  Julián: What a detail! We need no subtitles with this one!
• Salvador's Black Comedy Burst after listening to Himmler's Hypocrite ranting about bullfights.
  Salvador: Yes, because Auschwitz was a family friendly show.
• The Argentinian beggar watching the Nazi troops entering the Ministry.
  Beggar: Another war film. This is boring.
• "Learning German is fundamental for our country's youth." - Are we sure this is 1940?

Episode 4 ("Una negociación a tiempo")

• The dog peeing on Alonso's leg. Even when the swashbuckler moves away, the dog still pees on him.
• By the third repeated day, Julián can anticipate the shoutings of the angry crowd before they happen.
  • He also provides another Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking moment as they watch Rabbi Levi's auto-da-fé (probably meant to be a Take That! as well):
  Amelia: I don't understand how people enjoy these things.
  Julián: The human being has always enjoyed other people's miseries. Otherwise, there would have never been Roman circuses, autos-da-fé, gossip television shows...

Episode 5 ("Cualquier tiempo pasado")

• Salvador Martí revealing that Alonso's rescue of Ernesto on a modern motorcycle appears in a 15th century manuscript.
  • Also this threat to Velázquez:
  Salvador: If you insist again, I'll send you to Altamira to paint bisons.
• Alonso, a 16th century man, dressed like an 80s rocker.
• Alonso realizes that their 1981 safehouse is in the same street as the safehouse he uses in 1569.
  Julián: They have certainly amortized this house!
  • "Welcome to the house of the Alcántaras!"
• The team's attempts to stave off boredom while they wait until they can get out of their safehouse.
• Velázquez asks Pablo Picasso which painter he likes the most from the Prado Museum. Picasso promptly answers Francisco de Goya. However, he adds later that he considers Velázquez the best Spanish painter ever.
• Amelia passing the joint in the 80s rock concert and getting a slap on the ass.

Episode 6 ("Tiempo de pícaros")

• Alonso's Leeroy Jenkins against the two hidalgos and his war cry "For Saint James and for Spain!".
• Julián's "miraculous" punishment against Alberto Díaz Bueno that leaves the people speechless.

Episode 7 ("Tiempo de venganza")

• Alonso is eager to thank the person who donated blood to save his life, but becomes horrified when he's told it was Amelia. As much as he's progressed, he's still a man of his times and you can see him slowly beginning to wonder what effects a woman's blood will have. He looks between Amelia's body and his own in increasingly concerned contemplation.
• Ernesto's Badly Battered Babysitter moment with the young queen Isabel II and her sister Luisa Fernanda in the 3-D Movie theater.
  • Ernesto's dismay at having to take care of the queen takes a hilarious Reality Subtext when you realize she is played by one of the critically panned child actors from the failed TV series Alatriste. His face is almost telling "we have to work with those people?!"

Episode 8 ("La leyenda del tiempo")

• Alonso enjoying the Don Juan Tenorio play and getting angry with Luis Buñuel.
  • The Don Juan Tenorio play becomes a Chekhov's Gun to Alonso and uses it to pretend he came back from the dead like Don Juan's father and give a good lesson to a man who abused Blanca, the love of his life.
• The patrol's meeting with their contact, Ortigosa:
  Julián: Was this necessary, to disguise as a gardener?
  Ortigosa: It is no disguise. I am a gardener.
  Julián: Oh.
  Ortigosa: This Ministry stuff is just a way to get some cash at the end of the month.

Episode 9 ("Tiempo de leyenda")

• Velázquez saying "Sayonara, baby'', as he, Alonso and Amelia have just seen the film.
• Spínola saying "Yippee-ki-yay, hideputas!".
• The conversation between Ramón Menéndez Pidal and Charlton Heston. The actor seriously asks if there were rifles in El Cid's time and if there's any relation between him and Christopher Columbus. This event did occur in real life when Heston was preparing to get in character for the El Cid film.
  Menéndez Pidal: The only relationship between them is the letter C. Of Cid, of Christopher, of Columbus and of how much of a cunt you have to be to ask those questions.
• The Canarian agent telling Julián: "That's flow, brother."
• Poor Alonso. He actually understands DNA once it's explained to him, but every time he tries to show off his knowledge by casually mentioning DNA in conversation, the person he's talking to is clueless. Then, when he finally manages to get a sample of El Cid's blood for testing, Amelia reveals that she already has all the evidence they need, turning his entire mission into an "All for Nothing" plot.

Episode 10 ("El tiempo en sus manos")

• Pacino makes sure that his entrance to the junkies has a proper soundtrack.
• Pacino's aggravation when people don't react to his mention of the movie Serpico.
  Pacino: Shit future, where people don't know Al Pacino...

Episode 11 ("Tiempo de hidalgos")

• Gil Pérez, 16th century man, kills time by playing with his computer.
• Pacino struggling to speak 17th century Spanish correctly.
  • And Alonso flat out telling Pacino that his '80s underworld slang is unintelligible.
• Salvador getting angry over the Ministry's job at the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest in Madrid — which infamously ended in a four-way tie between Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and France.
  Salvador: Who came up with this botch?
• Pacino (1980s) getting lectured on the subject of computers by Amelia (1890s) and Alonso (16th century). When Gil Pérez, too, shows off as much better with modern technology, Pacino complains about the fact that older people know more about technology than him.
• Alonso's and Amelia's antics during the rehearsals.
  Alonso: Why do you call this play "The Algiers baths" if no one bathes here?
• By way of Fridge Brilliance: the Don Quixote's original manuscript Walcott buys is now worth nil - because Cervantes' rewrite is the one that contains its original beginning.

Episode 12 ("El monasterio del tiempo")

• Pacino dressed as a priest. He lampshades his previous comment about priests being "men in long dresses".
  Pacino: Alonso is going to laugh at this.
• Angustias' Adeste Fideles solo in the Christmas Mass. It's... not very good.
• Pacino giving the Christmas Mass.
• The three confessions Pacino takes.
• Angustias giving tips to Napoléon Bonaparte on cooking.
• Rodolfo Suárez dropping his great-great-great-great-grandson's Catchphrase "I can promise, and I do promise..."
• Alonso's Mundane Object Amazement caused by running water and a light inside a refrigerator.
• Ernesto dealing with Alonso's antics while trying to get him used to the modern world.

Episode 14 ("Tiempo de magia")

• Argamasilla telling an American that he is "very Spanish, much Spanish" (also a Take That! to a similar gaffe by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy).
• Bennett slips the microphone Pacino had put into Argamasilla's pocket into a black woman's pocket. Pacino is suitably spooked when he hears gospel - which he calls "Jesus Christ Superstar" music.
• Argamasilla uses his power to check Irene out, who smirks at him.

Episode 15 ("Tiempo de valientes - Part I")

• When Alonso gets arrested at an anti-eviction protest, Elena, an attorney who was taking part, shouts at him to not put resistance. She hasn't even finished the sentence when the camera shows one of the policemen getting punched out of the van.

Episode 16 ("Tiempo de valientes - Parte II")

• Alonso tells Julián about their latest addition to the patrol, Pacino.
  Julián: No fucking way. The actor?
• Julián notices the paper Alonso has in his hand with all the notes about the fate of the "Last Ones of Philippines", calling it a chuleta — which is a slang word for cribsheets. However, "chuleta" also means "pork chop", so Alonso mistakes this as Meat-O-Vision.

Episode 17 ("Óleo sobre tiempo")

• This communication when the plan to stop the Darrow employees is set in motion:
  Amelia: Amelia here, in position. Waiting for instructions.
  Irene: Irene here. I'm in position. Everyone has left.
  Alonso: Alonso here. (beat) I have nothing to say.
• Every instance of Velázquez's enormous, magnificent EGO.
  Irene: Stop interferring the communication!
  Velázquez: I cannot! I'm responsible of communications!
• Philip V's random acts of insanity and his interactions with Julián.
  Philip V: So... Am I alive, Physician?
  Julián: Indeed, Your Majesty. You can sleep peacefully.

Episode 18 ("Separadas por el tiempo")

• The Fridge Brilliance that Javier, Ernesto's son and a YouTube-ish celebrity, is the brother of one of the most infamous inquisitors of our time: Torquemada.

Episode 19 ("Tiempo de lo oculto")

• Alonso becoming mystified with yet another modern term, "follamigo".
• Alonso hiding all important papers in his underpants.
• The Ministry trying to hide itself as something it is not: a normal government building. With 90s clothes, coffee machines, wigs...
  • Salvador wants Lombardi to believe that the Ministry is just another government building, which is used to poke fun at the clichés about Spanish civil servants:
  Irene: Alright, now everyone install the Solitaire on their computers, and let Lombardi see it open.
  Agent: Does the Minesweeper count too?
  Irene: Yes, it does. Each one on a window. And don't even think about minimizing.
• Sonia's scream when she realizes that she is in front of the very Christopher Columbus.
• Lombardi's face in the 5000 pesetas note.
• The Power Trio's Epic Fail when they try to pass themselves as Portuguese. Faking their accents and giving them names such as Cristiano, Ronaldo or Mourinho.
• Julián giving this line when they have Lombardi gagged.
  Julián: You will never see an Argentinian this silent.
• The most Argentinian expletive ever (¡La reconcha de la Lola!) echoing through the Ministry's staircase after Lombardi drops it.

Episode 20 ("Hasta que el tiempo nos separe")

• The Cameo by MasterChef judge Pepe Rodríguez As Himself at the beginning of the episode.
• A Ministry of Time-style stag party: going to the Sanfermines in 1931 with Ernest Hemingway.
• Ortigosa's new brother-in-law, a hilarious cliché on the annoying brother-in-law found in every wedding.
  Irene: Every wedding has an idiot in it.
• Velázquez appearing in the wedding with clear signs of being hungover... and proceeding to get drunk again during the wedding.
• Irene choosing a bad moment to make out with another wedding guest.
• Julián tries to repeat his Large Ham scene from Episode 6... but it comes out a bit ridiculous because Amelia cannot light the fireworks for her life.
  Julián: Let the sky be lit, fuck!
• Ambrogio Spinola and his men arrive, ready to kick ass... but it turns out the crisis has been averted. He then proceeds to knock the aforementioned brother-in-law when he makes the mistake of heckling him.

Episode 22 ("Con el tiempo en los talones")

• Salvador with a leg cast. Particularly when he gets into the interrogation room - and has to maneuver to get his leg under the table. Coupled with a complete deadpan face. And also the Rear Window Shout-Out.
• Very meta humor: the episode has Hitchcock as a main character. What role does he play? The one he invented: the MacGuffin.
• Alonso gets scared of two passing seagulls, similar to the end shot of The Birds, as he knows that they are very aggressive and tear eyes off.
• Pacino getting angry with Amelia and Alonso for not knowing films like Vertigo. Amelia excuses herself as preferring books.
• Having enough of distrusting the workers that are reforming the Ministry, Salvador hires a Baroque artist to do the job: José Churriguera.

Episode 24 ("Tiempo de hechizos")

• The young Lola asks Salvador how is Spain after 1943.
  Salvador: There is a country living in democracy but it stills retains some bad habits from the past. The north looks down at us and we look down at the south. We have the country we deserve.
  Lola: Is that bad or good?
  Salvador: [Beat] Good question.
• Bécquer asks Pacino how he survived a shipwreck, and Pacino tells him the story involving an iceberg, a music band, children and women going first to the boats, and a large cruiser sinking.
• At first, Alonso and Amelia's Stepford Smiler moments were quite funny, leaving all the job for Pacino instead of working as a team. Then it goes to Nightmare Fuel territory once the truth is unveiled.
• When Pacino and Bécquer arrive at the townsfolk's aquelarre, Pacino tells the poet to look at his two o'clock where Mencía and the baby are imprisoned and Bécquer misunderstood it as the real time.
  Pacino: Look at your two.
  Bécquer: Two o'clock? Is it really that late?
  

Episode 25 ("Tiempo de ilustrados")

• Velázquez's purpose to meet Francisco de Goya in the same fanboyish manner as Picasso. Salvador refuses, but orders him to paint an exact replica of "La maja desnuda". Velázquez does not find the inspiration and insists, so Angustias helps him. Velázquez manages to find Goya, who doesn't know who he is, and asks him about the inspiration only to be interrupted by some screams. At the end of the episode, Velázquez and the patrol share a dinner with Goya, and Velázquez asks him if he would have like to meet the real Velázquez. Goya's response? Absolutely not, as he was told that Velázquez was an "insufferable Andalusian". Velázquez is disappointed.
  • Talking about the woman's scream, Velázquez goes to rescue her from two pervert men. He didn't know that it was a scheme thought by Amelia, Alonso and Pacino so Simón Bolívar could win the heart of his future wife, María Teresa del Toro. Velázquez hits Bolívar unconscious and Pacino calls him out.
• Alonso getting angry when playing the blind man's buff (in Spanish "the blind little chicken") and hitting the man who kicked him while blindfolded. Then Alonso sees a young man climbing a fence and furiously goes to hit him too. The man presents himself as Simón Bolívar, the very one who will free South America years later.
  Pacino: This Pink Floyd guy will free America?
• The Japanese Tourist at the beginning watching "La maja desnuda" at the Prado Museum. After looking everywhere so nobody is watching, he takes pictures of the painting. Then he sees the painting being cut by an invisible force (actually caused by The Exterminator Angel conspiracy in Goya's time, 1799) and then shouts "Shit!" in Japanese.
• Pacino's Breaking the Fourth Wall moment when the plan of simulating an attack to a woman reminds him of Back to the Future.^note This comment was also interpreted by some as a Take That! to Timeless. At the time of filming, the production companies were embroiled in a lawsuit against NBC and Sony for copyright infringement.
  It's clear that no idea is original. Well... [looks at the camera] some are more original than others.
• Pacino refusing to recite the Overly Long Name he's been given for the mission.
  Just call me Pacino and we'll leave the rest of surnames for when we have time to talk.

Episode 26 ("Tiempo de esplendor")

• Carrasco is unimpressed about Pacino's lack of knowledge of the time he's in.
  So the History tests for new agents are no longer required?
• Even when Amelia is calling them out for their attempted brawl, Lope finds a moment to snark on Cervantes:
  Cervantes: The summit is a narrow place.
  Lope: Says someone who never set foot on it.
• Lope taunting Cervantes, pretending to leave, but staying behind the door and counting the seconds before Cervantes loses it.

Episode 27 ("Tiempo de esclavos")

• The Ministry, tasked with saving Alfonso XII after an assassination atempt, makes a last minute recruitment of a modern day brain surgeon to operate him.
  Surgeon: Holy shit! He's the real Alfonso XII!
  Salvador: Of course he is. Did you think this was an elaborate joke? I remind you that you signed a confidentiality contract.
• Alonso tells Alfonso XII that he is always at his service:
  Alfonso XII: If you want to remain at my service you better cut your hair, because you look like a bandit from Sierra Morena.

Episode 28 ("Tiempo de censura")

• The long built wonderment about if Buñuel will still remember Alonso after 35 years, or not. He does.
• Alonso declares himself a "conscientious objector."
• Alonso riding a minuscule Seiscientos while dressed like a bullfighter.

Episode 29 ("Tiempo de conquista")

• Pacino dresses and moves along the jungle like Jack Sparrow.

Episode 34 ("Entre dos tiempos")

• The patrol's mission is to go to 1966... to prevent the filming and broadcast of a series called "El Ministerio del Tiempo". Which Salvador mentions is a shitty series (which is also a Call-Back to Episode 19).
  • The scenes that are being filmed become hilarious because they are either as Narmy as you would expect of a 1960s series, or they are pretty much remakes of the scenes that happened in the first episodes.
  • During a fight scene in which Alonso and Pacino have to play as Dirty Communists, the director tells Alonso he has to give his everything. In the next take, Alonso punches the guy playing him so hard he breaks the actor's nose... and the director hires Alonso to play As Himself, saying he is the reincarnation of Alonso de Entrerríos.
  • To sabotage the production, Pacino suggests they replace the scripts (which are all a paean on Spain's history) with others that tell the actual missions the Ministry has gone through. Salvador greenlights it, putting everyone on the task of writing the ideas, but warns everyone not to be too good, lest they actually end up making a good series. It is heavily implied that the replacement scripts are the ones used by the actual series.
    • Salvador and Ernesto are obviously not so good with typewriters.

Episode 36 ("El laberinto del tiempo")

• Alonso leaves his daughter to be taken care of his daughter. What's funny is the fact he wrote instructions on how to take care of his daughter that sells it.
  • Angustias even calls Alonso over a situation that never gets elaborated on and Alonso tries to tell her to read the manual.
• Ernesto, a man from Medieval times, has to fake being the banker that will give Pedro Almodóvar the cash for his notorious movie "Laberinto de pasiones".
• Velasquez is on an elevator and the moment Alonso's baby daughter is going towards him, he is rapidly pushing the close door button before she even gets on the elevator with him.

Episode 38 ("La memoria del tiempo")

• The episode begins with Velázquez walking through the Prado Museum to see his paintings... while listening (and lip-syncing) to a rap song about "Las Meninas".
• Once again, Velázquez gets drunk, and his hangover is hilarious.
• Irene and Pacino are trying to sleep, but they have a snoring Velázquez next to them and Picasso having very loud sex with Dora Maar. Cue Pacino:
  Pacino: Well, at least we will be able to say that Velázquez and Picasso didn't let us sleep.

Episode 42 ("Días de futuro pasado")

• A moment of Biting-the-Hand Humor with the sight gag of Cuéntame Cómo Pasó (one of TVE's few remaining hits, and a Long Runner in its own right having been on air since 2001) still airing new episodes in 2070.

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