• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast

A philosopher, an actor, and a sci-fi writer talk about media and how we consume it.

  • About
  • Episodes
  • Subscribe
  • Support
  • Contact

PMP#22: Untangling Time Travel

December 10, 2019 by Mark 5 Comments

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/partiallyexaminedlife/PMP_022_11-21-19.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Time-travel rules in The Terminator franchise are notoriously inconsistent. Is it possible for someone from the future to travel backwards to change events, given the paradox that with a changed future, the traveler wouldn’t then have had the problem to try to come back and fix? Neither the closed-loop series of events in the first film nor the changed (postponed) future in the second make sense, and it just gets worse from there.

Mark, Erica, and Brian are joined by Brian’s brother and co-author Ken Gerber to talk through the various time travel rulesets and plot scenarios (a good starter list is at tvtropes.org), covering Dr. Who, Back to the Future, Looper, Dark (the German TV show), time loop films a la Groundhog Day (Edge of Tomorrow, Happy Death Day), time-travel comedies (Future Man), historical tourism (Mr. Peabody and Sherman), Timecop‘s “The same matter cannot occupy the same space,” using time-travel to sentimentalize (About Time) or clone yourself (see that Brak Show episode about avoiding homework), and freezing time (like in the old Twilight Zone).

Some articles we looked at included:

  • “A History of Time Travel Fiction” by Jeremy Gordon
  • “The 30 Best Time Travel Movies” by Darren Orf
  • “Time Travel: Theories, Paradoxes & Possibilities” by Elizabeth Howell
  • “Let’s Unravel the Time Travel Paradox of Terminator: Dark Fate” by Angela Watercutter
  • “Why Are We So Interested In Time Travel?” by Steve Paulson interviewing James Gleick
  • “Time Travel Probably Isn’t Possible—Why Do We Wish It Were?” by Simon Worrall, again with Gleick

You can find the Brian and Ken short stories we talk about at gerberbrothers.net. Listen to them podcast together at constellary.com. The PEL episode where the dangers of AI are discussed is #108 with Nick Bostrom.

This episode includes bonus discussion that you can only hear by supporting the podcast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This podcast is part of the Partially Examined Life podcast network and is curated by openculture.com.

Sponsor: Visit mackweldon.com and enter the promo code POP for 20% off underwear, sportswear, and more.

Filed Under: Film, Science Fiction, TV Tagged With: entertainment podcast, film podcast, Ken Gerber, science fiction, time travel

Reader Interactions

« Previous Post
PMP#21: Role-Playing Video Games
Next Post »
PMP#23: The Singer Not the Song w/ Ken Stringfellow

Trackbacks

  1. PMP#52: The Twilight Zone from Serling to Peele says:
    July 14, 2020 at 10:38 pm

    […] If you enjoyed this episodes, you might like our previous discussion with Ken on time travel. […]

    Reply
  2. PMP#53: The Hamilton Phenomenon w/ Sam Simahk says:
    July 22, 2020 at 3:17 pm

    […] If you enjoyed this episodes, you might like our previous discussion with Ken on time travel. […]

    Reply
  3. Pretty Much Pop #52: The Twilight Zone from Serling to Peele says:
    July 22, 2020 at 3:40 pm

    […] If you enjoyed this episode, you might like our previous discussion with Ken on time travel. […]

    Reply
  4. PMP#80: Reliving Groundhog Day (and Palm Springs, Russian Doll, etc.) says:
    February 2, 2021 at 5:21 pm

    […] Day with its costume designer in our ep. 38 and got into time travel more generally with Ken in ep. 22 and into “weird situations” in our Twilight Zone ep. […]

    Reply
  5. Pretty Much Pop #80: Reliving Groundhog Day (and Palm Springs, Russian Doll, etc.) | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    February 18, 2021 at 3:12 am

    […] Day with its costume designer in our ep. 38 and got into time travel more generally with Ken in ep. 22 and into “weird situations” in our Twilight Zone ep. 52. You may also enjoy Wes Alwan’s […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar


patreon

What is Pretty Much Pop?

Pretty Much Pop brings together philosophers, artists, comedians, and other smart folks to talk about media and how we consume it: TV, film, music, novels, games, comics, comedy, theater, podcasts, and more. Most of what (other) people like is pretty weird when you think about it, so thinking about it is what we do.

Get 3 shows ad-free with all bonus content from Apple Podcasts!

PEL Network

© 2023 · Pretty Much Pop