Timeless Review: Stranded (Season 1 Episode 7)

Rufus, finally, takes center stage in this week’s Timeless episode, “Stranded”.

It’s about time that the team’s comedic relief becomes a more fleshed out, vital character. It’s good to see his intelligence and skills being utilized so that we, the viewers, can see and be reminded of just how valuable Rufus is to this operation. In the past, he’s sat on the sidelines while the other two “saved the day” far too often, so, this is an excellent change of pace.

It’s just good to have this little Rufus-centric moment to check in and be like, “Without him, they literally never would have gotten back.” This episode, this reminder, makes Rufus irreplaceable, and it makes us remember just how important he really is.

And, just maybe, it reminds his teammates too — especially given the tensions that arose last week and even Wyatt’s comment this week about how he doesn’t believe he has anyone he can rely on on these missions.

It’s also nice that, in the past two weeks, the series seems to be focusing more on creating conflict between characters and within their main storyline, rather than relying so heavily on gimmicky time travel destinations. It seems a bit like Timeless is working toward becoming more character driven, which is a good move for this series.

The strongest episodes have been the ones that focused more on internal struggles between the show’s main characters and less on the excitement of where they are in time and what historical event is taking place.

That’s not to say that “Stranded” is necessarily one of the show’s best episodes thus far. Compared to last week, this does not have quite the same hook. It is a break our heroes needed to repair their cracking relationship, yes, but one can’t help but wonder if, perhaps, everything between them was resolved too quickly, considering the fact that their trust was only broken one week ago, for us.

Then again, Timeless — like any other series, really — is one that is not without it’s flaws, and some of those flaws simply become part of a show’s charm for the people who love it. This series moves quickly, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing — it could just mean that something bigger and better is coming up and, therefore, this minor problem needs to be resolved quickly.

Another one of Timeless‘ charming quirks is that so much happens so easily and so conveniently that viewers have to just let it slide for the sake of the plot — like when Rufus makes it seem like learning how to become a blacksmith to fix the ship would take him a long time, and yet, by the end of the episode, he seems to have mastered it.

Or, let’s be honest, the fact that Jiya is able to decipher that clue. That is a very big leap to take with such certainly based solely on the fact that you know Rufus’ note contains the words “death” and “millennium.” That is just…

Yeah, it’s a stretch.

But this show is becoming notorious for expecting fans to let things like that slide for the sake of the story. It’s just a bit more obvious than usual in this particular episode.

It makes sense, though, and can be forgiven when you bear in mind that the focus of this episode was almost entirely on building and strengthening bonds and relationships between the characters. That particular moment creates and shows us a bond between Jiya and Rufus that we haven’t seen before, so, it’s easy to understand why it happens.

All in all, “Stranded” is not the worst we’ve seen, but it’s not the best, either.

What did you think of this week’s episode? Let me know in the comments below!

Reviewer Rating:

User Rating:

Timeless airs Mondays, 10/9c on NBC.