The Timelessness of 80 Days

It’s about time. 

For the amount of TV watching that’s in my daily diet, I omit most of the popular stuff and latch on to only a show or two every other year or so. And by “latch on,” I mean buy the DVDs and watch on endless repeat. 

A half a dozen years ago, I did this with the NBC time-travel series Timeless, patiently waiting for the network to make up its mind (bow to fans’ demand?) and order a second season. The second season slipped more into soap opera territory but ended with a perfectly executed cliff hanger that required the network to at least order a two-hour special Christmas finale. Which added a tiny cliff hanger of its own. Fans always live in hope of a sequel.

Timeless intrepids: Lucy Preston, Rufus Carlin, Wyatt Logan
(Abigail Spencer, Malcolm Barrett, Matt Lanter)

Then there was nothing good on. I admit to getting hooked on the so-called Jane Austen Sanditon adaptation on PBS, once I let go of the idea it had anything to do with Jane Austen. So, not an adaptation, but good 19th century soap opera.

Finally my post-Timeless depression was alleviated with another liberally adapted classic, Around the World in 80 Days. Not time travel, strictly speaking, but travel adventure heavily influenced by time and the urgency of an ever-pulsing clock.

Do the Clockblockers hear a hint here? Good. Because the eight-episode adventure of 80 Days filled my wish for a third season of Timeless. 

80 Days intrepids: Abigail Fix, Passepartout, Phileas Fogg
(Leonie Benesch, Ibrahim Koma, David Tennant)

I don’t want to say there are no new ideas, but the structural similarities of the two shows are worth noting. The principal characters are a trio of mismatched strangers who undertake the voyage for different reasons. Thrown into unknown worlds with unforeseen dangers (and unsuspected antagonists), they come to rely on each other’s unique capabilities and resources. 

At some point, each of the three partners is manipulated to betray the other two. Anger and regret ensue, trust is restored. There are lost loves and new love interests—some conventional, others not so much. At the core of it all, though, is friendship.

The nexus of the Timeless–80 Days connection is the shared character of legendary lawman Bass Reeves (aka The Lone Ranger). “The Lone Ranger was black? That is awesome!” as Timeless’s Rufus (Malcolm Barrett) put it. (The 80 Days characters, of course, do not make a connection to The Lone Ranger since their story predates the fictional character by half a century.)

As Bass Reeves: Timeless (Colman Domingo), 80 Days (Gary Beadle) 

Joining the lawman in the center of the Venn diagram are the bad guy being brought to justice, an independent woman living in the old West on her own terms, and the female member of our heroic trio shooting the bad guy and saving the others.

Tough chicks of the old West: Timeless (Anne Wersching), 80 Days (Elena Saurel)

The aesthetics of Timeless and Around the World in 80 Days are very different, but both visually and musically arresting. There is violence in both series, but it’s more of a thing in the commercial network program versus the PBS Masterpiece Theatre offering. 

Finally, there’s the technological advancements thing. In Timeless, the dangerous machine has already been unleashed, pushing the narrative along for restoring order, while in 80 Days, the technologies are being invented and tested, pushing the narrative along toward progress against the will of the old order. In the end, both are about ensuring a better future. 

Around the World in 80 Days

IMDb links:

Around the World in 80 Days (2021 TV series, aired on PBS 2022)

Timeless (2016-2019 NBC TV series, two seasons and finale)

Appendix

Around the World without the Balloon

Danisha Crosby, Round House Theatre

Back from the Round House production of Around the World in 80 Days, which we are urgently warned in the program does not feature a balloon. That was a movie thing. There was no balloon in Jules Verne's book.

What I love about the productions at RH recently has been the musicality of the dramaturgy and the heavy emphasis on dance in the blocking. It isn't a musical, but it's musical. In AW80, actors suggest the motions of trains, boats, and other conveyances through their choreographed leans, shakes, and jolts.

And then of course there is the audience-pleasing coconut-clopping "horses," a nod to Monty Python that brought a smile to my face as I pictured King Arthur and Patsy rather than Passepartout trotting on stage.

Silliness ensues throughout; world cultures are caricatured on an equal opportunity basis, though I do wonder why I should be more uncomfortable with the gross caricatures of Asians than of the Brits and Americans. Because it's acceptable to laugh at ourselves but not at others?

Through the spirited jaunt, Phileas Fogg (performed by Mitchell Hebert) is a stoical pillar of gentlemanly sensibility - mathematical and precise. How does such a man launch himself into such an adventure? It's a mystery; perhaps hubris is a powerful enough force to tempt a man from logic, for along the way he is rewarded with the illogic of falling in love.

Around the World in 80 Days plays at the Round House Theatre, Bethesda, Maryland, through May 30. This concludes the 2009-2010 season for RHT, and it is the first season that I have thoroughly enjoyed every single production (even the one WaPo hated, The Picture of Dorian Gray). I'm not even sure I could pick out my favorite (leaning toward Asher Lev); all were thought-provoking, but AW80 was certainly the most entertaining.