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Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Time After Time

Time After Time is ABC's new drama about HG Wells and Jack the Ripper time traveling to 2017. I'm really excited about this show because it combines everything I love: time travel, unsolved mysteries, people who don't understand how phones work...

I haven't watched all of the two-hour premiere yet, but so far I'm enjoying it for a very... interesting reason: it almost feels like the show keeps referencing something I wrote.

I know it's all just a big coincidence, but I was laughing for the first twenty minutes or so and finally had to have my mother pause it to explain how many "connections" I was seeing.

 
  • My novella Anachronism is about a time traveler, Moses. who shows up in the present in a bank vault; in Time After Time, it's a museum exhibit.
  • HG and Moses both have to talk to a bewildered person in charge, who think he's crazy but decide not to press charges in the interest of not attracting unwanted publicity.
  • The time travelers then learn another, murderous time traveler (Jack the Ripper in Time After Time, Zachary Davenport in Anachronism), whom they knew in their native time, has come before them.
  • They team up with a woman to stop him. (There's a very small line in Time After Time about something being a gift from her father that might be funny to the five people who have actually read my book.)
  • HG and Moses are both British but otherwise not very similar.
  • But Jack the Ripper and Davenport! Not only do they dress the same and both enjoy threatening people in public places, but the actor playing the Ripper looks so much like how I imagine Davenport! (I'd originally imagined him a little more like Zachary Quinto, especially in Heroes where he was a great villain, but I think this Josh Bowman fellow may be edging him out for the role in the movie adaptation that exists only in my head).

And one or two other things that would spoil parts of the book if I were to point them out.
So yes, I'm quite enjoying the show, if not for the normal reasons. Have you ever noticed a TV show or movie "stealing" your ideas?

5 comments:

  1. I'm constantly afraid that my killer idea has already be published. I started a story caked PETZ (People for the Ethical Treatment of Zombies). I googled this and a few others beat me to it; not exactly the same, but the spirit was the same. I'll do that now - Google my big ideas to see of there's anything similar before i waste precious brain power on a story that's already been told.

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    1. A very good idea! Although I suppose you could always take the story in a vastly different direction, like the people protesting PETZ because they think zombies are delicious. :D

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  2. Not a TV show, but a book. Of course, Time After Time is based on the movie of the same name. A favorite of mine.

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    1. I don't think I knew about the movie; I'll have to check it out!

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  3. Medium had a super-creepy Jack the Ripper type who would talk doctors into savagely killing their patients. It was pretty disturbing! He wasn't actually Jack the Ripper, but you could tell he was modeled after him (down to the British accent).

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