Why are there so many TV shows about time travel right now?

[TMC]

http://www.avclub.com/article/why-ar...ravel-r-251142

Television has the tendency to be cyclical and very self-referential. Looking through TV history, we see periods of popularity for the domestic sitcom, say, or anthology series, or just straight-up cop shows and medical dramas.

Lately, we couldn’t help but notice that there’s a previously unforeseen genre that currently threatens to overtake TV: the time-travel show. Given the current state of the world, you might wonder if these shows started while someone was pondering how great it would be to go back in time and dismantle the electoral college, but many of these shows premiered before the election. 12 Monkeys started in 2015 and was soon followed by 11.22.63, DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow, Timeless, and Frequency (we would also be inclined to include The Flash here, since Barry is fond of going back in time and mucking things up). On Sunday, March 5, two more will enter the fray: Time After Time and Making History, the first time-travel comedy entry. Even without including The Flash, and 11.22.63—which was a miniseries—that’s still six time-travel series this TV season. This seems like a lot.

Some of this, honestly, just feels like the networks’ typical practice of feeding off of and copying each other. DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow dawned at the beginning of 2016 on The CW with an elaborate talking spaceship, which even contains a costume-creating machine, enabling the heroes to fit into whichever era they might be sent to in order to track future civilization-ruiner Vandal Savage. When NBC’s Timeless jumped on board this fall, it had its own time machine and carefully curated period wardrobes so that its “Time Team” can chase the similarly destructive Garcia Flynn. Timeless and CW’s Frequency both have characters who lose family members due to the butterfly effect of time travel. Now Time After Time appears to be little more than ABC saying, “Hey, we need a time travel series, too!” as inventor and author H.G. Wells chases Jack The Ripper through modern-day Manhattan. Not to be outdone, Fox chimes in, “And ours will be funny!” with The Lego Movie’s Phil Lord and Chris Miller on board to help that effort as Adam Pally and his friends hang out in colonial Massachusetts via a magical duffle bag in Making History.