In Review: Timeless – Hollywoodland

Synopsis: When a Rittenhouse sleeper agent in 1941 Hollywood steals the only copy of Citizen Kane, Lucy, Wyatt and Rufus team up with Hedy Lamarr to get it back. Hedy Lamarr turns out to be not only a glamorous movie star but also a scientific wizard whose discoveries led to the invention of Wi-Fi.

Review: This week’s Timeless gave us a fun adventure in 1940’s Hollywood, but while bringing the fun. It also misses a few great opportunities. The episode sees a Rittenhouse sleeper agent planted in Hollywood to become a movie director so as to get him access enough to be able to steal the only copy of Citizen Kane. Back then they only ever made one copy due to the cutting and splicing of a film being so expensive and time-consuming. The Rittenhouse plan is basically to steal the film and hand it over to Newspaper tycoon William Randolf Hurst on who the movie was based on. It is said that Hurst was furious about the movie and tried to stop it from being released.

The adventure in Hollywoodland see Wyatt and Lucy’s feelings really start to develop and I felt that given the pay off at the close of the episode that they milked this aspect of the story a little too much. I’d have rather have seen more of Rufus hanging out with Hedy Lamarr because I really wanted to see the various inventions that she was showing Rufus while Wyatt and Lucy were getting jiggy.

I loved that the Rittenhouse agent was a film director, but also felt that he was a bit of a throwaway character given how little he seemed to be used. The writers did try to establish him by giving him scenes with his father as well as a scene of him striking a deal with Randolf Hurst, but we didn’t really get a whole lot more than that.

Back in the present day plans are put in place to get Flynn out of jail in order to get his help with finding and capturing sleeper agents. While Jiya is still suffering the after-effects of her time travel journey, but despite her seizures and hallucinations is perfectly healthy.

Overall. This was a fairly solid episode but could have been so much more interesting had the writers pulled back a little from the whole Lucy and Wyatt thing. But given what happens at the close of the episode. The Lucy and Wyatt relationship sort of makes sense. Alyssa Sutherland who is better known for her role in Vikings is absolutely brilliant as Hedy Lamarr and for me really lifted this episode from being just plain average to being fairly solid.