Spring 2020, Issue No. 19.4
TIME TRAVEL NEXUS PRESENTS . . .
Streaming Time Travel: Spring 2020
Part IIII: 45 Time Travel TV Series Now Streaming on Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ . . .
—Hello, time travelers! Here’s Part IIII of your Spring 2020 time traveling guide. We put together a list of every tv series that:
- has continuing characters not named “Who,”
- has a significant time travel arc spanning at least one season, and
- is easily available to stream in the US this spring (and probably through the summer).
Up in the ITTDB Citadel, we’re eagerly awaiting your comments on which series are your favorites. As always, if you’d like to become one of the vaunted ITTDB Librarians who are hard at work every day building the first public release of the Internet Time Travel Database, please drop us a line at main@colorado.edu !
Dark Shadows (1966)
If you were a cool kid in the ’60s, you ran home from school to watch Dark Shadows, a vampiresque soap opera that presaged Twilight by about four decades. I wasn’t that cool myself, but my sister Lynda was, and from time to time I overheard her and the cool kids talking about the inhabitants of Collinwood trekking to the late 1700s and the late 1800s.
I believe the time travel began with Episode 365 (17 November 1967), when Victoria headed back to 1795. You can pretty much jump in at that point if you want to skip the first 364 episodes.
I’m afraid you must forgive me, miss. If we have met before, I’m sorry to say that I don’t remember it.
>>> On AMAZON PRIME VIDEO (or free with commercials): The fun begins in Dark Shadows Collection 4, #35, which is Episode 365. A few of the subsequent episodes seem to be for purchase only (not part of Prime Video), and almost all seem to be available to watch with commercials even if you are not a Prime Video subscriber. Note: In the Amazon Channel on the PlayOn streaming app, the collections seem to be in random order. For example, Dark Shadows Collection 4 is labeled as Dark Shadows 8, and Dark Shadows Collection 5 is labeled as Dark Shadows 4.
Sapphire & Steel (1979)
[from Wikipedia]: The programme centres on a pair of interdimensional operatives, the eponymous Sapphire and Steel. Very little is revealed about their purposes or backgrounds in the course of the series but they appear to be engaged in guarding the continuing flow of time.
>>> On TUBI TV.
The Girl from Tomorrow (1992)
[from Wikipedia]: The series is based around Alana (Katharine Cullen), a girl from the year 3000. At the start of the series, she is kidnapped by Silverthorn, a criminal from the year 2500, and brought back in time to the year 1990.
>>> On AMAZON PRIME VIDEO.
Time Trax (1993)
[from promotional material]: Time Trax is an American/Australian co-produced science fiction television series that first aired in 1993. A police officer, sent through time into the past, has to track down and return convicted criminals who have escaped prison in the future.
>>> On THE ROKU CHANNEL.
未来戦隊タイムレンジャ [Mirai Sentai Timeranger] (2000)
[from the opening narration]: People from the future in the year 3000 AD and one man have met by chance, for the sake of marking a new passage of time…!
>>> On TUBI TV.
Star Trek: Enterprise (2001)
I know that Enterprise has been widely panned, but for me it was the perfect balance of old-style Star Trek where each episode stood pretty much on its own and new-style Star Trek where each season is a grand, connected adventure. I suggest that you watch the entire four seasons of Enterprise, even if your main interest is in grokking the Temporal Cold War.
Old T’Pol: There’s a human expression: Follow your heart. / Young T’Pol: What if my heart doesn’t know what it wants? / Old T’Pol: It will, in time, it will.
>>> All four seasons on AMAZON PRIME VIDEO, HULU, and CBS ALL-ACCESS.
5ive Days to Midnight (2004)
In this SciFi Channel miniseries, J.T. Neumeyer (physics professor, widower, and single dad) receives a briefcase from decades in the future containing a police file with the details of his murder five days hence. Once he accepts it as real, he has some success at changing fate by saving a woman from an accident—and then fate starts pushing back by killing her in a different accident, putting J.T. is on a track to meet his own fate.
The future is not immutable—you can print that!
>>> Free on HOOPLA (local library card may be needed).
Lost (2004)
Sadly, I never bonded with Lost, the six-season story of plane crash survivors on a supernatural island, but Tim, a millennial Librarian up in the ITTDB Citadel, assures me that I must list it and award it at least an Eloi Bronze Medal. The first time travel that I spotted was in “The Long Con” [s2e6], but perhaps one of you can tell me about any earlier time travel.
Sayid: Radio waves at this frequency bounce off the ionosphere. They can travel thousands of miles. It could be coming from anywhere. / Hurley: Or any time . . .
>>> On HULU.
Life on Mars (UK, 2006)
While working on murder case that has drawn in his girlfriend, Manchester Police Detective Sam Tyler is hit by a car and thrown into 1973 where DCI Hunt, WPC Cartwright, and everyone else in the district believes him to be a detective on loan.
I had an accident, and I woke up 33 years in the past. Now that either makes me a time traveler or a lunatic or . . . I’m lying in a hospital bed in 2006 and none of this is real.
>>> On BRITBOX.
Snuffbox (2006)
Rich and Matt wend their way through 28 minutes of dark, f-bombed weirdness in six episodes, each of which includes a trip in time through a door marked 1888. My own preference in British comedy is for Basil Fawlty, but sadly, he never traveled through time, except perhaps in his own mind.
Not that one! It’s out of order. Use the other door.
>>> On AMAZON PRIME VIDEO and free on HOOPLA (may require a local library card).
Heroes (2006)
Hiro Nakamura reads comic books, wants to be a hero, and believes that his will power is enough to move him through time and space (and, yes, it is).
Watch the first season. Save the cheerleader. Save the world. The other seasons are less impressive, but still worthwhile.
Save the cheerleader, save the world.
>>> On AMAZON PRIME VIDEO and NBC.COM.
Eureka (2006)
Sheriff Jack Carter is not the brainiest person in the top-secret government enclave of Eureka (though his daughter Zoe might be), but even so, he gets his share of solutions to the zany science project problems that arise.
We shouldn’t really be listing this show because because time travel is not an integral factor for an entire season, but we like the show so much, that it crept into our list anyway. You must start with the first season, and later you’ll find a time-loop wedding (“I Do Over” [s3e4]), a trip to 1947 (“Founder’s Day” [s4e1]), a series-ending anomoly for Jack and Zoe (“Just Another Day” [s5e13]), along with a few other time anomalies.
Save the cheerleader, save the world.
>>> On AMAZON PRIME VIDEO.
Primeval (2007)
A time anomaly is allowing beasties from the past and future into present-day England. Oh, and Professor Cutter goes through the anomaly, too, because he’s searching for his lost wifey.
Miss, oh Miss!! There’s a dinosaur on the playground.
>>> On HULU, CW SEED, PLUTO TV, and HOOPLA (local library card may be needed)
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008)
After the events of the second movie, Sarah and teenaged John are trying to lay low when Cameron, a beautiful young terminator, arrives from 2027 and tries to take them away from their problems with a jump to 2007; other terminators follow and violence ensues
Come with me if you wanna live.—Cameron Philips to John while fleeing Cromartie
>>> On AMAZON PRIME VIDEO (with ads) and IMDb TV.
Lost in Austen (2008)
Amanda Price, a young 21st-century Englishwoman and devotee of Jane Austen, swaps places with the heroine of Pride and Prejudice.
Unfortunately, the U.S. DVD movie mash-up omitted the bit where Amanda Price serenades Mr. Darcy, Mr. Binley, and Miss Bingley with Petula Clark’s “Downtown.” Damn those cheapskates who won’t pay for music rights! So, head straight for the full miniseries.
♫Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city.
La la la la, la la la and the neon lights are pretty. ♫
>>> On BRITBOX and TUBI TV.
Fringe (2008)
When smart and beautiful FBI Agent Olivia Dunham is recruited by Homeland Security to investigate strange happenings on the fringe of science, she’s given free rein to choose any colleagues she wishes, which leads her to the slightly mad (but kindly) scientist Walter Bishop and his jaded son Peter.
I didn’t get around to watching this until it appeared on Amazon Prime after the series finale. It’s a little too violent for my taste, but the three main characters have become favorites of mine just as much as Myca, Pete and Artie on Warehouse 13; and as I watched into the first half of Season 3, it became more and more addictive. By the time it reached the middle of Season 4, it became my favorite long love story ever.
The first glimpse of time travel was in Episode 10, when Walter tells of the time travel machine that he built to save Peter as a boy, although that episode didn’t see any actual traveling. By the end of Season 4, though, time travel is an integral part of the whole series.
After all, I was the scientist; and my only son was dying and I couldn’t do anything about it . . . I became consumed with saving you, conquering the disease. In my research, I discovered a doctor, Alfred Gross—Swiss, brillant physician, he’s the only man that had ever successfully cured a case of heppia. But there was a problem: he had died in 1936. And so, I designed a device intended to reach back into time, to cross the time-space continuum, and retrieve Alfred Gross.
>>> On AMAZON PRIME VIDEO and IMDb TV.
Being Erica (2009)
Everything seems to go wrong for Erica Strange, the “cute young woman with a great educaiton and great friends.” Why can’t she get it together? Maybe therapist (so to speak) Tom Wexlar can help her figure it out, especially given that each time she sees him, she gets a chance to redo one of her bad past decisions.
Erica: What about paradoxes, huh? Butterfly effects? Back to the Futures? / Dr. Tom:I love that movie. / Erica: If I change the past, if I don’t get drunk, won’t that cause, like, World War III in the present? / Dr. Tom: Or is it possible that your alcohol consumption, though very important to you, might not play a role in influencing world events?
>>> On AMAZON PRIME VIDEO, HULU, HOOPLA (may require a local library card), and PLUTO TV.
Misfits (2009)
Five teens, trapped in a freak storm, acquire superpowers, including Curtis who can rewind time. More graphic and less intense than Heroes (Season One)—and nobody can fly.
Later, in Season 2, another of the misfits travels back from the future.
There’s always someone who can fly.
>>> On HULU.
Warehouse 13 (2009)
The secret service does more than just protect the president: Agents Myka Bering and Peter Lattimer (under the guideance of Artie, not to mention the help of girl genius sidekick Claudia and slighty psychic landlord Leena) also gather and protect remarkable scientific artifacts from throughout history. H.G. Wells shows up at the start of Season 2, but time travel didn’t appear until Episode 10 of that season, when Myka and Pete head to 1961. Later, in the first episode of Season 4, after the deaths of all and sundry (not to mention the demolition of the warehouse), Artie goes back in time again (at great expense to himself). I was expecting more time travel in Season 5 and was not disappointed when our favorite agents follow the evil Paracelsus back to 1541 (“Endless Terror”) to prevent the creation of a warehouse of horrible human experimentation; plus there’s a smidgen of 1942 time travel in the mushy (in a good way) series finale.
Pete: I’m not gonna remember . . . / Artie: Remember what? / Pete: Remember dying. / Artie: No. No, Pete, you won’t remember. [Pete dies.] But I will . . ., I will.
>>> On AMAZON PRIME VIDEO (with ads) and IMDb TV.
Paradox (2009)
[from promotional material]: Mysterious images that show incidents 18 hours before they happen are transmitted from space. As a space scientist attempts to explain their source, detectives race against time to change the future.
Okay, from my extensive police training, I can see that we’re looking at something that hasn’t happened yet.
>>> On AMAZON PRIME VIDEO, HULU, and PLUTO TV.
No Ordinary Family (2010)
In this family of superheroes, Mom time travels at the end of Episode 18 (“No Ordinary Animal”) and in Episode 19 (“No Ordinary Future”)—not really integral to the season, but fun enough that we included it in this spring’s list.
Time travel, Stephanie! We’re talking the big leagues! The Flash! Silver Surfer!! Doc Brown’s DeLorean!!!.
>>> On AMAZON PRIME VIDEO (with ads) and IMDb TV
Terra Nova (2011)
I finally had a free Saturday morning, so I watched the pilot, but couldn’t get through the melodramic story of a family from 2149 that goes back to an alternate prehistoric time stream as part of the 10th pilgrimage.
That wasn’t a very nice dinosaur.
>>> On AMAZON PRIME VIDEO (with ads) and IMDb TV.
Outlander (2014)
Based on the wildly successful romance novel series, this Housewives in Time tv series takes World War II nurse Claire back to 1743 Scotland where the muscular Scottish highlander Jamie Fraser immediately rescues her from a sinister ancestor (and lookalike double) of her husband. In that long-ago time period, Claire longs to return to her life, but that doesn’t stop her from a Jamie romance.
Perhaps I had stumbled onto the set of a cinema company filming a costume drama of some sort.
>>> On NETFLIX (first three seasons)
The Flash (2014)
Time travel is implied right from the first episode of the CW’s rendition of The Flash where a newspaper from the future is seen in the closing scene. The rest of the first season builds a fine time-travel arc that includes a nefarious time traveler from the far future, a classic grandfather paradox (sadly not examined), a do-over day for the Flash (which Harrison Wells calls “temporal reversion”), and a final episode that sees the Flash travel back to his childhood (as well as a hint that Rip Hunter himself will soon appear on the CW scene). The primary time-traveling nemesis, wiped out in Season One, reappears in Episode 11 of Season 2. I suspect that more time travel is on the horizon for Barry Allen and his cohorts (especially Cisco).
Wells: Yes, it’s possible, but problematic. Assuming you could create the conditions necessary to take that journey, that journey would then be fraught with potential pitfalls: the Novikov Principle of Self-Consistency, for example.
Joe: Wait—the what, now?
Barry: If you travel back in time to change something, then you end up being the causal factor of that event.
Cisco: Like . . . Terminator.
Joe: Ah!
Wells: Or: Is time plastic? Is it mutable, whereby any changes in the continuum could create an alternate timeline?
Cisco: Back to the Future.
>>> On NETFLIX (five seasons), THE CW (one season), and CW SEED (one season).
Mr. Robot (2015)
[from publicity material]: A contemporary and culturally resonant drama about a young programmer, Elliot, who suffers from a debilitating anti-social disorder and decides that he can only connect to people by hacking them. He wields his skills as a weapon to protect the people that he cares about. Elliot will find himself in the intersection between a cybersecurity firm he works for and the underworld organizations that are recruiting him to bring down corporate America.
>>> On AMAZON PRIME VIDEO.
12 Monkeys (2015)
Same backstory as the movie, same names for the characters, no Bruce Willis, but still a fun adaptation of the movie with cool instant effects when an action alters the future, but not so clever use of the watches and the paradox of meeting yourself.
About four years from now, most of the human race will be wiped out by a plague, a virus. We know it’s because of a man named Leland Frost. I have to find him.
>>> On HULU.
Best Friends Whenever (2015)
When best friends Cyd and Shelby get accidentally zapped by Barry’s ray gun, they gain the ability to travel through time, although they don’t lose the ability to freak out over drama at West Portland High School.
Cyd, when that laser blasted Reynaldo, it was set at two. You guys were blasted at four . . . hundred. [laugh track] There is no telling what could have happened. It could have sent you to another dimension or made you time travel or rendered you invisible.
>>> On DISNEY+.
Heroes Reborn (2015)
he Heroes are back! Including time traveler Hiro! Unfortunately, neither Hiro nor a pair of Noahs could save the plotline of this miniseries (or save the cheerleader for that matter) during the first seven episodes. Matters pick up in Episode Eight, but head downhill again with Hiro out of the picture.
What’s time travel like? Where’s Hiro?
>>> On NBC.COM.
Legends of Tomorrow (2016)
Time Master Rip Hunter puts together a ragtag band of misfits from the early twentieth century (he found them by watching reruns of Arrow and The Flash) to track down and stop the evil, world-conquering despot Vandal Savage. 
The pilot gets one extra half star for playing The Captain and Tennille when the gang visits 1975 and another plus half star because the swollen-headed Rip got belted by both Hawkgirl and the White Canary; but it lost a half star for Rip’s own soppy background story. Beyond the pilot, though, the explanations about changes to the timeline are just whacked.
I like being part of a team, man.
>>> On NETFLIX (four seasons), THE CW (one season), and CW SEED (one season).
11.22.63 (2016)
When Stephen King’s book was first announced, I felt skeptical: After all, could even Stephen King breath new life into the most worn-out time travel trope of all? Yet he came through, not by adding anything new to the save JFK lore, but by blending in a unique brand of horror and producing a captivating page turner. So when Hulu announced that they’d make an eight-part miniseries of the book, I looked forward to its release. Never have I been so disppointed with an adaptation of a book. The acting is admirable, but the characters and plot have been flattened, presumably based on Hulu’s assumptions about what their viewers want.
You’re going to feel apart from other people. That doesn’t go away.
>>> On HULU.
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2016)
This show had the episode (“Spacetime”) that pushed me over the edge in the matter of whether to include precognition/premonitions in my time travel list. But when Fitz has quotes such as “You guys, there is no time—” how could I not? It may take me a while to pull in other visions-of-the-future stories, and I won’t include obvious non-examples (such as predicting the future based on elements that are available in the present moment), but I shall persevere. Here’s the reasoning behind my new ruling: If you (or Daisy) are actually getting a picture of the future, then Occam’s Razor says that information about the future is most likely traveling through time. Case closed.
But even without that landmark ruling, time travel becomes integral in season 5 when the whole gang (more or less) finds themselves 78 years in the future.
Coulson: Like, in Terminator, if John Connor’s alive and able to send his friend back in time to save his mom to make sure he’s born, doesn’t that mean he doesn’t have to?
Lincoln: I, uh, never saw the original Terminator.
Coulson: You’re off the team.
>>> On NETFLIX (six seasons) and ABC.COM (one season).
Timeless (2016)
I like the show’s period sets and the three main characters: history professor Lucy Preston, timeship pilot/scientist Rufus Carlin, and Delta Force soldier Wyatt Logan. I even like the bad guy that the trio chases through time. But I’m going to use the show to illustrate two questions that I wish they’d answer: 1. Take Lucy, for example. She and her pals go back in time and change something so that when they return to the present, the previously sistered Lucy no longer has a sister, Amy. And everyone except the travelers remember the Amyless version. That Lucy is quite a different Lucy, complete with a fiancé. So what happened to that Lucy? 2. When they discover that evil Garcia Flynn has gone back to some time in history, they inevitably rush to get there quickly. Why are they rushing? And why don’t they consider going back to before Flynn’s arrival in the past to be ready for him when he arrives? But, yeah, I like the show and their cool timeship.
>>> On HULU (two seasons) and AMAZON PRIME VIDEO (one season).
Travelers (2016)
Earth’s outlook is pretty grim, which we know because small groups of travelers from the future are taking over the bodies of present-day people with the goal of altering the shape of things that came. I enjoy how the bodies of the star team (Grant, Marcy, Carly, Trevor, and Philip) don’t always match those of their future counterparts.
We, the last and broken memories, vow to undo the errors of our ancestors, to make the Earth whole, the lost unlost, at the peril of our own birth.
>>> On NETFLIX.
Time Travel Repairman (2016) [shorts]
[from promotional material]: In a world where time travel is a real thing and a heroic repairman must reconstruct a 1985 Nintendo console in order to save the President/country/world.universe/everything . . . this is the world of Time Travel Repairman.
>>> On AMAZON PRIME VIDEO.
Frequency (2016)
[from promotional material]: Detective Raimy Sullivan is stunned when a voice suddenly crackles through her father’s old, long-broken ham radio – it’s Frank Sullivan, somehow transmitting over the airwaves and through the decades from 1996. Separated by twenty years, father and daughter have reunited on a frequency only they can hear, but can they rewrite the story of their lives without risking everyone they love?
>>> On AMAZON PRIME VIDEO.
Time Traveling Bong (2016)
[from promotional material]: After discovering a bong capable of transporting them through space and time, two stoner cousins embark on an adventure that will bring them up close and personal with cavemen, the Salem witch trials and more.
>>> On ROKU CHANNEL.
Time after Time (2017)
H.G. Wells chasing Jack the Ripper through time did’t manage to translate from the 1979 silver screen to the 2017 small screen, although I enjoyed the Paris episode before the show was prematurely canceled. The model of time travel was particularly troublesome in that I never did understand why H.G’s first trip took him to the museum.
It’s inevitable: Science and technology will advance beyond all imagination, forcing society to perfect itself. Imagine who you could be if you didn’t live in fear. Or more importantly, imagine the stories you could write if your life was full of adventure.
>>> On CW SEED.
僕だけがいない街 [Erased] (2017)
This well-written, faithful, 12-part adaptation of Kei Sambe’s manga provides a compelling story for all three ages of Satoru Fujinuma, although for me the most captivating and disturbing story was of ten-year-old Satoru.
It’s as if you’ve seen the future.
>>> On NETFLIX.
Future Man (2017)
[from promotional material]: Josh Futturman, a janitor by day/world-ranked gamer by night, is tasked with preventing the extinction of humanity after mysterious visitors from the future proclaim him the key to defeating the imminent super-race invasion.
>>> On HULU.
Dark (2017)
[from promotional material]: A missing child causes four families to help each other for answers. What they could not imagine is that this mystery would be connected to innumerable other secrets of the small town.
>>> On NETFLIX.
Somewhere Between (2017)
[from promotional material]: Laura Price, a local news producer in San Francisco, is helping the police to hunt down a serial killer. After the killer strikes close to home, a twist of fate allows a “Groundhog Day”-type reset, and Laura relives the week prior to the string of murders. Can she change fate and stop the killer?
>>> On NETFLIX.
Find Me in Paris (2018)
[from promotional material]: When Lena Grisky, a Russian Princess and student at the Paris Opera Ballet School accidentally time travels to present day, she must quickly adapt if she hopes to keep her secret and hide from the dangerous Time Collectors.
>>> On HULU.
Russian Doll (2019)
[from promotional material]: Nadia keeps dying and reliving her 36th birthday party. She’s trapped in a surreal time loop — and staring down the barrel of her own mortality.
>>> On NETFLIX.
Undone (2019)
[from promotional material]: After getting into a near fatal car accident, Alma discovers she has a new relationship with time and uses this ability to find out the truth about her father’s death.
>>> On AMAZON PRIME VIDEO.
The Twilight Zone (1959)
This show shouldn’t be on the list, because I was trying to hold the list to series with a continuing story rather than anthology series—but it’s my list, so I’m adding the original Twilight Zone series anyway. It had at least these nineteen episodes with time travel or other time-related phenomena:
- Walking Distance [s1e5] Hero to time of youth
- Judgment Night [s1e10] Time Loop in World War II
- What You Need [s1e12] Prescience (no time travel)
- The Last Flight [s1e18] ¤ 42 years beyond WW II
- Execution [s1e26] From 1880 West to 1960 NY
- A Stop at Willoughby [s1e30] To idyllic past
- The Trouble with Templeton [s2e9] To 1927
- Back There [s2e13] Lincoln in 1865
- The Odyssey of Flight 33 [s2e18] To age of dinosaurs and more
- A Hundred Yards over the Rim [s2e23] From 1847 to 1961
- Once Upon a Time [s3e13] ¤ From 1890s to present
- A Quality of Mercy [s3e15] From 1945 to ’42 in WWII
- Death Ship [s4e6] ¤ Time Loop?
- No Time Like the Past [s4e10] To 1881 Indiana
- Of Late I Think of Cliffordville [s4e14] From age 75 to 30
- The Incredible World of Horace Ford [s4e15] Hero to Time of Youth
- The Bard [s4e18] Shakespeare to the present
- The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms [s5e10] To Custer’s Last Stand
- Spur of the Moment [s5e21] ¤ Heroine warns earlier self
The four episodes marked with ¤ were written by Richard Matheson, one was by E. Jack Neuman (“Templeton”), one by Reginold Rose (“Horace Ford”), and the rest were by Serling including “What You Need” (based on the story by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore with prescience only and no real time travel), “Execution” from a story by George Clayton Johnson, “A Quality of Mercy” from a Sam Rolfe story featuring a young Dean Stockwell, and “Of Late I Think of Cliffordville” from Malcolm Jameson’s “Blind Alley”.
There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.
>>> On HULU, CBS ALL-ACCESS, and (without Season 4) NETFLIX.
We hope you enjoyed some of those series—and are still enjoying them. And for those of you who have been wondering why this is Part IIII, it’s time to reveal the secret: You see, both the Romans and reverent time travelers always use the designation IIII for the number between III and V. They never, ever use that other Roman designation that combines an I and a V.
In the case of the Romans, this because that other designation was their symbol for their chief deity, Jupiter, possibly because among the “wanderers” that they saw in their sky, it was the fourth-fastest mover (after Mercury, Venus, and Mars). The Romans didn’t want to be disrespectful to their god by using his symbol for something as trivial as the number four.
As for time travelers, they always use IIII because they despise Jupiter—also known as Zeus in his Greek form—because as Chronos’ main rival, he was the most dastardly of all the gods! And now you know. Next time you buy a clock with a Roman clockface, make sure that it uses the proper designation between III and V.
keep on travelin’
—Michael