As the first episode of The Time Traveler’s Wife begins, Clare Abshire (Rose Leslie) questions why love is intensified by absence. Henry DeTamble (Theo James) is asked what it feels like as he says it feels like nothing. It is like your attention wandered for a moment before the book you were reading and the room you were in are gone. You’re ankle deep in a ditch or on a highway. You’re back in time and naked. Clare says the bedsheets will go slack, the shower will keep running, or the bacon will keep frying. She knows it has happened again when she finds a pile of clothes. Then, the waiting starts. Henry insists time travel is not a superpower. Instead, it is a disability because he can’t keep hold of the current moment. When he is gone, Clare wonders where he is and when he is.

She also worries that he could be in danger. Sometimes, Henry will return back to where he was within minutes. Other times, he has to survive for weeks or even months. As a result, he got good at running, fighting, and stealing. Henry and Clare are asked when they first met. A young Clare (Everleigh McDonell) runs outside and places Henry’s clothes and shoes on the ground. Clare said you’re stuck with the past if you’re not a time traveler. She studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. If you’re an artist, the future is what you’re going to make. 20-year-old Clare tells Dr. Felman (Peter Francis James) that she needs to go to the Newberry Library.

As she walks to the library, she says the future is sometimes just what shows up when you’re looking for something else. 28-year-old Henry works at the library. While many people believe libraries are quiet places, a library is a crowd to Henry. For a time traveler, the past is alive and dangerous. For everyone else, the past is over. Henry is still trying to survive it. Henry is stopped by a colleague who wants to know why he leaves piles of clothes all over the place. He isn’t eager to talk about it so he describes it as being complicated. Before long, Clare shows up at the library where she is told that Mr. DeTamble can likely help her shortly. Henry tells Isabelle (Shawna Hamic) to shake the woman awake in presentation two when Tom stops boring her.

He also recommends mentioning his name. Isabelle mentions the Kelmscott Press Chaucer which Henry says is porn. He learns that Clare wants to see it. When he goes over, Clare seems to recognize him although he doesn’t recall her. She admits she wasn’t expecting to meet him today. She is surprised he is a librarian and says DeTamble is going to take some getting used to. Although he doesn’t understand, Clare knows he has a birthmark like a strawberry on his left foot. She mentions the scar around his hairline too. When he asks if they’ve met, Clare says she has met him. She saw his birthmark 14 years ago. He is standing there looking like he has never seen her before and she knows he hasn’t.

Isabelle listens as Clare claims he is younger than she has ever seen him. Clare knows about his problem and understands why he doesn’t remember her. After Henry suggests they get a drink, Clare says they should get dinner. Henry is good at reading women, but he can’t read Clare. As Clare walks away from the library, she jumps and screams in joy. Henry goes home and frantically cleans his apartment. He gets rid of the feminine products in the bathroom. When he turns around, he sees blood on the floor of the bathroom. He gets ready to clean it up, but it is already gone. Henry brings flowers when he meets Clare at the restaurant. She admits that is a first. They begin talking about this being a possible date.

Clare gives him a book proving that they’ve already had 152 dates. He admits he got into a fight to get the flowers before asking who wrote the list of dates. Clare says it was her as a child and he dictated it to her. He told her a few years ago that he memorized it from the list she is giving him now. Henry asks her to slow down as she admits it is confusing. He has never met someone in the wrong order before. Clare asks if the guy who trained him warned him about this kind of thing. She knows another time traveler taught him all the rules when he was younger.

He hasn’t told her who that was so far. Clare confirms he will begin showing up in her past for 14 years. The oldest she has seen him is like 40 and like the youngest is around 30. Right now, he is 28. Clare mentions how much different he looks now and how his skin has tightened. It is good because someone pimped her date which is going astonishingly well. Henry wonders why he would go see Clare so many times. Clare says they’ll have to come back to that one although there is a reason. He asks her about hobbies, favorite books, and unusual sexual proclivities he should be aware of. Clare says there is one and it is that she is going to marry him. She goes on to say Henry told her that he was visiting her from a time in the future when they were married.

Clare gets upset when he says congratulations. Henry says it is a lot to process. She gets it because it has been 14 years for her although only a few hours for him. She only has his word that they’re going to be a married couple. Clare asks him not to swallow when she uses the word couple. Once they return to questions, Henry asks how they met. Clare explains how it happened for her. In a flashback, a young Clare hears someone throwing up nearby. She thinks it is Mark so she tells him this is her place and he isn’t supposed to come here. She throws her shoe and hits him. Henry tells her that he is just sick since traveling makes him ill. He promises he is a friend and tries to convince her to go get him some clothes.

She runs back home to pick him out some clothes, but Nell (Marcia DeBonis) stops her to ask what the running around is about. Clare believes she found an imaginary friend in the woods and she is going to dress him up because he is naked. She walks past her mother Lucille (Jaime Ray Newman) and father Philip (Michael Park) before going into the bedroom to grab some clothes. Once he gets dressed, Henry says hello and shows Clare the birthmark on his foot. Clare says it looks like he stood on a strawberry and squished it. Henry admits someone else said that before correcting himself by saying it wasn’t someone else. She asks if he has seen dinosaurs. Henry remembers tickling a dinosaur’s tummy in the Natural History Museum.

He tends to stay in the same time he was born so he doesn’t see real dinosaurs. He does not have kids in the future, but he has a pretty wife named Clare. He admits he kisses her although Clare doesn’t like that. He equates it to brushing her horse’s hair. She calls it grooming her. Henry says he is going to disappear soon. He asks her if she could put the clothes in a box under the rock so they’d be nice and dry for him when he returns. She learns there are rules so he can’t bring his own clothes and a man told him about the rules when he time traveled for the first time. In another flashback, a young Henry (Jason David) is at the museum with his mother Annette (Kate Siegel) and father. Later that night, his mother agrees that they can visit the museum again soon.

He time travels back about three hours and returns to the museum where he meets 28-year-old Henry who came back 21 years. Older Henry tries to tickle the dinosaur before giving younger Henry a chance. Young Henry asks when he is going to meet the other time travelers. Old Henry changes the subject by offering him something to eat. Young Henry is told to eat because he’ll feel sick again before snapping right back home. Today is the day older Henry is going to start teaching him. Most of the time, you return straight back home. However, it is possible to travel to other times first or multiple times before returning home.

Young Henry asks whether they solve crimes, but he is told they commit them since they run, steal, and fight. When he asks if they’re the bad guys, older Henry claims survivors are always the bad guys. As a result, it is his job to teach his younger self to be the baddest guy out there. He promises that they’ll see each other again. Young Henry admits it is scary being trained by him. Older Henry says the world is a scary place so he needs to be scarier. Young Henry starts coughing before he returns home. Henry does the same and nearly gets hit by a train. He jumps to avoid it and hits a couple making out below him. The woman tells him it is June 26, 2008. Henry beats up the guy to take his clothes.

He tells Donna she can call the cops and learns that her date brought flowers. Henry asks if he can take them since he is late for someone anyway. He meets with Clare after that. Then, they leave the restaurant as Henry tries to convince her to go to her apartment instead of his. Clare confesses he is different from what she expected even though she has known him her entire life. He makes her wear a blindfold and count to a million while he rushes to clean up his apartment. He cleans up the bathroom but leaves a female housecoat hanging on the back of the door. Once the blindfold is removed, Clare says this isn’t the apartment of a grownup. Henry doesn’t think that is fair since this is the most grownup he has been.

They begin kissing before Clare finds the tooth he put in the cup nearby. He says it just appeared although it’ll disappear again. All of him time travels including his nail clippings. Sometimes, there is a pool of blood so he must’ve got hurt or had a nosebleed. When she says she knows, Henry won’t let her explain why. If it is something he isn’t supposed to know, it is best he doesn’t find out yet. Clare wonders why he isn’t permanently terrified. Henry says there are going to be days that you bleed and that is everyone. You just have to be happy that it isn’t today. While Clare calls herself horrible, she says he has been a perfect gentleman for 14 years. Clare says he has been unbearable company throughout a very horny adolescence.

He says she was a kid. Once she removes her dress, she asks if she has grown. Clare says she is tall enough to do the scary rides at Disney without a parent. Later, she tells him he might want to put the lights on because she is naked and going to the bathroom. She comes out with the housecoat on and shows him the bra she found in the very bottom drawer. She gets mad as Henry admits he didn’t tell her about the woman because he really wanted to have sex with her. He says her name is Ingrid and she is his girlfriend. She says that is bad luck for Ingrid because she is here now. Henry says it sounds scary mad that she is just showing up calling herself his wife. They argue about him sleeping with crazy women before she throws her shoe at him and it goes through the window.

He admits he wants to see her again. As she storms out the door, Henry tells a young Clare he’ll see her again on September 29. Henry disappears. He appears outside of younger Henry’s apartments and immediately hears Clare and Henry fighting. They curse at one another once they come outside. Clare leaves while older Henry still has her shoe.  Henry tracks her down to a bar to give her the shoe back and says he didn’t mean any of those things he said. He explains he stood outside and watched through the window for ten minutes. When she sees that he is older, she says she misses him and tries to kiss him. Henry stops her since she just got herself a new young man.

She wonders if him being an arsehole is the big secret he has been keeping from her all these years. Clare isn’t sorry for the shoe because she grew up waiting and longing for him. She goes on to say she formed herself around him and the idea of him. Henry reveals that man formed himself around her too. She reminds him that he didn’t hear what Henry just said, but he said it because time travel is awful. You’re waiting for the next time and wondering whether it is going to kill you. Only the future is scarier because you’re all in. Anyone can stand any type of torture except for hope.

When she asks why he didn’t say all of that, Henry says it did even though it took him a while. She doesn’t like that he is going to be leaving for older her and she is going to get younger him who she calls a dick. Clare wants to know how Henry gets to be him and whether he gets hit by a meteorite. Henry says it was a meteorite named Claire. He encourages her to look on the bright side that younger Henry is way hotter than him. Before Henry goes, he says he slept with him too and asks for a whiskey and soda. He steps outside and asks Henry how Ingrid is. Henry says he might go see her tonight since this isn’t working out. Old Henry says someone once told him that you have two things to do on this Earth. You can find the love of your life and die as slowly as possible.

He did part one tonight and part two starts now. He has seen the blood so he knows something is coming so he doesn’t have time to waste. 36-year-old Henry disappears and returns home where he finds 28-year-old Clare in bed alone. When he climbs into bed with her, she asks when he was. She apologizes for throwing her shoe at him. Henry says it is about time. Young Henry hears something nearby. He goes to see what it is. 34-year-old Clare says men went to sea a long time ago and women waited for them. Now, she waits for Henry. Young Henry begins saying not today. Old Henry would hate to be where she is because he always goes where she can’t follow before Clare says something similar.

He disappears. When younger Henry walks away, we see a pair of feet where he was looking. The left foot has his birthmark on it.

 

The Time Traveler’s Wife Review

The first episode of The Time Traveler’s Wife was an erratic tale jumping across many times while focusing solely on Clare and Henry. I sometimes feel like notable European stars are out of their element when appearing in American projects because the latter doesn’t have the same classical style as European projects. Although this was evident at points, both leads did well with their respective roles. The chemistry isn’t there yet, but it might need more time to develop since the characters have just met.

There was nothing groundbreaking here that will leave the viewer yearning for more. The story might transform into a touching romantic drama after a few more episodes, but it isn’t there yet. The episode was a bit creepy at points considering how heavily it played up the grooming angle. It was an odd choice of words to specifically use the word grooming at some point. The sparkle and magic of the story weren’t present in the first episode as the dialogue either fell flat or was just cringey.

Truthfully, the episode was a bit boring and confusing. There are five more episodes so it has time to turn into an exciting and deeply emotional romance, but it is starting on shaky footing. The first episode scores a 6 out of 10. Recaps of The Time Traveler’s Wife can be found on Reel Mockery here. Find out how to support our work here.