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It strips away all the illusions of romance to reveal the cold, stark prison of marriage. Any affection they develop comes off as grudging. Henry and Clare don't even like each other. They lack the soft, likable vulnerability that lovers in a romance need to be, they need to be sympathetic. It doesn't help that the glibness of the writing makes Theo James' Henry come off as smug and callow, and Rose Leslie's Clare come off as brittle and manipulative. It feels like Moffat offering the two sides of Marriage as his mission statement for The Time Traveler's Wife and combined, they create a picture of Hell. Henry says Love is a cruel trick life plays on people, offering false hope that's taken away by death. Their best friends Gomez ( Desmin Borges) and Charisse ( Natasha Lopez) end up looking like enablers of their dysfunctional relationship, darker and creepier versions of the friends in Coupling.Ĭlare says Love is what makes life and marriage bearable. Henry and Clare come to love each other because they think they're supposed to, but it's more that they're literally stuck with each other, and to hate each other their entire lives would be unbearable. The show's statement about marriage is that it is unavoidable and miserable. It was always going to happen and everything that happened in their lives, and everything they do serve the purpose of driving them together into a marriage neither of them asked for. The show presents Henry and Clare's marriage as predestined, inevitable, and inescapable. It's all been predetermined that she would be married to this man and eventually lose him. She thinks she has autonomy but she has no real agency in her life or where it goes. Clare's entire life revolves around Henry. In fact, the show stating that Henry grooming Clare is inevitable because of Time and inescapable destiny makes it far worse. Just because the show admits it's about grooming doesn't make it better. Moffat has Henry admit that he inadvertently groomed Clare from childhood and apologise. In having scenes between Henry and Young Clare in every episode of the show, sometime several times, turns that problematic part of the story into the elephant in the room. There's the uncomfortable notion that Clare has been groomed from childhood to become Henry's wife. His sitcom banter clashes with the inherent tragedy of the story, creating tonal whiplash that emphasizes all the problematic and unpleasant parts of the story. It is not funny despite Moffat's effort to inject humour at every turn. It could be read as an allegory for being in a marriage with a man who has a debilitating disease, or an emotionally distant man, and the inevitable loss in every love story brought on by death. It is an allegory for marriage and all its ups and downs.
#GRATEFUL DEAD ROSE PUZZLE FULL#
The Time's Traveler's Wife has turned out to be a show full of tonal whiplash. Moffat turned the adaptation into a visit to many of his greatest hits: the timey-wimey clockwork jigsaw puzzles of Doctor Who, the farcical sex comedy of his hit sitcom Coupling, the bitter marriage battles of his cult sitcom Joking Apart (which was more bitter than funny despite his trademark skill at funny sitcom dialogue), the restless, rapid unfolding puzzle box revelations of Sherlock.