As a cinephile who has traversed countless timelines and parallel universes, I must confess that my patience for Roger MacKenzie’s time travel obsession is wearing thin. Having spent years navigating the intricate machinations of Outlander’s paradoxical time shifts, I find it rather perplexing how a man as intelligent as Roger continues to grapple with such basic concepts.
As the seventh season of Outlander approaches its conclusion on January 25, 2025, it’s intriguing to contemplate how the Frasers will weather the tumultuous American Revolution. However, less captivating is Roger MacKenzie’s (Richard Rankin) excessive fascination with time travel and the repetitive discussions he persistently engages in, particularly noticeable in Season 7, Episode 9, titled “Unfinished Business.
It seems logical that Roger might worry about his son, Matthew Adair (Jemmy), but his excessive philosophical questions become overwhelming. Not only does Roger annoy his companions and supporters, but his irrational fascination with time travel is quite frustrating for viewers who have followed the show’s complex temporal twists and turns for years and seem to grasp its intricacies better than he does. However, it’s worth noting that Outlander isn’t exactly known for being straightforward in terms of time travel!
Time Travel in ‘Outlander‘
In my perspective, I’d say:
Each season covers a different time and place, with Season 2 transporting the Frasers to France. In Season 2, they meet Roger MacKenzie, an Oxford professor who becomes the romantic interest of Brianna Randall (Sophie Skelton), Claire and Jamie’s daughter. Roger graduates to series regular in Season 4 and beyond, where he and Brianna have three children, including Jemmy, Amanda, and David. As an adopted child, Roger vows to be the father he never had, which partially explains why he becomes obsessed over a potential time paradox.
Roger & Buck’s 18th-century Arc
In the seventh season of ‘Outlander’, the Frasers find themselves in America during the late 1700s, on the verge of the American Revolution. Driven by concern for his children, Roger is persistently seeking Jemmy. Accompanying him in this quest is William “Buck” MacKenzie, a distant relative of Roger, portrayed by Graham McTavish. In episode 9 of season 7, titled ‘Unfinished Business’, the duo embarks on their search around Philadelphia in the year 1739. Adapting to unfamiliar surroundings proves challenging for Roger, adding an extra layer of difficulty to his hunt.
In a fortunate turn of events, Buck hails from the 1700s, making him well-acquainted with that era. Unfortunately, when Buck passes through the mystical Craigh na Dun stones, he leaps 200 years into the future. Buck and Roger develop a bond as they realize they are ancestors to each other, with Roger promising to aid Buck in his search for his lost children. However, when Buck unexpectedly succumbs to an illness in the 18th century, he is left pondering the implications of a potential grandfather paradox on his own.
Why Roger Needs to Slow His Roll
Even though Roger has traversed through time extensively since Season 2 and visited numerous locations, he remains baffled about the mechanisms of time travel. In “Unfinished Business,” the demise of his long-lost relative deeply affected him, causing him to contemplate whether himself and his son Jemmy would vanish without warning.
It appears that we are dealing with a well-known paradox called the grandfather paradox, which implies that actions taken in the past have an everlasting impact on the trajectory of history. For instance, if Buck perishes in the past, Roger fears that he and Jemmy may never be born in the future. However, contrary to this assumption, those who travel back in time, such as Brianna, attempting to extinguish the Fraser Ridge fire, do not have the power to alter subsequent events.
In a rather irritating manner, Roger persists in discussing time travel and its impact on him and his family, which leaves viewers of this time-travel series feeling increasingly disconnected, considering they’ve already grasped the concept. Given that he is an esteemed Oxford professor, one might expect Roger to have a deeper understanding of the subject matter. However, we know nothing changed for Jeremiah after Buck traveled through time, and Brianna remained unaffected despite her parents traversing various eras. As such, Roger’s concerns about his own extinction are misguided at best and detrimental at worst.
In a tragic twist, the death of Buck, as it has been chronicled in history, occurred in 1782 following his apparent demise. Despite his intellectual prowess, the emotional turmoil caused by the loss of his son and Buck’s passing seemed to cloud Roger’s judgment. Consequently, he became uncharacteristically fixated on tracing his family’s ancestry, which under normal circumstances would not have been a priority for him. If this obsession persists in the last seven episodes, there is a risk that viewers might find him annoying and turn away from their favorite character. The time travel aspect of the show is already convoluted enough without adding to the viewer’s confusion by having Roger further complicate matters.
Outlander is available to stream on Netflix
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2024-11-30 23:31