The Umbrella Academy Almost Made Time Travel Shows Look Easy

Among Netflix’s many fantasy shows is one that made time travel look easy, and could have potentially changed how it’s represented on TV. Netflix has a variety of fantasy shows in its catalog, some already ranking among the best TV shows of all time, that blend with different genres to bring unique stories to life.

One of Netflix’s best and most popular fantasy shows is The Umbrella Academy, based on the comic book series of the same name by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá. The Umbrella Academy follows the title team of seven adopted siblings with different superpowers, and their struggles in their personal lives. One of them, Five (Aidan Gallagher), has the power of manipulating space and time, allowing him to teleport and, eventually, travel in time.

Time travel takes a central role in all four seasons of The Umbrella Academy, as the team has to prevent the end of the world at different points in time, and thanks to that, the show makes time travel easy… until its final season.

The Umbrella Academy Got Time Travel Right Between Seasons 1-3

After spending years apart due to their less-than-ideal upbringing with their adoptive father, Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore), and Five disappearing for years, the Hargreeves reunited at Reginald’s funeral. To their surprise, Five suddenly returned, looking exactly like he did when they were 13.

While there are some complex physics involved in how Five went from a 60-something-year-old man back to this 13-year-old body, the key was always time travel. The Umbrella Academy didn’t complicate Five’s abilities, showing him jumping through points in time rather than points in a physical space. Jumping back to the past was trickier, but Five eventually cracked it.

At the end of The Umbrella Academy season 1, it made sense that, now that Five had understood how his time travel abilities work, he could bring his siblings with him, and so he did. Time travel in The Umbrella Academy’s seasons 1 to 3 was conceptually easy, and the audience could follow along smoothly, but the show was aware that, within this universe, there would still be flaws and unexpected obstacles.

Season 2 saw the Hargreeves landing in Dallas, Texas, but at different points between 1960 and 1963, where, once more, they had to stop the apocalypse. However, The Umbrella Academy kept in mind the well-known rule of how changing the past can change the future, but instead of one future, the show explained that changing the past creates another timeline, which was exactly what they did at the end of season 2.

Luther (Tom Hopper) looking unamused and Five (Aidan Gallagher) smirking in The Umbrella Academy season 4 with a clock behind them

The Umbrella Academy’s Complete Timeline (& Alternates) Explained

Time-travel plays a huge part in The Umbrella Academy, resulting in a messy web of different timelines, especially in its fourth and final season.

Season 3 was also about the end of the world and their efforts to stop it, but instead of focusing on time travel itself, it explored the consequences of their past travels through time and space. Season 3 addressed time paradoxes and their impact on the timeline the Hargreeves created, proving that every action will have a consequence.

While time travel in The Umbrella Academy definitely had its complexities, it got the basics right and made it easy to follow, exciting, and a key part of its characters’ stories – the problem is that the final season forgot what made time travel in seasons 1 to 3 so great.

The Umbrella Academy’s Time Travel Only Went Wrong In Season 4

Five in the multiverse subway in The Umbrella Academy season 4

The Umbrella Academy’s final season was a lot shorter, and because of that, it felt rushed and fell into nonsense territory. The Umbrella Academy season 4 had a time jump at the beginning, through which it skipped some of the biggest questions left by season 3’s finale, such as what happened to Sloane and why the Hargreeves and Lila lost their powers.

The Umbrella Academy season 4 finally answered the question of what truly happened to Ben, but the answer to that also led to the infamous “Jennifer incident” and its impact on the multiverse created by the past seasons. This then led to the controversial fate of the Hargreeves, with the show explaining that the only way to fix everything they caused with their travels through time and space was by dying.

Some of the actions of the Hargreeves in the finale of The Umbrella Academy went against what the previous seasons had established about time travel, thus making what was once clear and easy to follow messy and nonsensical. The Umbrella Academy had a weak ending that couldn’t carry on with what the show had perfectly built, but ultimately, it’s undeniable that, at least for three seasons, the show got time travel right, making it easy to follow yet unpredictable.