El Ministerio del Tiempo

El Ministerio del Tiempo

There is a new series on Netflix which I have been enjoying, called The Ministry of Time (El Ministerio del Tiempo), it is a Spanish series about a government department in Spain responsible for the looking after the “doors of time”.

In the first season there are three main characters.

El Ministerio del Tiempo Team

Amelia Folch is the leader of the protagonist patrol. She is a late 19th century pioneering university student.

Julián Martínez is a trained SAMUR paramedic from 21st century Madrid.

Alonso de Entrerríos is a highly experienced 16th century soldier from Seville,

I do enjoy TV series and films about time travel, even if they do sometimes give me a headache when it comes to paradoxes.
I enjoyed the first season of Timeless which had a similar concept and characters.

Unlike many of the UK and US series, the Ministry of Time does not feature a secret military unit or spy team, these are government bureaucrats who struggle with pay freezes and budget cuts as well as trying to maintain the timeline.

The premise is that in the heart of Madrid is a secret ministry that through doors provides access to the past. These doors cover a range of times and places across Spain. There are also other doors that “rebel” elements have access to and attempt to change the course of history.

The episodes I have seen have covered the Spanish Armada, the Civil War in the 1930s and various other aspects of Spanish history. I do find myself delving into Wikipedia to discover more about Spanish history.

There are some issues that I don’t get. People from the past can travel to the future (the present), however people from the present can only travel to the past and are unable to travel to the future. It would appear that the present is the only future you can travel to.

Another aspect I find troubling is that according to the initial episodes, the time behind each door travels forward at the same speed, so when two days pass in the present, two days pass in the past. Then in another episode they talk about a door which is stuck in a time loop, the day repeats itself. What troubled me was that the team went to that day five times, but never met themselves. If the day resets behind that door, then there was nothing they could do to change the timeline.

Despite the weird time travel problems that arise in a series like this, I do enjoy it.

One aspect of the series that may put you off is that it is in Spanish and is subtitled. I don’t mind this, but I know for some it’s a deal breaker.

From a gaming perspective, there are lots of ideas in the series which could be translated to the tabletop.

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