This television show is a complete abomination. The handling of temporal paradoxes is at best nonexistent. The writing in this show is so abyssmal I was filled with rage. Dealing with time travel is not easy, and if one is not prepared to do some fairly extensive reading, they should leave it to someone else. I am a student of physics, metaphysics, philosophy and science fiction. I know I could have written a better show!
When I first watched these episodes I became heartbroken. I could even see, whether real or imagined, that the fine actors, too, disliked or loathed the writing for this abominable television show. Not much research was conducted by the writers of this program. In order to have a great television show One must have great writing.
The most annoying part about watching this show is the nonexistent explanation of the time travel paradoxes. I shall briefly describe them, and then I will attempt to resolve them in a believable way. Had the writers done this, this program would have been worth watching.
temporal paradox is a logical contradiction associated with the concept of time and time travel. In physics, temporal paradoxes fall into two basic groups. These are consistency paradoxes best illustrated by the grandfather paradox. Causal loops make up the second category. There are also paradoxes of free will that stem from causal loops such as Newcomb's paradox. The Fermi paradox also can be categorized as a causal loop paradox. Let us first examine the grandfather paradox and propose some plausible if not possible solutions.
If one goes back in time and kills his own grandfather it logically follows that this act would remove the possibility of one's own existence. I pose the query: "How could you exist if your father's dad didn't?". Does one simply spontaneously dissolve into nothingness the moment the grandfather dies? Is that even within the realm of empirical possiblity?
The primary resolution to this nagging paradox might be that when one goes back in time to kill your grandfather, you're not going back to your own history. Instead, one might be going to a copy of one's history. We must consider the possibility of multiple universes as described in M theory. Therefore everything one does in this version of this alternate universe, will affect the alternate future of that universe, not this one.
This idea embraces the the concept of the quite plausible proposal that Star Trek style transporters immolate the person being transported. An understanding of quantum physics is essential as quantum physics doesn't 'allow' for perfect copies of anything to exist, either in time travel or teleportation.
In the Star Trek style of teleportation, all of one's atoms are scanned and destroyed in the process, because cloning is not possible in quantum mechanics. After the scanning process, the information about one is teleported to the new location. Here, a plethora of new atoms are used to create a whole new person, complete with memories, personality quirks, and any existent tumors or acid reflux disorder. There are ongoing experiments currently underway exploring the phenomenon of quantum entanglement. This could make teleportation, and by extension, time travel possible.