El Ministerio del Tiempo/The Ministry of Time — Episode 1: El tiempo es el que es/Time is what it Is: A Review

24th November, 2018.

Not that I’m feeling rushed here … 

No, really, I’m not … 

I’m just very aware that it’s getting rather late.

And that there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask … 

How’s your Spanish?

If you’re anything like me, it ranges from know how to say ‘Thank you,’ to completely non-existent.

If you’re anything like Old Peculiar regular, Olga?

Then you’re a native Spanish speaker, and speak Catalan and English as well!

AND a professional translator.

I’m quite definitely the former: totally hopeless at anything resembling a foreign language.

But quite thankful for the existence of subtitles.

Without those?   Watching a series Olga mentioned to me, some time ago, would have been impossible*.

Yes: and as I mentioned in the opening video, there?

I’ve just seen the first episode of the Spanish language series, El Ministerio del Tiempo/The Ministry of Time.

Episode one of series one, so you know.

I’m impressed.

~≈§≈~

Episode 1 — El tiempo es el que es/Time is What it Is — introduces us to Julían (Rodolfo Sancho), an emergency paramedic in Madrid.

An paramedic still grieving the death of his wife in a car crash three years earlier.

And, as a result?

Alienated from many of his co-workers: frustrated by the dangerous situations he automatically throws himself into.

It’s on one such night?   He dashes in to a burning building, convinced he can see shadows of inside … 

Only to find the still living body of what looks like a soldier … in the scarily accurate version of The uniforms worn by Napoleon’s Grand Armée … 

It’s only once he survives this … ?

He get’s recruited …

~≈§≈~

Many centuries earlier?

We are introduced to Alonso de Entrerríos (Nacho Fresneda), a Spanish soldier — a Tercio — in deep trouble: as we meet him?

Alonso is in a prison cell, having a last conversation with his fiancé … before being hung for assaulting an officer.

It’s only once Blanca has gone … ?

That the mysterious monk who’s sneaked in to the cell tells Alonso he’s not there to do the last rites … 

No … 

The padré’s got a job offer …

~≈§≈~

Somewhere in between … ?

We meet Amelia Folch (Aura Garrido), the only child of a well-to-do Barcelona family, who is the only woman her class at University.

Causing something of a stir in the Spanish academia of the 19th century.

After one especially contentious lecture?

She meets the mysterious Irene (Cayetana Guillén Cuervo).

Irene’s interested in women’s rights … 

And thinks she knows a thing or two that will grab Amelia’s attention … 

~≈§≈~

The three eventually met … in modern day Madrid.

They’ve recruited by a very odd, and very secretive, government department called the Ministry of Time.

One with access to time travel through a series of doors in the Ministry’s HQ … 

One that’s found a pair of Napoleon’s finest causing havoc, with a stolen gun, and an unauthorised door … 

And one that needs three new recruits to make history goes as it should … 

~≈§≈~

Now … impressed … ?

Oh, yes: this first episode is quite something!

For starters?

At just one 69 minutes, I was expecting something a little slowly paced.

But got a fast paced, rapid fire, SF thriller: that, with my interested in history, had me glued to my seat.

One that also had sympathetic characters with well explained motives, good dialogue — at least, subtitled that looked good — and a look and feel that had me both excited and transfixed.

Can I make a confession, here?

As you’re no doubt aware, I’m a Dr Who fan.

And one who enjoyed Torchwood, when it was on.

Thus far?

El Ministerio del Tiempo is reminding me of Torchwood.

There’s a very good mix of action, politics, and emotion in El Ministerio del Tiempo that gets me thinking investing more time in it?

Would be a damn good idea … !

*        Like I say, gracias is about the only word of Spanish I know!