Doris Schwartz Time and Again Season 1 Ep 7 Commentary

After a weaker previous episode I really felt I was back on track with this story. "Only Trying To Help" obviously comes from the season 1 song of the same name and here we discover how badly Doris' interfering has affected the time line and particularly her relationship with Bruno. Doris and Bruno had always been a constant on the show and even after Bruno left and wasn't mentioned I still think we had a sense that they were still great friends. Bruno will play a major part in season 4 but to have that relationship put in jeopardy is really interesting to me. Particularly as it's all down to Doris' good intentions.

To me it makes things worse that her actions meant Bruno's father died after an argument with Bruno and Doris has caused Bruno to suffer exactly the same fate she suffered when her Mother died so that really adds to Doris' guilt.

It's obvious something has happened between Bruno and the teenage Doris, who of course has no idea what her older self has been up to. Similarly older Doris has no memory of events that never originally happened. I knew we would see this fight in a future episode although I wrote myself into a bit of a corner with it but more about that when we get to those episodes. 

As well as the situation with Bruno there is obviously something else afoot as Doris isn't part of the performance but I thought I'd wait to explore that.

All of this does rather overshadow the cliff hanger from the previous episode but I personally like the idea that teenage Doris can't see herself.  I have no real explanation for this apart from I liked the idea and it easily got me out of the Face To Face situation. Although it gave me ideas to be able to develop it in the future. So other works of fiction would have us believe that something bad like the world blowing up happens if we come face to face with our past selves but I'm saying nothing visibly happens it's just the younger version can't see themself.

I threw in a nice exchange with Dwight to help add to the confusion I was planning in the final episode of the season. So far she's been herself dressed up in a blond wig, looking older, A Dance teacher, a music teacher, Morloch's wife and Dwight's Mother.