The Problem with time travel shows

As a SciFi aficionado I can be both critical or lenient of these works depending on variety of things such as technique, whimsy, execution or even for something as lame as a prop (yes I have bashed scifi shows for bad props and makeup). But ideally what you want out of a good scifi is a solid story. One that makes sense and even if you can poke holes in it, the holes can be papered over and be forgiven.

That said, the problem that scifi shows, specifically time travel shows fall into is the need to be linearly different to every other time travel show ever produced to stand out above the rest, even if the story doesn't make sense because then they can say "At least it was different."
This is a phrase I'm ambivalent towards because on the one hand I appreciate efforts to push beyond the boundaries but on the other hand I need it to still make sense in some logical or scientific way.

Time travel = physics. There is no running away from it but somehow Alice tried to avoid using the discipline whilst still heavily alluding to it. A good analogy is a Chef talking about how great his dish, it looks great, probably tastes great but how did he cook it? Give us the recipe! Alice gave us no recipe. Alice uses the premise of multiple dimension in time travel but that falls apart as the show goes on. A lot of things fall apart in the end because there was no good foundation on which to build the drama world with and a little physics would have helped with that.

But coming away from the science bit was the confusing relationships bonds between the ML and FL and other cast. Before the show started airing it was being promoted as a Scifi/thriller with Romance. The romance tag has since been removed but this confused viewers to no end because we were searching for the love interest. I was looking for romance elsewhere but the way how the show played out it just evaporated. The other problem with SciFi genre is that it's often difficult to do character development with the storyline but Alice felt like it was pulling it off in the beginning then got waylaid by time (forgive the pun). I'd like to say that maybe 4 more episodes would have helped this show but at this point who knows. Just as the show used complicated relationships in the beginning, threw it out in the middle, then brought it back in the end was just plain tacky and made me quite resentful of that ending.

So Alice had some problems but she wasn't a complete mess and I believe this was the screenwriter's debut show. This was a great entrance and I look forward to more of his work. Alice production was really on point and I loved the props. And even though Alice give more questions than answers she was still fun to watch.