This article contains spoilers for The Time Traveler's Wife season 1.
HBO's The Time Traveler's Wife makes some major changes to the book. In 2003, Audrey Niffenegger published her debut novel, The Time Traveler's Wife. She never expected it to become a bestseller - still less to inspire both a feature film adaptation and an HBO TV series written and produced by former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat.
Moffat's love for The Time Traveler's Wife shone through in his Doctor Who run. The out-of-sequence relationships inspired the Doctor's romance with Madame de Pompadour in "The Girl in the Fireplace," and Moffat doubled down on the idea with River Song. It's no surprise, then, that Moffat has now found himself working on a TV adaptation of The Time Traveler's Wife. The HBO TV series has been remarkably faithful to Niffenegger's book, which the author clearly appreciates, speaking positively about the show when she never even bothered to watch the movie in the first place.
For all that's the case, The Time Traveler's Wife does make some major changes to the book. Many of these are because of Moffat's experience on Doctor Who, which means he was aware of other narrative tricks that could be used to tell a "timey-wimey" tale. Others are simply because the HBO TV show is releasing in 2022, not 2003, and the world has moved on. The changes to The Time Traveler's Wife justify its adaptation, giving viewers a new way to understand and interpret this unusual love story.
The Time Traveler's Wife Changes The Time Period
The most obvious change is, ironically, in terms of timescale. Niffenegger's novel ran from the 1960s through to the present day, whereas HBO's The Time Traveler's Wife is set from the 1990s through to the present day. This makes the TV show feel more immediate, while also allowing for a few amusing in-jokes based on viewers' knowledge of Henry and Clare's personal future. One of the most striking sees Henry recommend Gomez invest in a number of companies he's never heard of, including Netflix. The Time Traveler's Wife season 2 will continue on from the wedding to the present day, with the world becoming more recognizable.
The Time Traveler's Wife Uses A New Framing Device
The HBO TV show uses video recordings as a narrative framing device, a habit Henry and Clare began after their wedding day at the end of The Time Traveler's Wife season 1. This idea is an original one, and it's tremendously effective, while also - in retrospect - giving a hint of hope to a story that can sometimes seem quite gloomy. The wedding video taught Henry and Clare the importance of leaving behind a record of their lives, and in this case the videos are for their future daughter, Alba. They also serve as an effective way of segmenting each episode, reinforcing key themes, and giving essential infodumps on just how time travel works. Moffat was probably inspired by his fan-favorite Doctor Who episode "Blink," in which the Doctor left video messages to guide an ally in defeating the Weeping Angels.
The Time Traveler's Wife Changes Its Rules Of Time Travel
The Time Traveler's Wife changes its rules of time travel - in a rather grisly way. In the TV series, every part of Henry's body possesses the ability to travel in time, even when dead or cut off from him; in episode 1 he complains about nail-clippings traveling through time, or a haircut that follows him home. There's an important reason Moffat has made this particular change, however; because it allows Henry to have a sense of his impending fate. He stumbles upon his own amputated feet, for example, and there's a massive amount of blood following him through the timeline - both of which point to his story ending in tragedy. All this means that, by the end of The Time Traveler's Wife season 1, Henry marries Clare knowing he won't be with her forever - and season 2 will show just why that is the case.
Henry & Clare Have A More Combative Relationship In The Time Traveler's Wife
The relationship between Henry and Clare is rather different in Moffat's version of The Time Traveler's Wife. The ages are changed, meaning Clare was born the same year Henry's mother died; the Time Traveler's Wife timeline change is an odd one, apparently indicating Clare fulfils a desperate need for a female role model in Henry's life. This sets up a strange subtext in which Henry's relationship with Clare changes him, mellowing him out and making him less impulsive, allowing him to find his emotional center. There are essentially two major versions of Henry in The Time Traveler's Wife season 1, the 28-year-old who meets Clare and the man he is destined to become, who Clare fell in love with. This leads to a lot of dramatic tension, with Clare finding herself fighting with Henry a lot more (especially in episode 2). It means their marriage will no doubt be a difficult one in season 2, with Clare coming to regret encouraging Henry to change and become the man she longed for - simply because he proves more flawed than she'd realized.
The Time Traveler's Wife Borrows A Multi-Doctor Idea From Doctor Who
This different approach allows Moffat to borrow a trick from Doctor Who's multi-Doctor stories. In The Time Traveler's Wife episode 4, Clare finds herself in the surreal position of playing host to two versions of Henry at once. The scene is entirely original, and explains why Clare's friends Gomez and Charisse come to believe Henry is a time traveler. In the book, Gomez encountered one version of Henry when he was caught up in a street-fight, and he believed him when Henry disappeared before his eyes. This is far more effective, and much more satisfying from a narrative perspective, because it's interesting to see the two Henrys interacting with one another. One Henry does not like the man he used to be, while the other resents this future version. The dinner date takes a heartbreaking turn when future Henry tells Henry's ex Ingrid - another uninvited guest - her own fate.
Henry Introduces Clare To His Mother In The Time Traveler's Wife
The Time Traveler's Wife introduces Clare to Annette, Henry's mother, who died the year she was born - through an amusing narrative trick in which Henry interacted with his mother in the past, and encouraged her to leave a message for the stranger who is actually destined to become part of her family. It's a fascinating twist, helping to establish Annette as an actual character rather than just a background presence in Henry's life, and it serves as a key moment in which both Clare and Henry accept the part they will play in one another's lives. Annette's advice seems eerily similar to that given by Henry's dad in episode 6, tying the whole story of season 1 together rather well.
The Time Traveler's Wife Mishandles A Rape Scene
The Time Traveler's Wife episode 3 contains one of the most problematic scenes in the HBO TV show, revealing 16-year-old Clare unwisely went on a date with a jock named Jason - and was assaulted. Niffenegger's novel doesn't confirm whether or not she was raped, but the TV series makes it explicit, with a future version of Clare discussing these events on a recording long after Henry's death. "Of course he raped me," Clare observes, and the episode then treats the whole issue as something that primarily affects Henry rather than Clare. Moffat has often been criticized for his poor handling of female characters, and unfortunately The Time Traveler's Wife episode 3 feels rather uncomfortable. This is followed up an even more problematic abuse joke involving Clare and Henry in episode 5, which should really never have been written. Hopefully, this kind of issue will be handled more carefully in season 2.
The Time Traveler's Wife Implies Henry's Dad Will Die Before He Does
Finally, dialogue in The Time Traveler's Wife episode 6 suggests Henry's dad doesn't have long to live. In the book, Richard outlived his own son, but found a new lease of life in teaching his granddaughter - a musical prodigy - how to play the violin. It looks as though Richard won't get this kind of "Happily Ever After" in HBO's The Time Traveler's Wife, which is a real shame. It remains to be seen whether his fate will be shown, or whether he'll simply die between the seasons. Presumably, Moffat simply wanted to reduce the cast so season 2 could remain as tightly focused as the first season.