I've watched most of season one and it seems that in almost every episode they actively try to alter history the entire hour. I thought it had been clearly established before this show was made that altering history would also alter the future. Why was this ignored in this show?
shareAs soon as any time traveler interacts with anyone in the past, history has been altered. The only way the future from that point won't be affected is with an alternate timeline. I don't know, but is that concept even discussed in TTT?
DrakeStraw
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They never got very philosophical about it, but the show appears to follow the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle: Nothing changes because anything the time travelers do was always part of history to begin with.
Following are some examples, but they are spoilers:
They go back to the battle of Jericho, and give Joshua the idea to send spies into the city, which they knew about from the Bible. They are the spies. Their interaction in the past actually causes history to happen as "originally intended". (Of course, this creates an ontological paradox, because no one actually originated the idea of sending in spies, but that's a discussion for a different time. Which better happen before 2/20!)
They go back to Pearl Harbor, and their actions end up saving young Tony's life, and result in his father's death, just as the original history required. No paradox in this case, but once again, history unfolds "correctly" because of their actions. What they did was always part of history.