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posts about #sealab2021 more → Let's Do The Time Loop Again. And Again...
San Francisco, 9:40 PM
Fri Dec 4
24 posts in the last 24 hours
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Let's Do The Time Loop Again. And Again... |
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04/11/09
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Time and Again is a full length 1970 novel written by Jack Finney not David James. It has a 1995 sequel named "From Time to Time."
[en.wikipedia.org])
"Replay" by Ken Grimwood does not end in a loop. It is very clear that Jeff and Pamela break out of the loop and are free to continue their lives. Someone else is now in a new loop..
Finally, Replay is what inspired is what inspired "Groundhog Day" and both 12:01 movies. It really is a fantastic novel.
04/11/09
Everyone should read the novel.
04/10/09
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04/10/09
So if you remember the premise, Frank gets in his time sphere every week and goes back 7 days to stop a disaster from occurring.
But here's the thing they never mention on the show: since he always travels back 7 days, no one on the show would ever have seen him use the time sphere to travel forward.
Stay with me on this. All they would ever see is Frank Parker coming back from the future. And calling them and saying "Hey I just flew in from the future and the bad guys are going to [whatever]."
Because every time they do see him use the time sphere, he just goes back into the past and makes using it unnecessary... when the 7 days repeat themselves.
Therefore, he never does make the trip back again 7 days later. There is no closed time loop on this show. Therefore, no one on the show except Frank ever sees the time sphere actually leave. It only returns.
Weird, huh?
04/10/09
This should read:
But here's the thing they never mention on the show: since he always travels back 7 days, no one on the show would ever have seen him use the time sphere to leave and go back into the past.
04/10/09
Let's just say you're the sexy Russian chick from the show and it's April 7. She tells Frank that the bad guys are going to steal the space shuttle.
Frank gets in his time sphere, SRC waves goodbye and he goes back to April 1. He tells SRC that in the future the bad guys are going to do their thing.
Then they stop the bad guys.
On April 7, there is no need to travel back in time. The prior sexy Russian chick from the previous April 7 no longer exists. Therefore, no one ever sees Frank leave in the time sphere.
04/11/09
There's several dozen Franks in existence at one time then, right?
04/12/09
There should be. The show never addresses this. When Frank comes back from the past, they never say what happened to the current Frank. Nor, as you point out, do they say why there aren't dozens of time spheres.
Now if the sphere returned to the same place each time, you could kind of at least fudge that... but the sphere actually shows up in all sorts of places. So that doesn't make sense either!
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There's also a funny "X-Files" time-loop episode, "Monday", during season 6:
04/10/09
I wrote one for a show in college. Except it was more like there were three different versions of each character running around the timeline/stage/screen, and everyone had to kill the other versions of themselves. Or something like that. I'm not quite sure I even understood how it worked when I wrote it, but it was awesome.
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And I love the TNG and X-Files episodes. And regarding the Sealab episode -- Say hi to Queen Doppelpopolis!
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04/11/09
Also one of the few examples of the transition being physical in nature rather then mental. (that is, link triggers going back 3 days ago himself, carrying all his items with him)
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04/10/09
Tell that to everyone who ever went to Arkham.
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[en.wikipedia.org])
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The protagonist only had a few seconds to live in the present (and not much to live for even if he didn't), so he kept looping back to repeat the best/happiest year/s of his life with his cool best friend, his one true love, etc. Eventually he was going to run out of time in the present, but he knew he had enough time for several loops through that one golden period where it all went right. It was bittersweet. Set in San Fran.
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Grimwood died of a heart attack, too. Makes you wonder...