Flashforward 18 and 19 (spoilers)

[ewx]

Episode 18

So, Janis is a double-agent, her loyalty still intact. Good; the idea that she’d genuinely turn traitor seemed alien. (I suppose I’m assuming that Vogel isn’t working for the conspiracy.) Does Benford know? He’s being a bit on the credulous side if he doesn’t, but if he does know then he knows it’s important not to catch Janis out.

Gabriel’s description of the situation as an emergency makes me suspect a scripting emergency, a need to advance the plot more rapidly in the face of a too-good conspiracy covering up whatever’s really going on. Perhaps that’s overly cynical, but they did spend an awful lot of episodes chasing down rather marginal advances.

Frost’s connection to Afghanistan is presumably going to turn out to be related to Tracey Stark being there: Jericho running the conspiracy’s security out there, perhaps. I like the dark, askew portrayal of the Kandahar backstreets, but Stark’s attackers seemed remarkably shy of using their advantage in men and arms (before ?Kemir and his men turn up.

The Antikythera mechanism is real, and was an ancient Greek orrery. Apparently there are references in Cicero to similar devices.

Episode 19

Pretty unforgivable to leave Campos with access to Mosaic (and the ring) once they knew he was compromised. The ease with which Benford sees through him sharply contrasts with how plausible he found (or appeared to find) Janis Hawk’s excuses, adding support to the theory that Marshall Vogel already clued him in on her double-agent status (the alternative being that he sees through flimflam when the scripts needs him to).

Good news for Bryce Varley. But might he yet end up with Arahida? Nicole’s flashforward has her being drowned, and we’ve not seen anything that might head that off (nor for that matter explain it).

Gabriel has a drawing of Mark’s board. Which probably means the conspiracy do too.

”We’re simulating the Big Bang. What could go wrong?”

Fiona Banks is played by Alex Kingston, who also plays River Song. I suspect Dr Who would make pretty short work of the Flashforward setup: unmask and undermine the conspiracy, neutralize Jericho, rescue Anabelle Campos and probably talk Rudolf Geyer all the way back into a German jail.

A thought occurs to me, on seeing the visualization after the NLAP experiment. Was the blackout at exactly the same time across the entire world? The Earth’s diameter is about 12000km, about 0.04 seconds as the photon flies. You’d need time-accurate recordings to use that to identify a starting point, but it woudn’t be impossible in principle.

N: “How much Lloyd/Mark slash is there?”

Comments

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

Now I don't know whether I want Bryce to end up with Keiko (who I think is lovely) or Nicole (who admittedly has been a rock for him). But if Nicole doesn't own up to him about Keiko now, this is surely going to undermine any relationship they do have. Could it be that Nicole tries to help Keiko and accidentally gets mixed up in something bad, then feels she deserves her fate because she actively tried to stop Bryce's flashforward coming true? Except that surely this can't be the case - the flashforwards really do seem to show a future in which the flashforwards hadn't happened, I think, so Nicole's drowning should be independent of anything flashforward-related. I think. Erm...

I suspect Dr Who would make pretty short work of the Flashforward setup

I like this :)

P.S. If I end up having DW/FF crossover dreams like my A2A/FF one, it's totally your fault, but I'm not complaining :)

A thought occurs to me, on seeing the visualization after the NLAP experiment. Was the blackout at exactly the same time across the entire world? The Earth’s diameter is about 12000km, about 0.04 seconds as the photon flies. You’d need time-accurate recordings to use that to identify a starting point, but it woudn’t be impossible in principle.

Yes, I was thinking this. But it looked to me as though the FFs were supposed to occur simultaneously once the wave of {plot device[1]} had been round the whole world and... sort of met itself on the other side?? I need to watch this again.

[1] To me it's as good as a plot device because I don't know a great deal about QM. I'll leave it to others to think about how phoney or otherwise the science sounds.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Yes, the effect could leave some state "behind" and have the actual start of the flashforward exactly synchronized. Or there could be some handwaving about quantum entanglement (already in play because of the rings) or other FTL propagation (again, in play since they've been talking about tachyons). Still, if you were investigating it, it'd be worth at least looking for a propagation delay.