SCREEN-L Archives

May 2000, Week 1

SCREEN-L@LISTSERV.UA.EDU

Options: Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
Donald Larsson <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Date:
Tue, 2 May 2000 10:32:44 -0500
Content-Type:
TEXT/PLAIN
Parts/Attachments:
TEXT/PLAIN (38 lines)
Lang Thompson wonders:



> Hi, A friend just told me about an episode of "Angel" where he became
> fully human but finally decided to change back with the catch that the
> story went back to the beginning and only Angel remembered what had
> happened in this alternate reality that he rejected. This concept sounds
> very very familiar to me but I'm having trouble placing it. Anybody know
> of a similar film/TV episode/book?

SF writers have toyed with such premises for some time, although the
story "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed" (by, I think, Phillip Jose
Farmer) and Joanna Russ's THE FEMALE MAN are the only ones that come
readily to mind.

The Star Trek franchise has played with such paradoxes in a number of
episodes, maybe most wittily and elegantly in several episodes of DEEP
SPACE 9, which even introduces a "Bureau of Temporal Anomolies" whose
business is to keep such conundrums from getting out of hand.

Almost all of the QUANTUM LEAP episodes were based on a similar concept.

Beatty's HEAVEN CAN WAIT and its original version, HERE COMES MR.
JORDAN, has a similar theme.

The BACK TO THE FUTURE trilogy also uses similar paradoxes.

Don Larsson
----------------------
Donald Larsson
Minnesota State U, Mankato
[log in to unmask]

----
Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu

ATOM RSS1 RSS2