The Crossing 1.9: The New Machine

Lots of important time-traveling things happening on The Crossing 1.9 tonight, the last episode before the two-hour series finale this coming Saturday night (maybe season finale, if ABC comes to its senses, see a little more about this below).

Among the most significant threads is Naomi using her knowledge of the future to gain agency, as I've been hearing said in the news these days (that is, people having "agency," or some kind of power over events).   People from the future getting power by leveraging their knowledge is always implicit in time travel stories, but you don't see it utilized in this way too often.

Another important development: Lindaeur aka Noah is displaying some more leanings towards humanity - especially in contrast to cruel Greta - and we learn tonight that that's because he's a father, of the one child who came along in the first crossing (assuming the boy we see at the end of the episode is that child).   Whatever the child's origin, Lindauer as a father is bound to look at such profound issues as life and the future in a more compassionate way.

But the most important development in tonight's episode is Diana's revelation that she has a way of making people disappear, without time-travel.  This means the device she has in mind is, what, a teleportation machine?  Should be fun to see, and I hope we find out next week.

Which brings me back to ABC.  Hey, you have an opening, now that you've canceled Roseanne.  Why don't you fill it with a renewal of The Crossing?  There are some rednecks in the story, and the general message is people needing to get along (a big improvement over the real Roseanne).   I saw today that there's a good chance that Roseanne will be rebooted without Roseanne - even if that happens, you can't go wrong also keeping a time-travel story with a sense of humor (like a character confusing Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio tonight - they did look a lot alike when they were younger, right?) blended into the drama with hope for the future.

And I'll be back here after what I hope is just the season finale, on Saturday night.

See also The Crossing: Lost Again, But OK ... The Crossing 1.2: Calling for More Time Travel ... The Crossing 1.3: The Missing Inventor ... The Crossing 1.4: Hofstra ... The Crossing 1.5: Migrations in Conflict ... The Crossing 1.6: Apex Antibodies ... The Crossing 1.7: The Locket ... The Crossing 1.8: The Cure


          Paul Levinson interviewed about Roseanne