Somewhere Between: Frequency meets Awake

Somewhere Between debuted on ABC tonight.  It has possibilities, including exploration of time travel, always one of my favorite kinds of narrative.

The set-up is Laura Price, whose eight-year daughter is killed by a serial killer she's pursuing as a broadcast journalist.   Laura's understandably more than distraught, and seeks to drown herself off-shore.  But instead she comes to and finds herself back in time, about a week before her daughter was murdered.

So Somewhere Between has some immediate similarities with Frequency (movie and TV series), though at this point it's much less scientific or or even pseudo-scientific.  And it also bears some resemblance to Awake, and its story of a police detective living in two parallel realities, because unlike Frequency and its ham radio, Somewhere Between has no mechanism to explain the time travel.

At least, not yet.  The one thing we know is that Laura's trip back in time happened when she tried to take her own life, at the same time as Nico - a former cop - is being thrown in the same or very nearby water, bound, i.e., in an attempt by some people to kill him.  And just to up that ante even more, Nico's brother is at that very moment being administered a lethal injection in a long delayed capital punishment.

So Laura's jump back in time is in some way connected to or occasioned by two other attempts to take human life at that very moment - attempts made on the lives of two brothers.  Laura, by the way, is played by Paula Patton, who was excellent in Deja Vu, the 2006 time travel movie which I consider among the top five in the genre (I'm taking the Back to the Future trilogy as one movie in that counting).

That's more than enough for me to watch the second episode of Somewhere Between in its regular time tomorrow night, when I'll report back with another review.

Epilogue for Frequency

A really satisfying epilogue to Frequency, recently cancelled, put up online a few days ago by CW.

The epilogue's under four minutes, but it ends the series just right.   (Don't read on if you don't want spoilers).

Frank's CB radio and its connection to Raimy and the future - our present - wasn't working at the end of the last episode.   It's now repaired, and Frank gets the good news that his wife and Raimy's mother is doing great, and the Nightingale killer was indeed nabbed, and recently died in prison.

Except - well, Julie (Raimy's mother) - isn't doing quite that great.  She misses Frank, who died in 2011.  Frank back in 1996 is loath to do anything more to change the future, but Raimy pleads with him - for Julie's sake - to this one more thing, don't go out of the house, and "God forbid" not in the car, on the day in 2011 he is supposed to die.

She asks Frank if he got that - but the CB radio connection has died again.

Raimy is desperate - when she hears from Frank's voice - in her room, in person, in 2017!  There he is, a few years older, but very much alive.  He got the message.  They hug, and all the good memories of their lives together come back to Raimy.

Now that's what I call a perfect happy ending.  Thank you, CW - and Godspeed, Raimy and Frank and Julie.

See also Frequency 1.1: Closely Spun Gem ... Frequency 1.2: All About the Changes  ... Frequency 1.3: Chess Game Across Time ...  Frequency 1.4: Glimpsing the Serial Killer ... Frequency 1.5: Two Sets of Memories ... Frequency 1.6: Another Time Traveler? ... Frequency 1.7: Snags ... Frequency 1.8: Interferences ... Frequency 1.9: The Wife and the Fiancee ... Frequency 1.10: The Clarinet of Time ... Frequency 1.11: The Unkilling ... Frequency 1.12: Good Inter-temporal Police Work, But... Frequency 1.13: Almost Happy and Sad Endings

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Time After Time, Timeless, and Frequency in the Dustbin of History

It's been a bad year for time travel series on network television.

Time After Time, based on the excellent Malcolm McDowell movie, barely made it out of the starting gate on ABC.

Frequency, based on one of the best time travel movies ever made, had a short run on the CW, and was recently canceled. *Noted added 18 May 2017: But CW posted a very satisfying little epilogue - details here.

Timeless, a big ticket series on NBC, learned its sad fate yesterday.  *Note added 14 May 2017: But NBC reversed its decision and renewed Timeless after all!  See here.

Although I had good things to say about all three series, I can't say I'm surprised that they didn't make it.  In fact, though I'm always up for seeing any time travel on television, I also had problems with all three.

Frequency had in principle the best story.   The idea of a father (a cop) hearing from his son, in the future, that the father will be killed, worked well as a father and daughter set-up in the television series.   These kinds of personal time travel stories have a lot of appeal, precisely because they are a refreshing departure from saving the world.  But what worked great in the movie got bogged in the television series.   Of the three canceled series, I would have most wanted to see what happened next season, but the first season took a little too long to get there.

H. G. Wells traveling to our present in his time machine was a great idea for the Time After Time TV series as well as the movie.   For all we know, the series could have been excellent.  But we didn't get a chance to see that, and what we did see on screen got tied up in a few too many stories and subplots.

Timeless was original, and had some nice touches, such as travel to the past resulting in real, demonstrable changes in our present.   Most time travel stories don't dare go there.  But the labyrinth of conspiracies blunted the impact of the story, and the conspirators going back to the American Revolutionary War is something we saw before on screens.  *Note added 14 May 2017: Still, I'm very glad to see it renewed!

12 Monkeys returns for three nights on the SyFy Channel later this month, and then next year for a final season.   The future of time travel on the screen may well reside on Netflix and Amazon.


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Frequency 1.13: Almost Happy and Sad Endings

Well, Frequency 1.13 saved the best for last, and I hope that's the last of season 1, with a season 2 to follow, and not the end of the series.

The episode opens with as happy an ending as you could hope for in this situation. Raimy's mother Julie is alive and a doctor.  Raimy's engaged to be married.  Even Gordo's a mentch - actually, a lawyer, in a suit.

The only thing missing is Frank, who was saved at the start of the season, in 1996, but died in a car accident five years ago.   In a nice touch, Raimy's fiance wants to know whom she is talking to on the ham radio, and Frank, apprised of this, says maybe it's time to retire their intertemporal chats.  But Raimy wants her father at her marriage, and wants to change time at least one more time, and Frank agrees...

This could make a good story in itself, but just in case, the Nightingale killer is still at large,  That's because, not only was the son looking like he was going to follow in his father's footsteps (as I thought last week), but it turns out the son actually was the the Nightingale killer all along.  He's been controlling himself for 20 years, to take advantage of his father going to prison for him, but he's reached the end of his self-control.

So we've got a really good set-up for a new season.  Frank stops the Nightingale - the son - from killing Julie in 1996, but the Nightingale is getting ready to strike again in 2016.  And the time-tranversing radio is broken.

But, hey, I just used my own time-leaping cable connection and I think I saw a little bit of the first episode of Season 2, later this year or early next, I'm not sure.  If I did, I'll see you then with some more reviews.


See also Frequency 1.1: Closely Spun Gem ... Frequency 1.2: All About the Changes  ... Frequency 1.3: Chess Game Across Time ...  Frequency 1.4: Glimpsing the Serial Killer ... Frequency 1.5: Two Sets of Memories ... Frequency 1.6: Another Time Traveler? ... Frequency 1.7: Snags ... Frequency 1.8: Interferences ... Frequency 1.9: The Wife and the Fiancee ... Frequency 1.10: The Clarinet of Time ... Frequency 1.11: The Unkilling ... Frequency 1.12: Good Inter-temporal Police Work, But...

                       more time travel

Frequency 1.12: Good Inter-temporal Police Work, But...

Good inter-temporal police work between Raimy and Frank in last night's Frequency 1.12, but ...

Somewhat predictably - because it's the next-to-last, not last, show of the season - Julie is still in mortal danger.  Because the Nightingale, having been eliminated as Julie's killer, thanks to being put behind bars in Frank's time, is replaced by his son as Julie's (likely) killer).,

This is a good touch - the stubbornness of the Julie-gets-killed timeline defeats, at least for now, Raimy and Frank's relentless efforts to change it.  Except - well, it's even more complicated than that, which is also more intriguing and different than just Julie still being killed.

This is an interesting decision on the part of the writers.  Why not have Julie still dead, even after the Nightingale can't kill her, and make that the mystery to be solved (or not) next week?  The answer, I'd say, is because giving Raimy - and we, the audience - a taste of what it's like if Julie had survived is even better.  It tells us, reminds in case we needed reminding, just how much Raimy now has to loose.

Also of interest is where Frank is in the 2016 in which Julie is alive?  And, come to think of it, when will the son of the Nightingale try to satisfy his inherited obsession and try to kill Julie?

These questions are moving Frequency into a first-rate time-travel story, which makes me hope more than ever that it lives beyond next week.


See also Frequency 1.1: Closely Spun Gem ... Frequency 1.2: All About the Changes  ... Frequency 1.3: Chess Game Across Time ...  Frequency 1.4: Glimpsing the Serial Killer ... Frequency 1.5: Two Sets of Memories ... Frequency 1.6: Another Time Traveler? ... Frequency 1.7: Snags ... Frequency 1.8: Interferences ... Frequency 1.9: The Wife and the Fiancee ... Frequency 1.10: The Clarinet of Time ... Frequency 1.11: The Unkilling

                       more time travel

Frequency 1.11: The Unkilling

Frequency is winding down to what are likely its three final episodes, and tonight's episode 1.11 kept up the pattern of the series getting better and better.

We left Raimy last week having just killed the Nightingale serial killer - something she could afford to do, in front of everyone, just for the understandable satisfaction she was giving into, because she believed her father Frank was going to kill, or was in the process of killing, the Nightingale 20 years earlier, before the Nightingale had a chance to kill Julie, Raimy's mother.

But fate intervened in the form of a drunk diver, who t-boned Frank's car, which allowed the Nightgale to escape.

The aftermath and its resolution - temporary resolution, of course, since there are still two remaining episodes - was handled very well tonight.  Raimy is on the verge of being charged with murder, until something changes - she didn't kill the Nightingale after all in 2016, because he wasn't where he was last week in 2016.  Frank did something in the past to change that.   The scene in which the new reality seeps in for Raimy had a fine mix of calm and shocking, all at once.

Unfortunately for Frank and Raimy - but fortunately for the continuing story - that didn't kill the Nightingale in 1996.   In another good scene, Julie pleads with Frank not kill the Nightingale - stressing what it would do to young Raimy, to see her father charged with murder, ironic indeed since Raimy in 2016 has been driving Frank in 1996 in this whole story to kill the Nightingale.  But Frank comes through, surprisingly well, and gets the Nightingale arrested.  Not as safe for Julie as the Nightingale dead, but it gets Frank back in the arms of Julie at home.

And there's also a satisfying rapprochement between Frank and Satch, making this episode one of the best for our people getting together.

Only two more episodes left - unless someone does something to our timeline which results in Frequency being picked up for a second season somewhere.  Hey, I love time travel, so can always hope.


See also Frequency 1.1: Closely Spun Gem ... Frequency 1.2: All About the Changes  ... Frequency 1.3: Chess Game Across Time ...  Frequency 1.4: Glimpsing the Serial Killer ... Frequency 1.5: Two Sets of Memories ... Frequency 1.6: Another Time Traveler? ... Frequency 1.7: Snags ... Frequency 1.8: Interferences ... Frequency 1.9: The Wife and the Fiancee ... Frequency 1.10: The Clarinet of Time

                       more time travel

Frequency 1.10: The Clarinet of Time

Just three more episodes of Frequency after tonight's 1.10, and the vice of time travel and paradox is beginning to tighten - nicely for the narrative, painfully for our heroes.

Raimy is more keenly aware than ever of how any change in the past, done to make the future better, can end up making things much worse.   Frank knows this, too. This means that both know that Frank's killing the serial killer to save his beloved wife and Raimy's mother Julie can have horribly unforeseen consequences.  Raimy knows this even more acutely than does Frank, because she remembers her mother alive, her father dead, knows that she got her father to survive via her information from the future, and that this somehow resulted in her mother being murdered.

But as in all good Greek and Shakespearean tragedies, Raimy and Frank can't help being commanded to change history, to kill the serial killer, by the demons of their own consciences.  It's not that Frequency the television series is anywhere near Greek or Shakespearean tragedy - it's that all time travel stories, when they're well done at all, can't help but tug on those ancient strings.

And though Frequency on TV is by no means great, it does a pretty good job of it.  Tonight, for example, Raimy feels the wound of what she thinks she'll lose when Frank changes history.  And she kills the serial killer, and tells the cop that it doesn't matter, because she expects her father to kill the killer decades earlier.   But in a nice twist, all due to a clarinet in the back seat, that doesn't happen.

Frequency is now set up to really go out on a high note - and who knows, maybe even come back, if not on CW, on some other venue.  I'm looking forward to it all.

See also Frequency 1.1: Closely Spun Gem ... Frequency 1.2: All About the Changes  ... Frequency 1.3: Chess Game Across Time ...  Frequency 1.4: Glimpsing the Serial Killer ... Frequency 1.5: Two Sets of Memories ... Frequency 1.6: Another Time Traveler? ... Frequency 1.7: Snags ... Frequency 1.8: Interferences ... Frequency 1.9: The Wife and the Fiancee

                       more time travel

Frequency 1.9: The Wife and the Fiancee

A good night for the Sullivans, father and daughter, on Frequency 1.9 on Wednesday night.

Both end up in bed with the people they love - Frank with his estranged wife (Raimy's mother), Raimy with her fiancee from the alternate reality in which Frank died, but was changed because Raimy helped save him with the knowledge she had from the future.

This wasn't an easy course of true love for either couple.   Frank's wife has been resisting him all season.  Raimy's fiancee has gone from not knowing her at all to sleeping with her in the last episode, but ushering her out of his house at the beginning of this episode because his fiancee from this reality was coming by.  Fortunately, he's come to his senses - or the feelings he had for Raimy in the other reality - and is breaking it off with the new fiancee to be with Raimy.

The love Frank and Raimy are finding are making them even more determined to stop the Nightingale.  They both were actually always very determined.   But now Frank has an additional very powerful reason for not wanting his wife to be a victim of the serial killer.  And, getting back with her fiancee is reminded Raimy more than ever that her mother was alive before Raimy started playing around with time to save her father.

Fortunately, we also now know who the Nightingale is - Deacon Joe.  We'll have to wait until January to see how Frank does in his vow to kill him - I'm looking forward.

See also Frequency 1.1: Closely Spun Gem ... Frequency 1.2: All About the Changes  ... Frequency 1.3: Chess Game Across Time ...  Frequency 1.4: Glimpsing the Serial Killer ... Frequency 1.5: Two Sets of Memories ... Frequency 1.6: Another Time Traveler? ... Frequency 1.7: Snags ... Frequency 1.8: Interferences

                       more time travel

Frequency 1.8: Interferences

Frequency 1.8 was entitled "Interference," and that's an apt title for this episode, and now for the series in general.

The basic structure of the story - a father connected to his daughter in the future via a ham-radio that works through time, and both determined to stop the murder of the father's former wife and the daughter's mother - remains brilliant, as it was in slightly different form in the movie.   But the series is taking too long to get there - to get to the nitty-gritty of the Nightingale Killer - and is too tied up in scenes and stories that don't really contribute to this pursuit.   In other words, interference.

It was nice, for example, to see Raimy begin to reunite with her fiance from an alternate reality - the reality which existed before Raimy saved her father Frank in the past, via their ham-radio across time, which not only resulted in her mother's murder but her fiance having no knowledge of her and their relationship.  When he tells her in last night's episode that he can't get her out of his mind, this is a nice touch, which speaks to a depth of feelings that transcend alternate realities.   But, otherwise, their reunion is cluttered with all sorts of almost slapstick missteps.

And their reunion, as far as we know, has nothing to with the Nightingale.  There was a big thread about that last night, featuring a woman barely in possession of her full senses, but that went nowhere, and was too reminiscent, and not done as well, as Jennifer Goines in 12 Monkeys.

I know - this story will be picked up against next week.   But I'd like to see a faster, tighter pace, in a series which still has a lot of promise.

See also Frequency 1.1: Closely Spun Gem ... Frequency 1.2: All About the Changes  ... Frequency 1.3: Chess Game Across Time ...  Frequency 1.4: Glimpsing the Serial Killer ... Frequency 1.5: Two Sets of Memories ... Frequency 1.6: Another Time Traveler? ... Frequency 1.7: Snags

                       more time travel

Frequency 1.7: Snags

Frequency 1.7 was in something of a lull on Wednesday night, with a good enough personal story, but little furthering of the time-travel (information from future to the past) story, and not too much in the hunt for the serial killer, either.

This gets back to the fundamental challenge of time travel in a television series, and explains why Quantum Leap did well and Timeless is currently doing well with a different time-travel story each episode.  12 Monkeys on SyFy is like Frequency, with one continuous, central plot, and 12 Monkeys adheres to this with episodes that are always exciting, metaphysically bizarre, and sometimes over the top.

Frequency has a harder job of this.  In 12 Monkeys, our heroes and heroines are struggling literally to save the world - and, in the second season, even time itself.  Frequency has a much narrower purview, and it's tough to keep the story pulsing in that more limited frame.

There's also a disproportion between the two major characters - Raimy and Frank - which I don't recall in the movie, in which John (Frank's son) and Frank had more equal roles, at different ends of the seesaw of time.   In the television series, Raimy is the more interesting character, but I'm not sure why, since Frank is the only one who can change history - nab the serial killer before he takes Raimy's mother.

There's still plenty of room for course correction and development in the series.  I was disappointed to see that Frequency was not picked up for a full 22-episode first season, which instead will be limited to 13.  That's ok - there are lots of outstanding 13-episode or even fewer-episodes-per-season series - including 12 Monkeys - and I'm looking forward to more of Frequency.

See also Frequency 1.1: Closely Spun Gem ... Frequency 1.2: All About the Changes  ... Frequency 1.3: Chess Game Across Time ...  Frequency 1.4: Glimpsing the Serial Killer ... Frequency 1.5: Two Sets of Memories ... Frequency 1.6: Another Time Traveler?

                       more time travel

Frequency 1.6: Another Time Traveler?

A big question not answered in a satisfying way in the original Frequency movie, and so far not in the series, is how and why the radio connection between Raimy and her father Frank got created.  Episode 1.6 provides, perhaps, a clue.

The clue comes from the psycho Raimy talks to in prison.  He's a physicist, and claims he's connected to his own future self - via a device he built.   Other than the mad-scientist, homicidal aspects of this guy, can we take his story seriously and does the machine he says he built for himself have any connection to Raimy's?

Possibly on the first question, no information on the second.  The mad scientist seems to have knowledge of value to Raimy.   Whether it came from the machine he wants to rebuild is not clear at all.

But introducing this new character is a good move in our story, because it takes the connection between Raimy and Frank out of the incredible quirk category (the movie's "explanation") into what may be something much greater, with who knows what consequences.

This is more important than the mad scientist's talk about not being able to change the course of history by cutting off a branch from the tree, because the tree will just put up another branch, which means that the only way you can change history is by cutting the tree down - sawing it off at the trunk.   This makes sense enough, but leaves open the question of what, in any situation, is the branch and what is the trunk?

Frequency the television series continues to be an enjoyable time-travel narrative - via trunk and branches.  May it thrive.

See also Frequency 1.1: Closely Spun Gem ... Frequency 1.2: All About the Changes  ... Frequency 1.3: Chess Game Across Time ...  Frequency 1.4: Glimpsing the Serial Killer ... Frequency 1.5: Two Sets of Memories

                       more time travel

Frequency 1.5: Two Sets of Memories

Frequency 1.5 mined a classic time-travel gambit, and applied it perfectly to its police procedural story.  This combination captures what Frequency has been trying to do all along - and what distinguishes it from other time travel stories on television.

Most stories that entail travel to the past and then back to the future after the past has been changed need to come up with some sort of explanation of what the traveler knows when she or he gets back home.  It's usually more fun if the time traveler recalls what the world was like before the time travel occurred - which means the time traveler has two sets of memories.  And then there's the question of who else in the  future might have memories of the original past.

You can come up with all kinds of scientific explanations for the two sets of memories, or just declare by fiat that your time-travel character remembers the past before and after it's been changed.  Since time travel is, after all, not (yet) scientifically possible - and I would say, because of the paradoxes, that it will never be - you can specify whatever you like for your character's capacity to recall the original past.  Since no one has actually time traveled, as far as we know, there's no evidence to contradict what you're setting up as the basic parameters of the time travel.

Of course Frequency, as we know, is not about time travel of people, but time travel of information - but the issues are the same.  Raimy and Frank don't actually travel between the future and the past, but they can exchange information, and this information can and does result in actions which change the past.

The fact that Raimy and Frank are both police means that police procedural had to be part of the story.  But episode 1.5 put front and center one of the fundamental mechanisms of the story:  Raimy and Frank and we will figure who the bad guys are - in the police, and in the serial killing - via Raimy's comparison of her two sets of memories.  Somehow, somewhere, by identifying the differences between her two memory sets, Raimy will realize something, see a connection, that will open up a door in her understanding.

It's beginning to happen already, and we're beginning to see some inklings, but I'm looking forward to seeing some more on the screen before I say any more here.


See also Frequency 1.1: Closely Spun Gem ... Frequency 1.2: All About the Changes  ... Frequency 1.3: Chess Game Across Time ...  Frequency 1.4: Glimpsing the Serial Killer

                       more time travel

Timeless 1.5: and Quantum Leap

As Timeless progresses on its enjoyable way - now through episode 1.5, in which our heroes show up at the Alamo, and fight alongside Davy Crocket, Jim Bowie, and Colonel Travers - it's becoming clear that the series is most like Quantum Leap, which holds a special place in the pantheon of time travel stories on the screen.

There are differences, of course.  Sam Beckett mind-traveled into the heads of real people who played various roles in crucial events in the past.  Lucy, Wyatt, and Rufus travel physically to the past.  And so far, as of the first five episodes, Timeless is dealing with bigger, often world-shattering, or at least America-determinative events than did Quantum Leap, where Beckett often dealt with more minor, even off-the-radar situations in history.

But the episodic tempo of the two series is similar, with the stories in each episode having no connection to the others, other than our time-travelers being the same, and, in the case of Timeless, a central story with an apparently bad guy time-traveler, Flynn, in the thick of it from the very beginning.

You might think that a captivating central story to tie the episodes together is a plus, and it can be, but it can also be a hindrance to the series, because its existence requires the series to decide how much information to dole out this underling story in each episode.  Quantum Leap suffered from no such problem.  Neither does Frequency, another time travel series on the air this season, which operates on a very different scale than Timeless. But other science fiction series, such as Lost and Westworld, did and do.  I enjoyed Lost - at least until the very very last episode, which was atrocious - and think Westworld is one of the best series on television now, but critics have expressed frustration with its low ratio of answers to questions, and viewers can be lost in those kinds of gambles.

So far, Timeless has been doing a good job in threading this needle.  It will be fun to see how it fares in the weeks ahead.

See also Timeless 1.1: Threading the Needle ... Timeless 1.2: Small Change, Big Payoffs ... Timeless 1.3: Judith Campbell ... Timeless 1.4: Skyfall and Weapon of Choice


             more time travel in the 20th century

Frequency 1.4: Glimpsing the Serial Killer

So we finally get a glimpse of the serial killer in Frequency 1.4 - though maybe I shouldn't say finally, since we're only in episode 4 - but it isn't much a glimpse, anyway, just the killer from behind as he's burning his car.

I say "he," but who knows if it's really a he, though it probably is.  But what did we learn for sure about the serial killer from what we saw last night?

Well, his height rules out Gordo, since he was just a boy - not that tall - in 1996.  But are we sure the car burning took place in 1996 and not 2016? That's the assumption, because Frank almost nabbed the killer in 1996 based on recognizing the car.  Conceivably, the killer could have hidden the car, then decided to burn it 20 years later, based on what the older Gordo may have gleaned from Raimy in 2016.

But that unlikely scenario becomes even more unlikely when we consider who was driving the vehicle in 1996.   Certainly not young Gordo, who would've been too young to drive.

Is it possible that there's more than one serial killer, or the serial killer has an accomplice, the young Gordo?   We've seen stories like this on everything from Bones to Criminal Minds.   But, at this point in Frequency, it's still not possible to say.

In the meantime, we'll have to be happy with the little satisfactions of time travel - Frank trying to make sense of what seem to him to be lightning fast Internet speeds in 2016 (hey, they still seem fast to me), and the inability to send visual data through Frank and Ramy's ham radio connection across time, and how the two work around that.

Frequency continues to be both a pretty good police story and a better time travel tale, and I'm looking forward to more.

See also Frequency 1.1: Closely Spun Gem ... Frequency 1.2: All About the Changes  ... Frequency 1.3: Chess Game Across Time

                       more time travel

Frequency 1.3: Chess Game Across Time

Frequency 1.3 continued to play the chess game across the time that provides the script for most time-travel stories, in the case of Frequency how a daughter in 2016 can work with her father in 1996 to save her mother from being a murdered, an event which itself happened when the daughter saved her father from the same fate, right after the connection in time had been established.

Going after the murderer - in this case, a serial killer - is a logical move on this chess board.  But in time travel, not only is time itself your ultimate opponent, but so is a perpetual lack of crucial information.  It's hard enough to know all the relevant factors - in the case of police work, identifying the correct suspects - but when you're doing this across time it gets even harder.

So if you're familiar with the playbooks of time travel, it's no big surprise that Raimy and Frank, after zooming in on and chasing the guy they were increasingly sure was the serial killer, across two episodes, discover that he's not.  But the payoff was nicely done, with the guy disappearing literally before Raimy's eyes, as he's hit by car as he's trying to run away from Frank in the past.

In a way, this is a good metaphor for Frequency and all good time travel: you can't run away from your fate.  This could be the theme of any powerful story, but in Frequency, the tension is heightened by our not knowing exactly what that fate is.   As I've said in reviews of earlier episodes, Frequency is a story not about major, world-changing events but about a family, a daughter and her father, and this makes it all the more appealing.

One more thing: here's my prediction for who the killer is:  I think it's Raimy's neighbor.  Not that he's done anything wrong, but there's something about the way he keeps popping up that's making me think he's up to no good.

See also Frequency 1.1: Closely Spun Gem ... Frequency 1.2: All About the Changes

                       more time travel

Frequency 1.2: All About the Changes

The question whenever a TV series is made out of a movie is whether the series can continue to tell a riveting story, or a story much longer than the movie.  So far, as of its second episode on the CW tonight, Frequency is doing a very good job.

The essential theme of the movie is how changing the past to prevent something bad can work, but with the price of making other things bad.  In the first episode of the TV series, Raimy learns this lesson, twice.   She saves her father but her mother dies.  And, just for good measure, she loses her fiance in the bargain.

Tonight's episode serves us another unwanted consequence.   Raimy's mere investigation of the serial killer who murdered her mother in the new reality results in him moving away and out of Raimy's radar in 2016.   The specific way this happens is neat, and a good example of how little differences can lead to big changes in time travel.  Frank, urged on by Raimy from the future, goes to the home of the likely serial killer.  The very visit sets in motion a series of events that get him to leave, which in turn leaves Raimy with no suspect at hand in the future.

And the lesson brings home to Raimy something she already knew: that anything she does to change the past to improve the future could also make things worse in the future, too.  This puts Raimy in a difficult situation which makes for an appealing narrative: she has to weigh every single change she contemplates.   Grasping completely the contradictory indications of any change in time, because she remembers all the original and changed timelines,  makes Raimy (well played by Mad Men's Peyton List)  the perfect time-traveled character - and she's not even traveling, just sending information from the future to her father in the past.

At this point, it's clear that the consequences of what Raimy is doing, and for that matter her actions in every episode, are unpredictable - or exactly what we want to see on television.

See also Frequency 1.1: Closely Spun Gem

                       more time travel

Frequency (TV) 1.1: Closely Spun Gem

We live in an age in which time-travel is on all kinds of television in all kinds of ways - 11.23.63 from the Stephen King novel on Hulu, 12 Monkeys from the 1995 movie on the Syfy Channel, Outlander from the best-selling book series now a Starz television series,  a brand new time travel series Timeless on NBC, and now another TV series, Frequency, made from the 2000 movie, on the CW.

Can all of these series be good?  Well, you're asking the wrong person.  I'm inclined to really like anything with time travel - short story, novel, movie, TV series.  Hey, over half the stories and novels I've written are time-travel tales.

Still, I have some standards.   Frequency was a gem of a movie.  The simplest kind of time travel - information, in the form of a ham radio connection, bridging the past and the future, or the future and the past, depending on which way you looked at it, set in a gritty NYC cop story, and featuring the love between father and son.  But nothing is ever even remotely simple when time travel is afoot, and Frequency did a great job of navigating the paradoxes of changing the past and building them - or expertly juggling them - into an memorable story.   In fact, the movie is so good that I rank it among the top 10 or even 5 best time-travel movies ever made.

This is what the new television series is up against.  And, you know what?  I just watched the first episode and think it succeeds admirably.  Like the movie, the TV series is a closely spun gem.   A family is a stake - this time a father and daughter - not the world, and their struggle to change the past to avoid personal calamity without triggering new calamity promises to be ever bit as riveting and tender and just plain appealing as the movie.

I'll be here with reviews every week.