Manifest 1.5: "It's All Connected"

Finally, a glimmer of progress in understanding what is going on in Manifest - in tonight's episode 1.5 - just a glimmer.

It comes from Cal, who becomes the first of the passengers on the flight that skipped ahead in time to not hear an instructive voice, but be the speaker of that voice.  His father Ben is the one who hears it.

The voice says "It's all connected".   Ben first hears the voice, several times, and then hears Cal say it after he leads them on a wild little run through a New York City subway station.  Well, everyone knows that our subway system here in New York is all connected.  But there's much more to this statement, which could become the "save the cheerleader" of Manifest.

Because, at the end of the episode, we see Cal awake when his family and everyone around him on the plane are sound asleep.  And he looks out the window, looks into the shimmer that's out there, and again says "It's all connected".  Actually, not again, but the first time.  And then cut to black, or, at least, the credits or whatever ends the episode.

So this means that Cal has seen something of what is really going on - what it was that took the plane to the future - and his description of it, is "It's all connected".  Not only that.  The phrase is his first description, and also his continuing description.

That strikes me as pretty important, though I still haven't more than clue as to what's going on.  But it's a spark and a start.

See also Manifest 1.1: Canterbury Voices ... Manifest 1.2: Arthur C. Clarke's Magic ... Manifest 1.3: The Murdered Passenger ... Manifest 1.4: Precious Little Time Travel

Manifest 1.4: Precious Little Time Travel

Well, as of Manifest 1.4 tonight, the series about a plane that jumped five years into the future continues to meander around with stories that advance the time travel story not one bit.

Tonight's big deal was discovery of a stowaway passenger with mental problems.  That, and the visions our passengers see involve a grey woman with wings (for one of the viewers) and feet that make wet footprints (for the other viewer).  Not the stuff that great or even good time-travel science fiction is made of.

Indeed, the most interesting part of the episode is passenger Ben Stone's continuing struggle to get close to his wife and his daughter, each of whom aged five years while he was on that "magical" flight.  But this is a dysfunctional family dynamic not dependent on time travel - Stone could be facing the same problems if he were away from his family for any reason, having nothing to do with time travel.

All of which is to say: the only reason I'm watching this series is because I'm a devotee anything concerning time travel.  In fact, I just gave a talk about why time travel is so enjoyable as a form of fiction at the New York State Communications Association 76th Annual Conference on Saturday.  You can see the video below.





But there's precious little time travel in Manifest, and I don't know how much more time I'll give it.

See also Manifest 1.1: Canterbury Voices ... Manifest 1.2: Arthur C. Clarke's Magic ... Manifest 1.3: The Murdered Passenger

Manifest 1.3: The Murdered Passenger

A fairly interesting Manifest 1.3 tonight, centering around the murder of a passenger on the flight that skipped forward in time, Kelly.   It turns out that her death was apparently just a run-of-the-mill murder - by a significant other who didn't like how Kelly was treating her after the return - but the end of the episode provided a more important payoff for the overall narrative.  Or, rather, a question: why did the Feds take her body?

And just prior to that, we get the reveal that the survivors have a strange element in their blood, thought to be brought on by near-death experiences.   So where do those two factors leave us?

Are the Feds hiding evidence because they don't know or understand what happened to the flight, either?  Or are they the architects of what happened?  And while we're on the subject of knowing, do the passengers themselves have some kind of repressed memories of what happened?

Unfortunately, all of this moves so slowly on network television, interrupted by commercials, that it's hard to maintain interest.   Add to that a slew of acting that's close to robotic - a common problem with the network television (think of The Crossing or Somewhere Between for recent examples).  All of which leaves Manifest as an excellent idea, with a development that could be twice as astute and compelling.

But sucker for anything time travel that I am, I'll keep watching and reviewing it.

See also Manifest 1.1: Canterbury Voices ... Manifest 1.2: Arthur C. Clarke's Magic

Manifest 1.2: Arthur C. Clarke's Magic

Precious little offered in Manifest 1.2 about what happened to those passengers on that fateful flight - or who or what caused it to happen - with the government team going over the usual suspects including aliens, etc.

God and magic also came into some other conversations, with Ben observing that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Great line - but I would've liked it better had Ben (meaning the writers, producers, or director of this episode), added that Arthur C. Clarke wrote that years ago.  (I don't like plagiarism in any form.)

Otherwise, the compelling, if obvious, family and romantic dilemmas continued to develop in this episode.  Ben and Michaela are both apparently forgiving.  Michaela seems to forgive Lourdes - her best friend - for marrying her almost fiancee, and Ben is understanding if not accepting of his wife Grace's relationship with the other guy.   As a romantic drama, Manifest is firing on all cylinders, and there will no doubt be more ahead.  The course of true love never did run smooth (Shakespeare), especially when time travel is involved (me).

And time travel is why I'll keep watching Manifest.  I'd like to know what caused the plane to jump more than five years in time, and what connection that has to the voices our time-traveling passengers are hearing.   And I'm hoping, to get back to Arthur C. Clarke, that the explanation is technological not magical.

We'll see.

See also Manifest 1.1: Canterbury Voices

Manifest 1.1: Canterbury Voices

I reviewed the 9 and 1/2 minute sneak peek of Manifest in August, and said it had some outstanding possibilities as a time-travel drama.  I therefore watched the full first-hour debut tonight with great expectation.  And it was good.  But ...

It had very little to do with time travel.  There were some nice time-travel touches, like twins before the airplane which took the passengers five+ years into the future, now separated by those same 5+ years, since one was on the plane and the other on the ground.  Or the almost-fiancee who married someone else, because, well, he thought his girlfriend had died on that plane.

But the real story is that all the people on the plane - captain as well as passengers - hear voices which tell them important things, like the need to free two girls who had been locked in a metal shop.  That was the main story of tonight's episode, which ended with a promise of who knows how many other stories from the other passengers.

So Manifest may well be a Canterbury Tales of time-travel.  Or, this may be a Canterbury Tales of astounding stories in which the vehicle - not of the tales but the people who deliver them - is a plane that skips ahead 5+ years.   This episode also ends with the question of who or what is responsible for this?

Possibilities are people from a future far from ours, aliens, beings from another dimension, the Deity, take your pick.  There's powerful material here - including a boy (one of the twins) who otherwise would have succumbed to leukemia, but now can receive a life-saving treatment not yet available when he boarded the plane in 2013.  So I'll keep watching Manifest, even if, at this point, it may well have little more about time travel.

See also Manifest Sneak Peek 9 and 1/2 Mins:  Could Be Outstanding

Manifest Sneak Peek 9 and 1/2 Mins: Could Be Outstanding

Having flown back a few days ago from The Mars Society Convention in Pasadena, and time-travel being my all-time favorite genre, how could I resist watching the 9 and 1/2 minute sneak preview of Manifest, a series about a plane that travels instantly through time from 2013 to 2018, to debut on NBC at the end of September?

I couldn't.

Airplanes have been vehicles of the very best time travel, from "The Odyssey of Flight 33" on The Twilight Zone in 1961 to John Varley's brilliant 1981 novel, Millennium.   Can the NBC series possibly live up to this?

Very possibly.

Under ten minutes is not much time to tell, but I'd say Manifest has a fair shot of doing this - of finally telling a time travel story on network television in the same league as the very different Quantum Leap, now decades old.  The key to any good story is memorable character development.  From what I saw on YouTube, where you too can see this sneak preview - I've posted the video below - the people in this story are real and appealing.

But it's still too soon to say for sure.   We'll know more after the first episode, after which I'll be back here with a full review.  And even then, the history of television is littered with great debuts that never went anywhere, or flew way off course.  I'm hopeful that that won't happen with Manifest, where the flying of course already took place, but through time as well as space.

See you here in about thirty days.