Tuesday, December 2, 2008

TODAY'S TWD: HIGHLAND, CONNECTICUT

I'm now caught up on 'Fringe'; I fell behind due to a vacation in Colorado. But with tomorrow's episode, the queue will more than likely begin again. Oh well.

In the latest episode that I've seen, "The Equation", a young kidnap victim was abducted in Middletown, Connecticut, and he hailed from Highland, Connecticut. This was verified by those giant block letter graphics which hover in the air before each scene on the show. And the Middletown graphic is the best so far on the series, even better than seeing the one for Baghdad, Iraq, from below it in the pilot. That's because we can see the rain actually splattering off the letters.
This means that these location graphics are definitely part of Toobworld, but that they must be invisible to the eye of TV characters, seen only by those of us viewing at home. (Unless, of course, those TV characters are tele-cognizant.)

I grew up in Connecticut; spent my first 22 years there and still go back there for my vacations at "The Lake". But I had never heard of Highland, Connecticut, and so I thought it might have been fictional like other tele-Connecticut towns such as Joyville, Dunn's River, Stepford, and my own Twigganum from my Toobworld novel.

But I did a map search for it and not only does it exist, but it's practically right next door to my hometown! I guess it's some kind of incorporated hamlet like Yalesville, which borders my hometown on another side.

My hometown did make at least one appearance in Toobworld - the son of Dr. Paulette Kiem began his hitch-hiking trek from there to reach her at St. Eligius Hospital in Boston ('St. Elsewhere').
So here's what Wikipedia has on the place:

The Highland Historic District is a U.S. historic district in Middletown, Connecticut. It is located near Atkins Street and Country Club Road. On June 28, 1982, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

(The reason listed for its registration as an historic district is because of all the well-preserved Colonial houses on Atkins Street.)

So there yuh go.

BCnU!
Toby O'B

2 comments:

Terence Towles Canote said...

If I remember right, wasn't Stepford of The Stepford Wives in Connecticut? Or was it Maine?

Toby O'B said...

Yeah! I've got it listed there. There were two tv movies based on the book....