Wednesday, March 31, 2010

THE PRIMEVAL VOYAGE AFFAIR

In the TV series 'Primeval', Nick Cutter and his estranged wife Helen somehow altered the Earth's timeline while they were in the prehistoric past. When Nick returned, he found that not only had the work on anomaly research been accelerated, but that Claudia Brown no longer existed. However, a woman who looked just like her but with the name of Jenny Lewis basically was living out the life that should have been Claudia's.

That massive tweak to Toobworld's timeline didn't just affect the characters of 'Primeval' but all of the other TV shows as well, across the board - even in different countries. We can use this to help splain away recasting Zonks and other discrepancies. And we can also use it to tighten up the connections between series.

A good case in point would be of two characters played by James Doohan in the early 1960's (later to gain fame as Commander Montgomery Scott on 'Star Trek').

In the original Toobworld timeline, the President of the United States in the late 1960's, early 1970's was Henry Talbot McNeill - as seen in episodes of 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea'. With the tweak to the timeline, the adjustment brought back Toobworld to be aligned with that of the real world: during that same time period, the Presidents were now Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

In that original timeline, President McNeill had an assistant played by Doohan. He was unnamed in the credits, but we're going to say that his last name was McInernay. Also we will contend that he had served in the Navy before going into government service.
In the new timeline, McInernay didn't go into politics, but instead kept to his seafaring background by becoming the second in command to Captain Shark - as seen in "The Shark Affair", an episode of 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.' Although McInernay begged his captain to remain behind with him when their plans were foiled by U.N.C.L.E., Captain Shark forced his first mate to abandon ship as it sank.
This way, two one-shot characters played by James Doohan can connect two classic sci-fi TV series, albeit in alternate dimensions.

And how you doohan.....?

BCnU!

1 comment:

Sean Cleary said...

Hah, very cool. Nice use of the Primeval re-boot...