Thursday, April 8, 2010

MR. TOBE'S WILD SLIDES

From last week's 'Fringe' episode, "Peter":

Back in 1986, Dr. Walter Bishop showed off the results of the funding he was getting from the military - he and his partners, including William Bell, had developed a window that would let them see into a parallel dimension. In order to prove that they were seeing an alternate reality, Walter held the demonstration on a rooftop in Manhattan where the window was trained on the Empire State Building. And the generals were able to see a dirigible tethered to the top of the building, which was one of the original functions planned for it.
This could mean that this particular alternate dimension was the same as that found in the two-part 'Doctor Who' story "The Age Of Steel" and "The Rise Of The Cybermen".
As we know from 'Sliders', there are an infinite number of parallel worlds, but Dr. Bishop operates as though there is only the one other one. The breakthroughs made by Quinn Mallory would not happen for another few years after Walter made his historic crossing over into that other world. Walter had his dimensional mirror attuned to only that one interdimensional frequency and may not have thought to explore any others.

The way that Walter crossed over caused a crack in the wall between worlds, which the Doctor warned would happen if this method was utilized to cross over to another dimension. And that has been weakening the barrier with every crossing, by FBI Agent Olivia Dunham, Dr. Bell, super-soldiers from the other side, as well as by the Cybermen and Rose Tyler and Mickey Smith.
But that didn't happen when the Gallifreyan Time Lords traveled between dimensions, utilizing the feature of the TARDIS that allowed passage through the "relative dimensions of space". And it was this capability which Quinn Mallory, "Q-Ball", was able to tap into with his hand-held device on 'Sliders'.
In the futile hope to prevent Rose from ever trying to cross over back and forth between the dimensions, the Doctor once again lied, this time saying that such travel could never be attempted again. But that warning really only applies to the parallel world of John Lumic's Cybermen, and now 'Fringe' is showing the truth in that declaration.....

BCnU!

Presented as a birthday present to one of my best friends, Michael Cleary.

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