(Spoiler alert: Please do not read on if you haven’t watched Wednesday’s series premiere episode of “Frequency”)
A lot went down in the series premiere of The CW’s time travel show “Frequency,” and that ending seemed to set up for a lot more to happen as we move forward.
Through their cross-time communication via an old ham radio, in 2016 Raimy Sullivan (Peyton List) successfully kept her father Frank (Riley Smith) from being killed in 1996, creating a new timeline in which he was a figure in her life into adulthood, but her mother was murdered by a serial killer called the Nightingale.
Showrunner Jeremy Carver explained that things won’t get too confusing now that Raimy has created multiple realities by changing the past, as won’t be creating a new timeline every single time she does something to change the past.
“You see pretty clearly coming into Episode 2 that Raimy essentially has two sets of memories,” he explained. “She’s got the memories of life when dad survived being killed, and then she has the memories, which we call ‘remnant memories,’ of the life that was changed. So that was life when mom was alive, when Daniel was her boyfriend. So she’s got two separate memories there. That doesn’t change too much, that’s sort of our baseline that we’re building on.
“There may be other switches coming,” Carver hinted, “but it’s always building on that, those two memories will always exist … There are multiple memories she’s holding in her head, but it’s not like they’re changing every five minutes.”
And while that may seem complicated, Carver and the “Frequency” writers’ room will be the ones doing most of the head-scratching.
“We consider that the heavy lifting we do in the writers’ room,” he said. “To make it as easy to understand as possible on the screen. It’s like there’s a bunch of little elves running through your TV screen trying to keep this stuff in order, but for the viewer, I don’t think it’s that hard to understand. We don’t want it to be such a rule-heavy show that you have to constantly be reciting the rules to follow along.”
And as for the Nightingale serial killer, he or she has the same name as the killer in the original 2000 movie “Frequency,” but don’t expect things to play out the same way if you already know how that story ends.
“I think that would be not terrific to do the same Nightingale story from the movie, just because people have seen that,” he teased. “So from the setup on, things diverge from where the movie went.”
“Frequency” airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on The CW.
12 Ways 'Back to the Future II' Predicted the Present
In the 1989 sci-fi sequel, Michael J. Fox's Marty McFly time-traveled forward to Oct. 21, 2015 -- and saw prescient visions like self-tying sneakers and the Chicago Cubs in the MLB post-season. How accurately did the film predict the future (at least circa 2015)?
Movie 2015: Power laces make tying your own shoes a thing of the past.
Universal Pictures
Real 2015: Nike was working to have a model with the same auto-lace-tying technology out by the end of 2015.
Movie 2015: Holograms are prevalent in entertainment, and there are a staggering number of movie sequels ("Jaws 19").
Universal Pictures
Real 2015: Holograms of stars like Michael Jackson have brought performers back to life and Hollywood is practically living off of sequels.
Movie 2015: A video game where you have to use your hands is "like a baby's toy."
Universal Pictures
Real 2015: Xbox Kinect provides hands-free video game entertainment, the first of its kind for a mass audience.
Movie 2015: Need to make a quick exit? Just grab the nearest hoverboard and float away.
Universal Pictures
Real 2015: The Hendo Hoverboard can float an inch off the ground with up to 300 pounds, but we still can't quite escape psychotic bullies.
Movie 2015: People own portable tablets that can transfer needed funds or provide instant information.
Universal Pictures
Real 2015: iPads and modern smart phones almost make the film's prediction look antiquated.
Movie 2015: Not only would Miami have a baseball team, but the Cubs would beat them in the World Series.
Universal Pictures
Real 2015: Miami now has a team and the Cubs were in the pennant race in 2015, but the two will never face each other as they are both in the National League. The 2016 Cubs did beat the Cleveland Indians to win their first World Series title in 108 years.
Movie 2015: Wall-mounted, flat-screen TVs allow you to watch up to six channels at once.
Universal Pictures
Real 2015: Once an expensive pipe dream, wall-mounted flat screens are now everywhere, and picture-in-picture viewing allow many cable viewers to watch multiple programs at the same time.
Movie 2015: Voice command allows you to cook food and control household electronics.
Universal Pictures
Real 2015: While not able to control the entire home, voice command can get you any information you want thanks to Siri technology.
Movie 2015: Kids disappear from their families behind virtual-reality eyewear.
Universal Pictures
Real 2015: Oculus Rift and Google Glass have helped blur the boundaries between technology and reality more than ever before.
Movie 2015: Flying drones walk our pets for us if we were just too tired.
Universal Pictures
Real 2015: While not able to take the place of a pet owner yet, drones were everywhere by 2015 and used for a variety of purposes (OK, mostly for spying).
Movie 2015: No more signatures! Just give your thumbprint to pay the cab fare or transfer funds to help save the clock tower.
Universal Pictures
Real 2015: Biometrics were an integral part of many nations' top-secret security systems by 2015 and one of the most reliable detection methods.
Movie 2015: Talk to your friends (or conspiring work colleagues) via your own living room television.
Universal Pictures
Real 2015: Facetime, Skype and multiple other videoconferencing technologies made this prediction spot on.
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In the 1989 sci-fi sequel, Michael J. Fox’s Marty McFly time-traveled forward to Oct. 21, 2015 — and saw prescient visions like self-tying sneakers and the Chicago Cubs in the MLB post-season
In the 1989 sci-fi sequel, Michael J. Fox's Marty McFly time-traveled forward to Oct. 21, 2015 -- and saw prescient visions like self-tying sneakers and the Chicago Cubs in the MLB post-season. How accurately did the film predict the future (at least circa 2015)?