Yo…
On November 8, 2016 Donald J. Trump was elected as the 45th president of the United States of America. (Chill, this is not a political post.)
That’s a rather curious "Fun" Fact that has ushered in a post-fact America.
Now, the past was malleable...it could be altered on a whim and the future is up for grabs. There would be no firm fun facts because events would not have time to settle into a comfortable truth. They’d hardly gather any dust before being altered or even erased.
Lately, we’re seeing so multiverse movies (and less, so TV shows) because we’re busy living in overlapping multiverses.
Multiverse movies are an accurate reflection of our time.
The reality that Fox News pitches is not the same reality Alex Jones presents which is completely different from the New York Times’ perspective. And so, on.
The multiverse is also known as parallel universes…maybe there’s a parallel universe where Hitler defeated the Allies. (See The Man in the High Castle on Prime Video for what that world is like.)
Maybe there’s a parallel universe where JFK wasn’t killed on November 22, 1963. (See 11.22.63 also on Prime Video for Canadians, Hulu for Americans.)
However, the unspoken common understanding (well, based on these flimsy physics) is that a parallel universe is not our Universe. (Arrogantly assuming we’re the Prime Universe. We’re No. 1!!)
In our world JFK was assassinated and Hitler was defeated. Facts, am I right?
Now though we’re letting the multiverse possibilities bleed into our Prime Universe like loud music through the thin walls of a neighbouring apartment.
You don’t hafta like this reality. You can return it or exchange it (without a receipt) for a reality you do like.
Similar to those farms that let you pick your own fruit, you can harvest a reality that suits your sensibilities. and feelings. You can create a multiverse within this (Prime) Universe. Within our Universe.
Growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s we actively debated if aliens and UFOs were real. Often we mocked those who’d been beamed up to the Mothership. Alien abductees were living in a multiverse in our Universe.
To them…they had experienced a ah, well…probing happening and were certain aliens exist and more, the little green men had visited Earth. That was a small group: a mini-multiverse co-existing in our Universe where aliens beyond all doubts existed.
For most of us…the simple facts remain…the Universe is vast and strange so aliens are a possibility but the jury’s out on that one…we haven’t been able to issue a conclusive verdict. We lack the definitive evidence to confirm our suspicions.
So for now: we go to work on week days, we fall in love, get married, cut coupons and dance at R.E.M. concerts.
We live with possibilities not with the conclusions.
Aliens may prove to be real one day and we’ll hafta confront a whole pile of questions about what all that means but in this Universe we’re mostly just trying to remember to pick up milk for the kids.
Another mini-multiverse from the ‘80s and ‘90s are the individuals who denied the Holocaust.
(That was our Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting is not real; every generation grapples with doubts and prevalent conspiracy theories. It’s the default human condition. Social media amplified this behaviour but we’ve always been like this; trending toward disorder.)
Unlike aliens, with the Holocaust there are…Facts. But the truth is some Facts don’t change some people’s minds. You can exist in this Universe where the Allies gratefully defeated Hitler and grimly the Holocaust happened causing the suffering of so many, or…
Yes, or…
You can exist in this Universe where the Holocaust happened and freely choose to live in an overlapping multiverse where the Holocaust didn’t happen. It’s all a choice like when you want to eat out.
Yo, son: there are people who walk among us who don’t believe dinosaurs are real. (How do they explain the bones?! And Toronto’s NBA team?!)
These confusing mini-multiverses within our dominate Universe is in many ways how it feels if a time machine were to exist.
A time machine is just a tailor for the past and the future: a stich in time. You can go back in time and save JFK. Or visit your grandpa and have one final conversation before the cancer consumed him.
That’s the hope and the fantasy of time machines.
We operate as if the past is settled and the future is loaded with possibilities like a University graduate.
(I’m not sure that’s fully accurate. I ain’t Einstein but I’m starting to suspect certain historical hinge points have been firmly appointed in the future. It’s like asking a married couple when are you gonna have kids? That’s an expected destiny.)
Oddly, In 2011 China banned (movie) time travel. For real, you can read about it. The country’s State Administration for Radio, Film & Television reasoning is that: “The producers and writers are treating the serious history in a frivolous way, which should by no means be encouraged anymore.”
Which is a fascinating concept. They’re kinda…right? We’re always been way too casual with history.
And yet…no Doctor Who, no Back to the Future and no Star Trek. (I appreciate piracy exists, however the official policy is no time travel.)
What a strange and disturbing multiverse that is. (China is massive, that’s not a mini-multiverse.)
Back to the Future is a cultural staple for us…it’s bread and blue skies. And yet in China…there’s a multiverse in our Universe where there’s no Back to the Future.
Can you even imagine living in a universe with no Back to the Future? Jesus Wept. That’s awful. (In 2019 Avengers: Endgame a time travelling movie opened in China; they’re slowly coming around…a sign of the times: I guess?)
One of the overlooked aspects of Back to the Future is Marty McFly zooms back to November 5, 1955. Thing is…Marty could go back to 1955 and still feel…safe? He can skateboard and drink Pepsi (ugh) so life isn’t all that different for him. He’s white and male. Realistically, most people can’t time travel back to 1955.
A woman going back to 1955 would find some of the Good Housewife Guides borderline domestic abuse.
A Black time traveller would also struggle. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that educational segregation was unconstitutional, bringing to an end the era of “separate-but-equal” education. MLK would be killed on April 4, 1968.
These are turbulent difficult times.
It’s why we don’t see with any sort of regularity diversity in our time travellers. (Plus…duh: why would you go back to those days? Currently we live in amazing times: you can be anything you want to be when you grow up. That’s way better than having milk delivered…by Dave Chappelle.)
As a white dude Marty McFly can go into the past with no issues (indeed he even effortlessly time travelled to 1885. 1955 is already dangerous, there’s no way I’d go back to 1885. Way too much ruckus, well that and I have no desire to step in horse poop.).
Danger increases the further back in time a time traveller goes. Like a sketchy hood that’s in every city (usually given a shout out in bumping rap songs) you don’t belong in the past. (I know…your therapist disagrees with me.)
As a tinted avid consumer of science-fiction time travelling is fun but I understood the social contract is I can’t go back to the past. The future, oh yo…let’s go, son!
So, on April 15, 2022 when Outer Range Season 1 premiered on Prime Video I nodded: Josh Brolin (white dude) was suspected to have time travelled, he came from the past into our present. Reverse Marty McFly.
That checks out.
What doesn’t check out is Deputy Sheriff Joy Hawk investigating Trevor Tillerson’s murder. His body was found on a nearby mountain several days after Trevor was killed, but forensic evidence indicates he had only been dead 10 hours. How could be killed several days ago and 10 hours ago…at the same time?!
Well, Royal Abbott a Wyoming rancher played by Josh Brolin threw Trevor Tillerson’s body into a time hole on his land.
The corpse time travelled.
If you think a Black time traveller is rare…how many movies and TV shows show a corpse time travelling?!
When I’m speaking about diversity of time travellers I’m including the living…and the dead. If we’re gonna do diversity then let’s do diversity properly and throughly.
(If you watched Season 1 there’s a random buffalo with 2 arrows sticking out of its side that shows up every so often like a silent omen. Just seeing the arrows clearly means the buffalo is from a different time so again…this is genuine diversity. A time travelling buffalo. A bit long but that’d make an excellent punk rock band name: Time Travelling Buffalo.)
Okay, Outer Range you have my attention.
That brings us to Season 2 and the attached conversation with actor Tamara Podemski who plays Deputy Sheriff Joy Hawk.
Season 2 has been streaming on Prime Video since May 16, 2024:
I spoke to Tamara back in Season 1 and it was a pleasant dialogue mostly centered around her strong identities.
She laughed when I called her a unicorn. Her father is an Israeli Jew and her mother is an Anishinaabe from the Muscowpetung band of First Nations people in Saskatchewan. That’s…well that’s clearly a unicorn. No matter how many parties you go to; you ain’t gonna run into individuals like that.
Like most media folks I talked to her before Season 1 was out. Before I’d seen all of it and before the public had consumed all of it. We couldn’t unpack the shimmering mysteries of Outer Range. So even though we’re expert divers we stayed on the surface like a decent blind date. (I know "decent blind date" is an oxymoron.)
Tamara returned to my program for Season 2 and this time…the entire season was out: viewers were online pimping theories. She and I could speak more freely.
Know This: there is a pile of spoilers in this My Summer Lair episode.
If you haven’t finished Season 2 yet, I’d hesitate pushing play.
(Though, personally: I find spoilers to be effective marketing. It sparks my curiosity because it’s authentic marketing. If I tell you Darth Vader is Luke’s father you’re like…what the? How? Often I find spoilers compelling…tell me more! I gotta see this now to figure this out.)
To spark this episode Tamara admits Season 2 and even the show as a "hole:" “I mean, it’s so huge on so many levels.”
She’s right. When I point out the obvious…mainstream science-fiction offers mostly white male time travellers, she nods. It’s true.
However equally true is there are Indigenous time travel stories that pre-date…well Back To The Future and Doctor Who. “Joy knows the stories from her own people like we have old stories of interdimensional travel.”
Which happily brings us to yet another time travel twist unique to Outer Range.
Yes, Royal Abbott (Josh Brolin) a white man time travelled but he’s on his heels. Autumn Rivers, another character on the show has more Doctor Who like knowledge of chronal machinations.
Sheriff Joy Hawk has ancient myths from her people. Everybody knows more what’s going on than the white dude who first time travelled.
That’s not how this normally goes.
Doctor Who (granted he’s an alien) he knows what is going on. Doc Brown knows what is going on. Bill & Ted have Rufus. This is the established time travel formula. The White Man handles the exposition.
I’ll stop there and let you enjoy this My Sumer Lair episode and Season 2 of Outer Range.
Enjoy and be grateful. I concur when Tamara said to me: “I’m overwhelmed and overjoyed by the response that people have had to Season 2 and to Joy’s journey.”
Indeed.
May we never take time machines for granted because they empower our imaginations. Sure we can choose our realities and our facts but we can also choose our dreams.
And embrace the future with hope instead of fear.
I’d So Visit The Multiverse Where There’s No Pants…
Sammy Younan
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Sammy Younan is the affable host of My Summer Lair podcast: think NPR’s Fresh Air meets Kevin Smith: interviews & impressions on Pop Culture.
Behold The Outer Range of My Summer Lair