Review of 'The Crossing' 1.2
Calling for More Time Travel
The Crossing moved into its regular season last night—or maybe it did a week ago, when its first episode was rebroadcast on ABC, having first played earlier on Hulu—but the series is anything but regular, and I mean that in pretty much a good way.
It's part time travel, part super-humans ala (I guess) Fringe, and part fast-driving FBI and local law enforcement caught up in a conspiracy and a plague from the future and all kinds of things. Readers of my reviews here on Futurism won't be surprised to find that the part I find most interesting is the time travel, but that part's been the least developed so far. It's only the second episode, and there's still time to roll this out, but so far we have no idea how the time travel was created or stumbled upon, only that hundreds of "commons" came here from the future, that some number have been here for a long time already, and that at least one super-human or Apex came along for the ride, too.
Instead of the time travel, we've seen a lot of scenes with the Apex—a mother who loves her common (adopted) girl—finding the girl as a little baby in the future, and frantically looking for her in our present where (when) they both traveled. She has a tempestuous (so far, only professional) relationship with the local sheriff, and manages to survive massive hit squads, though not unscathed.
Another Strike Force show we don't need—though the first rendition of that series was excellent, and I'm starting to watch the second. Instead, we—meaning, I—could use a well-done time travel narrative. (I can always use one of those.) But for this to happen, we need to see more time travel in The Crossing, and learn more—much more—about it.
In terms of other similar series, Lost was hit and miss (but mostly hit); the same for Fringe, but The Event (whose producers Jay Beattie and Dan Dworkin also are creators of The Crossing) and Alcatraz never really got off the ground or hit their stride because they lacked a clear allegiance to the time-travel genre or in fact any genre. It will be fun to see if The Crossing is more like Lost or Alcatraz.
About the Creator
Paul Levinson
Novels The Silk Code & The Plot To Save Socrates; LPs Twice Upon A Rhyme & Welcome Up; nonfiction The Soft Edge & Digital McLuhan, translated into 15 languages. Best-known short story: The Chronology Protection Case; Prof, Fordham Univ.
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