confusing timeframes

[moondarri]

i have questions! questions that need answering! questions concerning timelines!

Comments

[pet_lunatic]

My guess is that Gene's original fantasy world carried on more or less directly from when he was shot - it would originally have been 'set' in the fifties, consistent with his timeline. When other people joined him, they brought new things into his world, and it developed accordingly. Perhaps when Sam arrived it looked like the seventies because of Ray and/or Chris - there might be others, even lots of others, that we don't know about who contributed to constructing the world as we saw it in A2A. As for the chosen time periods - didn't Sam say he liked the eighties, at one point? Perhaps it's more or less arbitrary, or Gene subconsciously gets to select the bits he likes, or thinks would make a good addition. Or Nelson does. Or somebody else does...if it is largely down to Gene, with more limited contributions from the others, it would explain various inconsistencies with that crop up in the seventies and eighties - Gene's information is all second-hand

[immortality]

I've always thought of this universe as existing in all directions at all times, and that coppers who die with unresolved issues go back to the point in time where something significant happened in their lives: Sam went back to the year he saw his dad kill Annie, Alex went back to the year her parents died, Martin Summers went back to when Operation Rose occurred.

But theoretically, you wouldn't always have to end up in a specific timezone (ie, the 80s, since something could have happened to you in say, the 60s). So even though we the viewers are seeing Gene and Co in the 70s and 80s, Gene himself exists from 1953 onward in this universe, so anyone could go back to any time. It just stands to reason that people who die with issues are usually young coppers, so they go back in time almost chronologically. If that makes sense! So iPhone guy was probably younger than Alex and/or he didn't experience something significant in his life until 1983

[rell121]

I like your explanation, it makes a lot of sense to me :D

[ex_antimorp]

The way I see it, Gene created his world when he died, and it was 1953 in both the real world and the geniverse when that happened. After that point Gene has no knowledge of what's going on in the outside world. While he was the only lost soul in his pocket universe everything was fine and probably made perfect sense (to him!), but I suspect that time didn't actually march forwards, or if it did it didn't do so according to any history we'd recognise

confusing timeframes

[venusinthenight]

according to the shooting script, chris died in 1975. ray died two years later (he's watching the silver jubilee stuff -- so, between june 6 and 9). i imagine both went back to the 1960s sometime; they'd have to be there long enough to make DC and DS, respectively. and let's remember both were there (as was annie) when sam arrived in 1973.

as for annie, i like the theory that she was the woman in the red dress that four-year-old sam saw. so she died in 1973 (if chris and ray can be in the geniverse in the years they died in real time, so could annie, IMO).

shaz, i like to think went back to 1980 --the year gene and co transfered down. it would be consistent with her being there before alex.

overall, yeah, i agree the other coppers who arrive in the geniverse help shape it, because gene can't for varying reasons.

[world_dancer]

Why back in in the past? Other than unfinished business, there's nostalgia. It's not the past exactly as it really was, but the past as people think it should have been. CID 1970s is like a '70s cop show more than actual policing.

As for the rest, I'm with those who say the incoming cops keep dragging the timeline forward. Let us not forget Litton, who may well be someone in a position similar to Gene's, where he decided to stay behind and set up his own little kingdom.

I'm thinking purgatory is malleable, and reacts to the people who inhabit it. They need some way to comprehend the trials set to them, so coppers tend to think of it in terms of their job when they have job related issues, and gravitate to realities that are already filled in because that's easier than setting up your own little kingdom where you have to imagine all the details yourself.

If Gene was good at anything, it was knowing all the people and knowing them well.

[maniacalshen]

Gene might've made the world, but each copper that comes to it adds his or her experience to the collective consciousness. Gene never saw the 70s, but Ray did. Sam did. Their memories helped construct the world