Thursday Night Bar Fight #10: The “Three Hour Tour”
Bad news, everyone!
NASA has just reported that a giant meteor is on a collision course with Earth. NASA has also confirmed there is no way to stop the moon-sized rock. Its arrival brings the end of all life on this planet. (Thanks a lot, Obama!)
There is good news for some, however. For years, government scientists have been working on a top secret project: the TV Reality Enablement Machine (TREM). While TREM cannot save all of mankind, it can save a very tiny handful of men and women. You have been chosen to be one of those lucky few.
While the quantum mechanics used by TREM are so complicated you could never hope to understand them, it’s function is simple: Enter the name of a television show that has a fictional plot, step into TREM, and you will be instantly transported to the universe of whatever television show you named.
And therein lies this Thursday Night Bar Fight quandary:
Which TV show will you choose to step into, and why?
However, before you choose know that there are some bugs in the system:
- Only one person can go into any TV universe. Not only can you not bring family and friends with you, you cannot bring doctors, scientists, engineers, etc. You will therefore be entirely dependent upon the knowledge and technology of whatever universe you have chosen.
- When you arrive you will be you, and will take on the role as an average person in that universe. You cannot “become” an existing character, nor should you reasonably expect to ever even meet the characters of the TV show you have chosen.
- Your new universe will have been created by a writer, but once you arrive it will continue without one. This means there will be no narrative causality; that universe may be prone to having happy endings on TV, but you should not assume it will necessarily do so when you arrive.
- Limitations that exist on the TV show will exist in your universe as well. So, for example, living on Sesame Street will mean you will give up sex, and living on Leave It to Beaver will mean you will be caucasian – even if you are currently African American or Korean. This does work both ways, however. Were you to choose Gilligan’s Island, you will find that the coconuts in that universe will defy our universe’s laws of physics and manufacturing.
And lastly, there is this most important stipulation:
The machine does not always work correctly. Sometimes it delivers people perfectly, but other times it rearranges their molecules and brings a messy and utterly gross death. For reasons that are too difficult to explain here, the farther in the past your television show’s plot occurs, the greater your chances of arriving intact. The farther in the future, the greater the chances that you arrive as a soupy mass of gloppy tissue. We don’t know the exact odds of, say, surviving in Star Trek or Dowton Abbey – we simply know that the latter has far greater chance of survival. We do know that travelling to shows set in 2013 have a 70% chance of survival, however, so you can feel free to extrapolate as you wish from that data point.
Oops, I’ve been talking way too long – the meteor’s almost here! Time to decide!
Ready? Go!
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Animated series included?Report
yesReport
OK, then my first thought is the anime Fairy Tail. Magic and very cute gals, but more importantly, they have spells that can open portals between worlds, so you might be able to save more people, or even save Earth if there’s time travel magic (and I’m sure some wizard somewhere could come up with it). And more important than that, even if it fails, you’re stuck in a world with magic and very cute gals.Report
Actually, the best bet to save the world would be to find a TV show that has done a ‘Trapped in TV land’ episode. Because in that universe, the technology to exit the TV show they’re in already exists. (This might be slightly different tech than inter-dimensional portals.)
Go there, grab the tech, exit the show, go into the Superman TV show or something, exit that world with Superman in tow, and save the world that way.Report
I’m drawing a blank on any, except for Supernatural, and I wouldn’t want to be in that episode. There may have been one on Kim Possible. The only other thing I can think of is that movie Pleasantville.Report
Warehouse 13.Report
I can’t think of what specific Warehouse 13 you’re talking about. They just got trapped in a book the last episode, but that was a property of that specific book, and they just left it when the story ended, so that wouldn’t work in general. (And they got trapped in a comic in the webisodes, but I don’t remember that well.)
However, if anyone _does_ have the ability to hope in and out of TV shows, it would be them.
But a big problem is, if you’re just some random person in that universe, no way you’re getting into the Warehouse, much less running off with an artifact. You could physically locate the place (It’s the ‘IRS warehouse’ outside Univille, SD.) and pester the employees, but that’s about it.Report
However, if anyone _does_ have the ability to hope in and out of TV shows, it would be them.
Right, that’s what I was thinking. Not that there *was* a device, but if there was, it’d be there. Also, Warehouse 13 less risky than Star Trek to get to…
But a big problem is, if you’re just some random person in that universe, no way you’re getting into the Warehouse, much less running off with an artifact. You could physically locate the place (It’s the ‘IRS warehouse’ outside Univille, SD.) and pester the employees, but that’s about it.
I think if you showed up outside the Warehouse with the knowledge you gleaned from the show (assuming you watch it), Artie would get you to talk to the Regents post-haste.Report
I think if you showed up outside the Warehouse with the knowledge you gleaned from the show (assuming you watch it), Artie would get you to talk to the Regents post-haste.
That’s a good point, and it makes me realize there’s an exploit in the hypothetical. Namely, you can arrive _during a plot_. No one ever said you had to arrive in the ‘now’ of a TV show.
Now, admittedly, if you’re just some random guy, you can’t cut it very close, and there’s not any way you’re going to track how to call the Warehouse, so you have to fly there…
…but show up a few days before, for example, the disastrous season three finale and explain who you are and how events are about to go entirely pear-shaped?
Yeah, they might indeed loan you an artifact. Actually, you’d have a pretty good chance of becoming an agent, considering their recruitment policy.Report
You just gave me my final answer: Heroes. Think of all the possibilities with inside information! You could use your knowledge of upcoming events, or coax favors out of powerful people whose secrets you’d know, or best of all, if you’re at the right place/time, you could get super powers yourself. And it’s got all the other advantages you could be looking for: it’s recent, everyone’s good-looking, and there are time-travel and parallel universe possibilities.Report
Oh, Treehouse of Horror!Report
The West Wing.
Because it is close enough to our timeline and a world with President Bartlett and CJ Craig is just good.
If I was allowed to be part of the cast and interact with them: Slings and Arrows because I would love to involved with the theatre world and a festival like that. There is a lot to criticize about the theatre world I still love it and my genie wish is still to be a professional theatre director*
*My other two wishes are to win a McArthur Grant and have Maggie Gyllenhaal be my girlfriend. They are genie wishes, why not dream big?Report
That’s my wish, too!Report
Which one?
🙂Report
West Wing.Report
Well, since sex is mostly banned on TV for ratings reasons, I see little hope that this will produce a single universe with some shred of a future.
But just in case, I’d probably go for something like Doc Marten, with it’s single-payer health care system.Report
There was nothing in the rules that said you can’t pick something on cable!
And there is plenty of sex on TV, you just only see the foreplay and post-coital stuffReport
Question — if you join the world of the show, even if you’re a mere mortal would you know the other people? Say I picked “Friends” [I would not pick “Friends”] — do I know Monica and Chandler and the rest?
Also, I’d get my sappy “real” answer out of the way before I get into the spirit of the question — I would opt to get pulverized by a meteor rather than live in a world without my family and friends.Report
Whoops. Silly me. I missed that the answer to my question was already in the OP. SORRY!
I would pick “Sex and the City,” because I wouldn’t have to worry about meeting any of the horribly obnoxious characters, and would simply go back to living in New York City when I lived there before. It would be like going back home, though with the caveat that New York City will never truly be “home” again without a certain best friend and co-blogger living a short walk away from my apartment.Report
I’m going for Star Trek anyway. Techno-utopia, how can you pass that up? Plus, you have to figure that showing up in Trek universe with a backstory like this, I’m going to get the Federation’s big brains involved in trying to save Earth, even across realities, and if we can create technology here that enables us to go into a teevee, you can bet Spock can figure out a way to come back through with the Enterprise and blow up/deflect even a moon-sized meteor.
Even if it was only a 0.0001% chance, well, everybody’s dyin’ anyway…Report
Word… how could you pass up Techno-utopia? Star trek… hmm I am thinking that maybe Next Generation would be best? Or maybe Voyager.. TOS was a bit too cold war-y, DS9 has, you know, an impending galactic war. Voyager perhaps is the best bet.Report
I’m going for TOS, because I pick Kirk and Spock and Scotty over Picard and Geordi and Data.Report
Yeah, but there’s no guarantee you will ever meet the “stars” anyway.
Otherwise, I would have already written “Firefly” down (Inara…) and been done with this.Report
I’m assuming that you get beamed into an episode, right? As you (clarified in the OP), but still, during the actual episode, you pop into place.
So you just pick an episode where at the end, you’ve got Scotty and Spock and Kirk on the bridge and you say, “Put me there”.Report
When you arrive you will be you, and will take on the role as an average person in that universe. You cannot “become” an existing character, nor should you reasonably expect to ever even meet the characters of the TV show you have chosen.
I don’t think the tech is precise enough to send you when/where you want to be. Just put you in the universe. You could end up mining Rura Penthe.Report
Hm; Tod’s going to have to re-think that one.
If you enter the Trek Universe, is it equally likely that you’ll be a member of the Q continuum or a member of humanity or some sentient critter in a whole ‘nuther galaxy?Report
you will be youReport
Whoops. That’s the answer to my question above, which I somehow missed.
I would NEVER join the “Firefly” universe because of:
1) Hands of Blue.
2) Reavers. The Reavers give me the howling, howling fantods.Report
almost utopia in some cases can be found in star wars, and they happened a long time ago so i think we can assure arrival. same for recent BSG. maybe go back to caprica and stop the events from happening?Report
Can I join a reality show? Would that just replicate our world, with all the people in it (even those not in screen… Technically I’m on “The Real World”… I just get zero screen time.)Report
Yeah, like reality shows duplicate the real world.Report
While The Real World is just pretending to be the real world, how about any talk show, which actually_are_ set in the ‘real world’? (Just stay away from the political ones, or you could accidentally end up in a world where certain politicians are trying to destroy America.)
Hey, who wants to make a quick TV show with me about a very nice superhero, able to stop meteors, set in 10,000 BC, who has the power to exit, along with anyone else who has joined him, any fictional work he’s put in? 😉
It really seems like that’s a more ethical use of everyone’s time.Report
Quantum Leap.
The future has awesome tech, there are LEDs everywhere, and there’s a God who wants things to work out.Report
Extrapolating from Tod’s one datapoint (which means that any answer I give is equally likely), I estimate that your probability of surviving your warp into the Quantum Leap future is precisely 1 gazillion percent.Report
Oh boy…Report
The danger of the Quantum Leap universe is that God might take an interest to your arrival and suddenly _you_ now have a job putting right what once went wrong.Report
“Jay! Ziggy says that you have to eat 50 1/2 hot dogs in the next 12 minutes!”Report
Isn’t Quantum Leap going to eventually be like Groundhog Day (with no escape) or Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence? You just keep jumping into the same boring people and saving them over and over for forever.
That could be Hell.Report
Dude.
It could be Heaven.Report
This is a good one 🙂
Thanks, Tod.Report
I dispute the assertion that moving to Sesame Street will mean no sex. The characters Luis and Maria fell in love, married, and had a babt (coinciding with the actor playing Maria having a baby herself) – I don’t believe they explained the facts of life in the relevant episodes, but they didn’t misdirect either.
Sesame Street is pretty awesome about acknowledging the fullness of reality. When Will Lee died, they had his character, Mr. Hooper, die as well, and used the episode to deal with death and grieving.
What you probably wouldn’t get much of if you moved into the Sesame Street universe is violence, racism, xenophobia, judgement. Heck, this is sounding not half bad.
That’s it, I’ve talked myself into it – I’m moving to mid-80’s (pre-Elmo) Sesame Street.Report
I don’t see an adult lasting two days on Sesame Street without begging for a transfer to The Sopranos or something. You’re going to need intellectual stimulation. Me, I’d much rather be on the Lost island instead. You won’t live as long, but you’ll never be bored.Report
moving to Sesame Street will mean no sex …mid-80?s (pre-Elmo) Sesame Street.
That would probably be for the best…Report
I think it should be pointed out that you can get into the Star Trek universe safely…you just need to join it in the _present_. As Star Trek canonically has cryogenic suspension from the present day (Khan, that business guy in TNG, etc…), you can just wait it out. But watch out for the nuclear war in the 2060s.
Or you can just find one of the many time machines…I’d suggest meeting up with the Voyager crew in 1997 and lie about being a time traveler from their time (You should know enough stuff about the Federation _and_ the near future of 1997 to convince them) and need a lift, but then you’re stuck on Voyager, ugh.
I was thinking you might want to be in a dramatic universe with super-crime-solvers in it, like CSI or Bones or Psych or something, for safety reasons, until I remembered that those universes also have a surprising amount of serial killers wandering around, and lots of people end up dead before our heroes show up.
From the point of view of a non-main character, all most TV universes look basically the same. Would you actually know or care you’re in the universe of the Big Bang Theory or Arrested Development or Breaking Bad?
Hey, what if you entered a TV show that was explicitly set in _this_ universe due to lack of fourth wall? Like Letterman or other talk shows? And won’t they be really confused inside that show when the meteor doesn’t kill everyone?Report
Chief lesson learned from Murder She Wrote: if you are invited to any event, no matter how innocuous, that Jessica Fletcher will also be attending, find some excuse. Any excuse will do, no matter how flimsy – the host will soon have more pressing things to worry about than your transparent attempts to back out of their invitation.Report
I’m not sure that declining the invitation would be a good idea…seems to me that could focus the plot on you. You’d end up dead, and the host of the party will be informed while Jessica Fletcher is standing right here, she will decide to investigate, and it would be a Clue that you did not attend the party.
No, if you find yourself in the Murder She Wrote universe, you must _immediately_ murder Jessica Fletcher. And not remotely. (That will just end up killing someone else due to her Plot Armor and she’ll solve the murder.) Run up, and stab her repeatedly. Do not worry about getting caught…the _only_ way to actually catch criminals in the Murder She Wrote universe is for Jessica Fletcher to pretend to be trapped in an empty room with them and get them to confess and then they attempt to kill her while the police listen in.
Now, depending on how the world works, other people step in to attempt this trick. So, as a rule of thumb, never attempt to murder anyone who is listing circumstantial evidence against you. Ever. It is a trick. Pretend to be baffled, and then go along willingly with the police. They will have to release you due to ‘lack of evidence’, because there is no such thing as ‘evidence’ in that universe.Report
This reminds me of this: http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2007/03/07/cloak-coverage-draws-poor-parallels-star-trekReport
I don’t know what this says about me, but for each of these that I’ve answered in the past, I’ve just answered immediately, without giving it much thought, but for this one, I’m wasting a fair amount of time trying to decide where I want to go.Report
Just admit you’re trying to find the right porn flick.Report
Oh, I’d know that right away.Report
name it?Report
I’ll play it safe–How I Met Your Mother. Basically the same as the real world, except that renting a gigantic apartment in New York is inexplicably affordable.Report
This game kind of sucks unless you contract the “set in” to be “the environs of the show itself.” Otherwise:
-Any set on Earth in the last couple of thousand years or the next would mean you should expect to be poor and Chinese.
-Within human history but prior to several thousand years ago, you die of disease or privation.
Regardless of those problems, it remains that:
-Before the emergence of humanity you die of injury or privation.
-Set in the glorious future you die trying to get there.
Given those constraints (minimize my potential misery while maximizing my chance at survival) I guess something like… right around 1989. I’d still like the potential for some amazing stuff to happen, so something with magic or alternative sciences…
Top candidates include:
Saved by the Bell
Free Spirit
My Secret Identity
All terrible. Probably pick Saved by the Bell.Report
This sounds like an episode of Eureka.
Can you pick a movie?
My first thought is Cheers, I don’t know why. It may have something to do with just having read Will’s post on drinking.Report
Farscape.
I’ll run the risk of death to get a chance to hook up with Chianna 🙂Report
Well, besides Doc. obviously correct answer of choosing to be crushed rather than live without the Gravatar – I really can’t imagine why I would choose anything other than Gilmore Girls.Report
My first thought was West Wing as well, but really, anywhere in the Sorkin verse – where people are preternaturally good a trivia and all have good intentions and all talk more or less alike seems a good fit. (plus, cocaine is a helluva drug)Report
I would have to go with a roadrunner cartoon. No matter how stupidly optimistic you are, no matter how many times you fall five miles and get hit by giant trucks, nobody dies.Report
Awesome.Report
Except I remember one where both of them do die and ascend to the stars and chase each other for eternity.Report
I would pick David Tennet doctor who. yeah some death chance but very earth-like with all the added joy of weird things happening for no good reason.
or tom baker doctor just to mock dress sense.Report
Yes dr who is my choice as well.Report
I would almost certainly be one of the poor saps who gets turned into a Cyberman or exterminated by a Dalek. No thanks.Report
I think the BBC has a policy about protecting minorities, so as a member of LBGT community your safe in most BBC shows probably.Report
No there was a gay couple in the last season and one of the guys turned into a headless priest against his will.Report
*smacks forehead* duh, the obvious (and only) choice is St Elsewhere.Report
The Wire – nothing changes, really, but the dialogues are much betterReport
What are the odds that when you do end up in the Star Trek universe you’re automatically This guy?Report
I love that his name is actually the generic “Guy”.Report
I would like to play this game with books/movies so that I can live in The Culture. Please.Report
The Venture Bros. I would fit in.Report
I’d pick a show on the CW. Contemporary setting, so a high probability of survival. Everyone is rich and good-looking, so I would be, too. Given that ordinary life sort of takes over after the writers are killed by the meteor, whatever vampires or vigilantes are out there would probably leave me alone. My only real problem would be overwrought dialogue with other residents of the TV show setting, but really, would that be all that much different than what I encounter in court every day?Report
Tempted to say The Walking Dead, but I’ll go with Northern Exposure.Report
Statistically, in Walking Dead you’re sure to be a zombie.Report
You say that like it’s a bad thing.Report
If going to the past had a better survival rate, I’d pick a TV show that starts somewhere in the late 19th century. The late 19th and early 20th centuries always fascinated me so might as well use an opportunity to get to live there.Report
The Kardashians.Report
Is The Flinstones set in the past?
Wikipedia says ths: “The Flintstones was about a working-class Stone Age man’s life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend.”
I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the Stone Age.
Anyways, I choose Flintstones because Wilma and Betty are so, so hot. Does that make me weird? Yes. Oh yes.Report
Yes. Yes it does.Report
Don’t let Fred catch you messing with his woman. He wasn’t what he seemed to be.Report
Yes, you’re weird. Join the club.
At least you aren’t drawing p0rn about cartoon siblings…Report
Well, given the constraints of being just another dude wherever you end up, going to any garden-variety drama or sit-com would just be basic time-travel. So I think I’ll go for something in the ’70s where I understand the culture (the concerts!!) and the tech and medicine is reasonably good. That way I’ll have enough time to die of old age before the meteor hits. Also I’ll know what companies to invest in so I won’t have to die poor. Like I will here.
Maybe Six-Million Dollar Man. That one’s sort of optimistic about tech so maybe we’ll have an actual space program in the ’80s.Report
Six-Million Dollar Man came up recently over at MD, and after watching a YouTube clip to refresh a memory about Bigfoot battling Steve Austin, I decided the show may have been the pinnacle of all human art.
What I had NOT remembered about Bigfoot was that he was:
1.) A robot
2.) Sent by space aliens
3.) Played by Andre the Giant (no sign of his Posse)
Tell me – could there BE any greater plot element than this? How many kids broke collarbones, attempting slow-mo bionic leaps off of garages and things?Report
Okay. Drawing on my skills at Narrativium, I choose a show that isn’t in production yet. It’ll include my husband (and a ton of his friends)… basically playing themselves. Then I’ll choose to bounce into that.
I’ll take a 70% chance of that over a 100% of something more boring.
n.b.: anyone who says I’m cheating: Everything I’ve suggested here is plausible (counting getting the show greenlighted, though that might take a few selected parties sleeping it up a bit (which they’ve done for other shows…)).Report
If I pick “The Twilight Zone” do I have to pick an episode or do I just wake up in a weird new universe every day? If I pick “Night Gallery” do I end up as just part of a painting?Report
Since the writers would all be fired (as the show was unwatchable even as a little kid after school), I think I would head for “I Dream of Genie” . There better be a pilot episode I could step into which showed the astronaut finding the genie lamp, or I am scrod. Can you join the show at the intro? This one needs precision timing, clearly.
So, this is the plan:
A: Get Genie lamp
B: ?
C: Profit
Best case scenario: I could go to any crappy TV show I wanted to. With a Genie. I hope you enjoy the 2 hour series finale of CSI: Juggalo, suckas .Report
And I would have my genie visit your Star Trek show and make it so that using the transporter caused bouts of uncontrollable gas. Hilarity ensues. Like this but, you know, better. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRIg6Z0EY6YReport
Impossible. There could be nothing better.Report
I think mine would be better because of the explosive landing party scenes. Not to mention the hilarious new awkwardness of those Kirk/Beautiful green alien romance plots.
And the best, best case scenario is almost too much to even dream of. I will have joined a show that is nothing less than the ultimate guy fantasy. It’s even over the top dood awesome for the 60’s:
We are astronauts.
During the Apollo years.
With a Genie in harem pants.
She calls me master.
I know the future. But it doesn’t even matter because I have a genie.
Aim for the gold ring, guys.Report