The Parallel

Did You Know?

• The 1969 British science fiction film Journey to the Far Side of the Sun bore conceptual similarities to this episode.
• The Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Mirror, Mirror" also used a similar concept, though the differences between characters in the two alternate universes were quite noticeable.
• The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Parallels" has plot elements similar to this story.

Plot

Major Robert Gaines is orbiting Earth in his space capsule when his communication systems stop functioning and he blacks out. He wakes up on Earth with no memory of his return and is released to his family. Inconsistencies soon appear: his house has a white picket fence he has never seen, though his wife Helen insists it was there when they bought the house. His rank insignia and a photograph show him as a Colonel, but he knows himself to be a Major; Helen says he has been a Colonel for months. She kisses him and instantly knows he is not the same. When Maggie brings coffee, Gaines stops her from adding sugar, and she says something is wrong. Helen tells him he is different but cannot explain it. Gaines insists on turning himself in for examination. He also insists that the President of the United States is John F. Kennedy, a man no one else has heard of, and concludes he has slipped into a parallel universe. A mechanic reports that his space capsule is not completely identical to the one he was sent out in. Gaines is summoned to examine the capsule, but as he approaches it he is gradually returned to the point at which he left his own universe. He lands safely and reports what happened; his superiors are prepared to write it off as a nightmare. Controllers then receive another transmission from Colonel Robert Gaines, which cuts out after a few seconds, and the Colonel disappears from radar. The Major returns home to find his daughter now recognizes him and the white picket fence is absent.

Reception

Cult television website anorakzone.com ranked the episode the fourth-worst of season 4, calling it "dull" and stating that the script "makes no real effort to test the new format to its limits" and feels purposely padded. The site also said that Forrest "fails to rise his performance above a straight recital of exposition". Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave "The Parallel" a rating of C+, commenting that while the episode "makes a reasonable case for itself in its first half" with some "credible worldbuilding", it suffers from a lack of suspense and obvious danger. He described the premise as "too expected" and "too mundane", adding that the story "completely falls apart" in a "lazily" written second half. Jacob Trussell said the episode "spins its wheels for 20 minutes, dragging out a second-act reveal that the audience has already guessed", representing "a great example of why Season Four's experiment in hour-long stories didn't always work". Paste magazine commented that the performances "[lack] energy, and the ending is more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than a genuinely surprising twist." DVD Talk called the acting "poor" and argued that the resolution "completely cheats the audience out of the time spent watching the episode".