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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Paracelsus" data-source="post: 886565" data-attributes="member: 8098">Just got through the first season.Really impressive stuff.  Alternate-universe is very difficult to do right for some reason, but for once shrouding everyone in greys and shadows really works for the mood of the piece.It was in the small details I think they convinced me.  Especially that one occasion when Joe's stopped on the road and there's all this grey snow falling.  And the cop tells him: "Yeah, that's the hospital.  They always burn the cripples and defectives on a Tuesday."  It was just the way he delivered the line; such matter-of-factness and the implications of that routine statement that chilled me to the bone.  I was sold on the concept from pretty much that point on, and the show is gripping stuff.  I didn't think an X-Files alumnus could actually produce something this nuanced and thought-out, but Frank Spotnitz seems to have done it.In terms of standout performances - while "John Smith" was in pretty good hands with Rufus Sewell, I thought all the Japanese characters (or rather, the Asian actors) stole the show.Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa was just extraordinary.  To my eternal shame and dishonour the only things I remembered him being in was chewing the scenery in Mortal Kombat and as a slick Japanese guy in Rising Sun.  But his filmography is extraordinary, he doesn't seem to have been out of work for thirty years or so, and while most of it has been B-Movie, Token Asian stuff, I was enthralled with his performance.And holy shit, Joel de la Fuente as Inspector Kido, how good was he? Never mind the fact he looks like he's in his early thirties when he's actually 46, that's what clean living and Asian genes give you, ladies and gentlemen.  He brought this wonderful contrast to Tagawa; their scenes together were just electric.On to some spoilers....Yeah, I'd have to agree, it looks like Frank has some sort of ability to provide the necessary fuel for timeline-jumping.  It'll be interesting to see how they develop Miss Fine-Ass who sensed the wu as well; her husband didn't notice it, and given the focus on her I'm guessing we'll be seeing her develop into some sort of timejumping as well.That said: I've got a feeling Tagami isn't from around here, that his home isn't in the show's original timeline (call it the Prime).  Here's my hypothesis: he's actually from the future of the Prime, from the same rough period as the final film that Joe and Frank feature in.  But Tagami jumped back from that future to a point many, many years prior to the show's opening, and using the knowledge he had, was trying to avert that timeline coming to pass -- by trying to make Japan and Germany equal in the arms race.  It's when the Japanese general comes to him and tells him the Heisenberg Device plans will allow Japan to go to war against Germany - that's when he loses all stopping the future he's seen from coming to pass.I think he realises he can switch timelines again from pretty much the moment he picks up Juliana's necklace, but he doesn't try to do so until all his plans have come to nought and he's ruined.I think the necklace and its energy are like a Stage 1 booster for timejumpers - they can travel, but they need an object with enough wu in it to make the jump, they can't do it themselves, and the object loses its energy in the transit.  Even allowing for his character's reserve, he does not look the least bit surprised when he winds up in the alternate timeline.  But he didn't want to go until it was obvious he could do nothing more to alter the Prime's fate.</blockquote>

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