Each week when Frank Parker utters the code word "conundrum" to the gal at the Back Step switchboard [that's primarily a season one scene], it signals that a mission is underway and that history is about to be altered. The writers picked an appropriate password. Webster's New World Dictionary lists "any puzzling question or problem" among the definitions for the word conundrum, and the series often presents several per episode for viewers to chew on.

I know Seven Days is merely a TV show and therefore I'm supposed to suspend disbelief for the hour, and typically I do. On the other hand, I've been nuts about time-travel scenarios since I first saw The Time Machine as a kid. I love to ponder these details and poke holes in the theories. This page is dedicated to that.

Conundrums

A Communications Question

What does that orange flight suit protect Parker from anyway?

Why is the sphere shown in outer space?

The First Time/Sphere Logistics

Parker Must Be Nuts

Virus Protection

Under Construction

Better Than CNN

Double Jeopardy

Poor Security

What If...

Seven Days or Seven Months

Thoughts on Aging

Rank Has Its Privileges

Frank Has His Privileges

Let's start with that phone call to the switchboard. How often do we see a bruised Frank making the call from a pay phone? After his first backstep, Frank frittered away 7.5 hours to get to the phone in Las Vegas. Is it possible that we have harnessed alien technology to travel back in time, but neglected to include a communication device in the sphere itself?

In the Come Again? episode, Frank had the presence of mind to take flowers with him in the flight bag to woo the fetching Ms. Vukavitch, but why not a cell phone to save looking for a phone booth? What's up with that?

Ken Miller adds: I had a similar idea: There are quite a few governmental agencies across the world who have radio stations which do nothing except broadcast the exact time of day, over and over again, all day long, in order for all the world to stay synchonized with each other. I presume that they also broadcast the date, and Parker ought to have a simple device to tap into those broadcasts upon landing. Update: By the Vows episode we see Frank talking to Ballard on a cell phone as he exits the sphere. Case closed?

Monique Glozier; Auckland New Zealand points out: "Parker says that he does not carry a mobile phone because they get "burned up during the trip."

What does that orange flight suit
protect Parker from anyway?

Even with a helmet and suit on, Parker generally emerges from the sphere bruised and bleeding. One presumes the suit would protect Frank against something, yet he supposedly loses enough skin on a backstep to cause the bleeding we typically see. What gives? Don't other materials suffer the same effects? And the helmet --- does he need oxygen or something? Which leads to the next conundrum...

Why is the sphere shown in outer space?

When the show cuts away to commercial, and occasionally during a backstep sequence, we see the sphere in outer space (though it appears to be a short, Alan Shepard-type arc rather than an actual orbit). Does traveling the time-space continuum require a trip to outer space, or does the sphere just look cooler with planet earth as a backdrop? Or is the backstep time travel method similar to Superman's --- circling the earth at high speed against it's normal rotation until it actually spins backwards, thus reversing time?

Ken Miller offers this explanation: Reversing the earth's rotation was shown in "Superman - The Movie", but I don't know of any science fiction fan who ever took it seriously. In the comic books, Superman flew faster than the speed of light, which enabled violations of the laws of physics, such as the direction of time. This is the same as in Star Trek, when the Enterprise flew faster than light without going into warp space. And I think this is what is happening on Seven Days. The first episode didn't spend more than one or two sentences explaining the science involved, but they did mention the speed of light at some point. So I figure the sphere has to go into space simply because it needs some distance in order to accelerate to such a speed.


This particular conundrum was discussed at length on the mailing list, and patiently explained to my satisfaction (including the flight suit explanation. If you don't mind a longer read, check it out here.

The First Time/Sphere Logistics

Now wrap yer brain around this one: Frank gains more experience every time he backsteps, yet for the BackStep team, wouldn't it ALWAYS be the first time they've attempted this (experiments aside)? All they have for evidence that a backstep indeed occured is Frank's word on it.

Or does the sphere go missing from the hangar? (Parker went missing from lock-up the first time he backstepped) In which case, why are they so surprised to see him every time he shows up? If it doesn't, what do they do with the sphere from the future that Frank crashed?

If they make improvements to the sphere, it's only from what Frank tells them, since any data they collected during the "flight" is non-existent in the new, altered future. Or is data collected in the sphere for evaluation later (actually earlier now) and thus the backstep IS part of the new, altered future? Somebody grab me some aspirin.

Ken Miller points out: Each time they power up the sphere and send him back is the first time they've done that (which is why the power source never runs out). But they have seen him arrive in the past many times, and they remember all of them. Example: From Parker's perspective, he travels from Nov 17 to Nov 10, and then from Nov 27 to Nov 20, and has aged 44 days during November. This is how it looks to the Backstep team: Nine uneventful days of November go by. On Nov 10, Parker lands, surprising everyone with news about some emergency that they must fix. By November 17 they have prevented the emergency, and there is no need to use the sphere. On November 20, he shows up again with another emergency to work on. They retreive the sphere and pring it back to the hangar, and they fix this emergency as well. November ends without ever having sent the sphere off, although they've had it arrive a few times.

Parker Must Be Nuts

Let's travel back in time ourselves, to the two-hour pilot episode. Does anyone but me think that a man (albeit a highly trained military machine of a man with a photographic memory and high pain threshold) from a CIA nut-house would REALLY get the nod? Don't get me wrong. I like Frank -- especially his cocky attitude, but if I were in the position the BackStep team was in the first time they were to backstep, I'm afraid I'd have had to side with Nate Ramsey and favor a more "stable" candidate.

Virus Protection

This conundrum comes from The Gettysburg Virus. We've seen it dozens of times on TV --- the health authorities show up in their full-body suits to work among the infected. These suits protect them --- but they don't protect US, because presumably the germs can get on the outside of the suit. Am I right?

I first noticed this on the quarantine of the Apollo 11 astronauts after their return from the historic first moon landing. Frogmen met them in the ocean and tossed similar suits in the capsule door before the astronauts were lifted to the helicopter, and an awaiting airstream trailer on the aircraft carrier. But our heroes put on those suits INSIDE the capsule, in the same air they'd been breathing since they left the moon. Any germs there may have been would have been unloaded into the earth's atmosphere the moment they cracked open the door. I could never figure out why they didn't put the entire capsule into quarantine before they cracked open the hatch.

Ken Miller adds: I noticed that on Apollo 11 also! My guess has been that there are practical limits to how far the quarantine can go. My recollection is that although the air inside the capsule has potentially contaminated the entire earth, there wasn't much they could do to prevent it, but NASA can and did quarantine the capsule as well, because that was in the realm of practical and feasible. Similar things can be said about other details, such as when they sprayed whatever into the air after the astronauts walked from the helicopter into the isolation booth.

Under Construction

That sphere always appears to be under construction, no doubt because everytime it's ready to go, it gets sent back seven days and has to be prepared once again. This would explain why we always see the welding sparks every time anyone walks through the sphere hangar. But wait a minute --- since the sphere traveled back it already IS ready -- they must be fixing it, not preparing it.

Better than CNN

In the tradition of all good television show media outlets, CZN is always reporting the specific details our hero (actually the plot) needs, right when he needs it. Anyone care to guess what those call letters stand for?

Double Jeopardy

The two-part Doppleganger raises this connundrum: which plot device is more overworked, the "Evil Twin" or the scenario that our military bureaucracy is so great that it's possible for a renegade general to set up his own base of operations? With the seven day limitation, we can be thankful that the orphaned Frank Parker doesn't ever have to make sure his parents meet...

Poor Security

From Shadow Play comes this connundrum: Can a woman with large gaps in her past get a high-security data analysis job in the NSA? Apparently they thought she'd be so grateful that she wouldn't whine when they sent her out to get lunch.

What If...

Here's a scenario I'd like to see, dealing with the "seven day" time limitation. Some turn of events sends Parker back seven days and being the true hero he is, he pulls it off with flying colors. But now let's complicate it. Immediately upon resolving the first problem, another catastrophic event takes place, and propels him back seven days --- this time BEFORE the successful resolution of the other event he just prevented. His intervention in the first event would presumably still be required. Sound far-fetched? It could happen if the U.S. were fighting two "regional" wars simultaneously.

Seven Days or Seven Months

Ken Miller suggests this mind-bender: Let's say Parker needs to get from Nov 20 to Nov 10. That's more than seven days. Going back to Nov 13 isn't far enough for what he needs to do. No problem! Go back to Nov 13, and then tell them to send you back again! Why not! He could go back months this way!

I add: Not only do I like that, it makes sense! But I suppose the limit there is that he can't go back more than seven days before they first successfully backstepped, eh? But for "down the road" it offers real possibilities if they can work out what happens if one backsteps before the outcome of a different backstep (See "What If..."). Of course, if they solve the fuel problem, they can operate more than one sphere at a time, which would no doubt open another can o' worms.

Dalton Spence pipes in: The biggest problem with this is that Parker doesn't dare go back farther than the resolution of his latest backstep. If he does, he would have to resolve all of the unraveled backsteps over again, as well as convincing Talmadge and the bureaucracy each time that the staged backstep should be authorized. That doesn't even take into account the physical wear and tear each backstep takes on both the sphere and Parker, not to mention the psychological stress on Parker from repeated backsteps (see the episode "Come Again" for a good example of this). I'm not saying they won't try this in some future episode, but only to prove how unadvisable it is. Even if Parker carried a signed and sealed Presidential order for the extended backstep, it would still have to be verified and the sphere refurbished and refueled for the next backstep.

Thoughts on Aging

Presumably, Frank Parker gains seven days on everyone else every time he backsteps. Figuring one backstep per episode, and 21 episodes for a full season, Frank will have gained a full year on the rest of the team midway through season 3. Frank's own figuring determined he could celebrate a birthday every eight months.

Rank Has Its Privileges

Frank Parker's military rank is anyone's guess at this point. In the episode "Last Breath" he was Lieutenant Frank B. Parker. On the invitation in the episode "Sleepers" he was Captain Frank B. Parker. Hmmm.

Frank Has His Privileges

In the episode "Playmates and Presidents" Frank travels back to stop the assasination of a presidential candidate. Though he has spent much energy -- often to no avail -- trying to get off the base fora beer or to place the occasional bet, for some reason, they don't make him come back after completing his assignment. He's allowed to join the candidates security team, even though he's the world's last defense against whatever disaster is set for the next episode. This is apparently a case of "whatever the plot demands..."