The Peripheral, Season 1
- by Scott B. Smith, et al., directed by Vincenzo Natali and Alrick Riley
- TV Season
- Science Fiction
- Adults
- Definite Time Travel
- English
- The Peripheral, Season 1 by multiple writers and directors, 8 episodes (Amazon Prime, 21 October 2022 to 2 December 2022).
When Flynne Fisher’s ne’er-do-well brother lands a lucrative gig testing new VR tech, he drafts Flynne to do the heavy lifting, and she’s bowled over by the future world the VR has created—until she realizes it’s more than a sim.
—Michael Main
If it were time travel, as you say, you’d be here physically. This is merely a matter of data transfer: quantum tunneling is the technical term for it. I understand your confusion.
Tags
(18)
- Time Periods
- Circa AD 2000 to 2099: Flynne’s home time period is in 2032.
- Circa AD 2100 to 2199: Flynn says she has traveled to 2100, although it might be 2099 London (which was the year identified in the opening scene when Aelita in a child peripheral meets with Wilf).
- Timeline Models
- Branching Timelines: When a party from our present made contact with the past, that past immediately branched off and formed its own continuum or parallel timeline if you will . . . or stub.
- Time Travel Methods
- Wearable Time Object: the “VR” headset
- Themes
- Get Rich Quick through Time Travel: Win the lottery!
- Grandfather Paradox: Lev kills his ancestors in the stub because he can’t bear the existential nihilism that arises from another Lev wandering around at a later point in that stub. This is an example of a nicely resolved grandfather paradox in that killing ancestors in the stub affects only the stub and not the original world.
- Letters, Texts, Phone Calls, Talking, and Other Direct Communications through Time: Wilf’s phone call and various other data streams
- Media from Another Time: Ella Fisher’s newspaper obituary
- Simulation: Although the peripherals’s technology is not a sim, Flynne’s talent at sims instigates the story.
- Synchronized Time: Once the 2032 stub is branched off from 2100’s past, it seems that data streams too and from 2032 are restricted to moments that are in sync with the current moment in 2100.
- Time Cabal: To us, both the Research Institute and the Klepts are more evil cabals than noble time corps, though maybe they are neither.
- Time Mercenaries
- Time Travel Sickness, Injuries, and Mixed-Up Body Parts: Flynne’s hand, eye, and seizure
- Real-World Tags
- Cyborgs: Burton and his Marine buddies
- Pandemics, Epidemics, and Bio-Disasters: the Blood Plague
- Fictional Tags
- Dystopian World
- Post-Apocalyptic and Post-Holocaust Worlds: After the “Jackpot”
- Robots, Androids, and Cyborgs: the peripherals and koids
Variants
(9)
- The Peripheral, Season 1 by multiple writers and directors, 8 episodes (Amazon Prime, 21 October 2022 to 2 December 2022).
- “Pilot,” written by Scott B. Smith, directed by Vincenzo Natali (Netflix, USA, 15 February 2019).
- “Empathy Bonus,” written by Scott B. Smith, directed by Vincenzo Natali (Netflix, USA, 15 February 2019).
- “Haptic Drift,” written by Scott B. Smith, directed by Alrick Riley (Netflix, USA, 15 February 2019).
- “Jackpot,” written by Scott B. Smith, directed by Alrick Riley (Netflix, USA, 15 February 2019).
- “What about Bob?,” written by Jamie Chan, directed by Vincenzo Natali (Netflix, USA, 15 February 2019).
- “Fuck You and Eat Shit,” written by Greg Plageman, directed by Vincenzo Natali (Netflix, USA, 15 February 2019).
- “The Doodad,” written by Jamie Chan, directed by Alrick Riley (Netflix, USA, 15 February 2019).
- “The Creation of a Thousand Forests,” written by Scott B. Smith, directed by Alrick Riley (Netflix, USA, 15 February 2019).
William Gibson (based on a work by)
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created by
Scott B. Smith (based on another source)
William Gibson (based on a work by)
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created by
Scott B. Smith (based on another source)
William Gibson (based on a work by)
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created by
Scott B. Smith (based on another source)
William Gibson (based on a work by)
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created by
Scott B. Smith (based on another source)
Bronwyn Garrity (story)
William Gibson (based on a work by)
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created by
Scott B. Smith (based on another source)
William Gibson (based on a work by)
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created by
Scott B. Smith (based on another source)
William Gibson (based on a work by)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
created by
Scott B. Smith (based on another source)
William Gibson (based on a work by)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
created by
Scott B. Smith (based on another source)
Scott B. Smith (story)
William Gibson (based on a work by)
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created by
Scott B. Smith (based on another source)
Previous Works
loosely based on The Peripheral (2014)