While these episodes may not be the fan favorites or even among the best episodes they do have some merit. Why? They take on some serious issues that are and could be serious problems in the future on our own world. It was tough to decide on each one but I think everyone can learn something valuable from each episode I chose.
Honorable Mention: Season 3 – “Dead Man Sliding”
In this world your jury is millions of public citizens. Your entertainment is trials and public executions. Quinn is mistaken for his double and is captured only to be sentenced to death by the public. With reality television, interactions and debates in social media, we better never make trials and executions a form of entertainment.
5. Season 1 – “Eggheads”
Go to Harvard and you may just become a famous athlete. Quinn is mistaken for his double on this world and forced to play his part as a sports genius superstar. In “Eggheads” intellect is much more valued than cheap celebrity glamour. Sports and quiz are blended to form a unique game called “Mindgame”. It’s something our world needs to awaken to and take note. On our own earth sports players are multi-millionaires who are worshipped day in and out, all the while intelligence is seen as “nerdy” and uncool.
4. Season 4 – “Net Worth”
Love at first message. In “Net Worth” you’re either an onliner or an offliner. You’re engrossed in electronics with the online medium or seen as a barbaric outsider. You fall in love online without even seeing and interacting with the person face to face. And as crazy as this episode makes it seem it’s true in our own world. Perhaps even the fact that I’m writing this and you’re reading it, is in part evidence we’re too involved in the online world.
3. Season 4 – “My Brother’s Keeper”
On this world Quinn is mistaken as being his double’s clone. These clones are treated as 3rd rate citizens locked up in a space of nothing, merely being used as a backup for body parts. In November of 1998 our own earth created the first hybrid human embryo clone only to be destroyed after 12 days. Dolly the sheep and Quinn the human? We better think twice before we ever clone the human race. So you need some spare parts? Who knows maybe one day our world will disastrously be making them.
2. Season 5 – “Please Press One”
Black vans, cameras, retina scans, and data. On this world barcodes are the norm for citizens who are required to make many purchases in a cashless society. Maggie is captured while trying to make a purchase with cash, and it seems the entire world is vacant of people for customer service. In this parallel world the companies know all about you. Even on our own earth you pick up a phone, and talk to a computer; walk through a grocery store and you may just check your self out. Our world should take a hard look at itself before it ever turns completely cashless so we’re not completely controlled in how and what we buy. This episode reminds us of the illustrious term, “Big Brother”.
1. Season 5 – “A Current Affair”
In this episode Maggie is mistaken and framed by the media/government as having an affair with the president. The media obviously avoids the real issues like on our own earth and the head of government lies their way into the position they want to coverup the truth. The Hawks Report in this episode is published by a real reporter who knows the government is trying to coverup the truth about a recent war. It’s clear we don’t cover the real urgent news in America and neither does this parallel world. We’re too concerned with celebrities, gossip and other scandalous material. As the Hawk’s Report motto goes, the real news is “The truth America doesn’t want to know”.