Okay, I'll admit that this is not the best-produced show ever on television, but I wouldn't call it a train wreck either.
First, for those of you who think they don't deal w/ the "There should be 2 Parkers/Spheres" issue, let me tell you they do. It's discussed somewhat in the Pilot and you get snippets of it throughout the rest of the series (there's even one where the Sphere manages to go back by itself w/out Parker). Now, I don't remember the explanation exactly, but it's something about how the Sphere travels through time. Because it uses some kind of gravity displacement mechanism to time travel (no one ever said the show was scientifically accurate :-) ), it results in the Sphere and its contents (including Frank) to be displace their counterparts in the alternate timeline. In the Pilot, for instance, Frank is taken out of a mental institution to work on the project. When he shows up in the alternate timeline, he is reported as "missing" from that institution.
This also helps answer the question of why they can't just keep Back Stepping forever. If the Sphere displaces its counterpart from 7 days ago, there's only one Sphere. The Sphere itself takes 7 days to regenerate its energy source after a Back Step, thus it can't keep going over and over and over.
These may not seem like a satisfactory explanations to some of you, but they are at least explanations. And give the writers credit for one thing: they don't beat you over the head with them (obviously, since most of you objectors didn't even see them).
So like I said, it may not be the greatest show ever, but it is pretty interesting. And I think TNN put it in a good time slot: 1 AM Eastern. That late at night, it becomes pretty easy to believe anything. :-)
First, for those of you who think they don't deal w/ the "There should be 2 Parkers/Spheres" issue, let me tell you they do. It's discussed somewhat in the Pilot and you get snippets of it throughout the rest of the series (there's even one where the Sphere manages to go back by itself w/out Parker). Now, I don't remember the explanation exactly, but it's something about how the Sphere travels through time. Because it uses some kind of gravity displacement mechanism to time travel (no one ever said the show was scientifically accurate :-) ), it results in the Sphere and its contents (including Frank) to be displace their counterparts in the alternate timeline. In the Pilot, for instance, Frank is taken out of a mental institution to work on the project. When he shows up in the alternate timeline, he is reported as "missing" from that institution.
This also helps answer the question of why they can't just keep Back Stepping forever. If the Sphere displaces its counterpart from 7 days ago, there's only one Sphere. The Sphere itself takes 7 days to regenerate its energy source after a Back Step, thus it can't keep going over and over and over.
These may not seem like a satisfactory explanations to some of you, but they are at least explanations. And give the writers credit for one thing: they don't beat you over the head with them (obviously, since most of you objectors didn't even see them).
So like I said, it may not be the greatest show ever, but it is pretty interesting. And I think TNN put it in a good time slot: 1 AM Eastern. That late at night, it becomes pretty easy to believe anything. :-)