"Seven Days" question: What happens to the other Frank Parker on each backstep?

[toadspittle]

When Frank Parker backsteps in the TV show Seven Days, what happens to the Frank Parker (and the Sphere) that’s already in the past? Do they keep him sequestered until the exact time that the other Parker launched, and then make him backstep, too? Otherwise, I’d think the Parkers would start piling up. Likewise the Spheres (though that could be quite handy). Do they retire them all to some tropical island? Kill them?

[DeVena]

Some people have thought entirely too much about this…

This subject has sparked more debate than anything else about the series. Here is what the show has told us:

For starters, when Parker and the Sphere arrive in the past the rest of the team doesn’t know what’s happened to motivate the Back Step until he contacts them. When Parker arrives, only he knows about the events that are to come in the next seven days, because those events haven’t happened yet for the others.

In the Pilot episode, we’re told that Parker’s mere arrival changes history to some extent, and the series has made that point repeatedly, sometimes in small things, sometimes in large differences. (Ex., in Daddy’s Girl, one of the Serb captors is shown teasing the Americans with an apple in the original timeline. After the Back Step, the apple sequence doesn’t happen.) In an interview on Paramount’s official site, executive producer Christopher Crowe says this changed-past factor is part of the “bible” that was written to govern how the Sphere is used in episodes.

But what happens when the Sphere launches?

First, let’s talk about what doesn’t happen: Multiple Parkers are not created by a Back Step. The one case where multiple Parkers were created was caused by a modification to the Sphere that resulted in a malfunction. And in the cases when the Sphere has landed in the hangar, we don’t see two of them. Under normal conditions, there is only one Frank Parker, and thus he can’t meet himself coming and going after a Back Step.

[Atrael]

Right…as I understood the series…what would happen is that when they did a backstep, the Frank and Sphere that came back in time would replace the Sphere and Frank in the current timeline. Thus the F&S that were in the old timeline would simply disappear.

Speaking of 7 days though, how did the series end? I’ve been watching the re-runs on Spike for a while now, and have yet to see a series finale looking episode.

[dropzone]

As I recall, it ended with a cliffhanger. I guess nobody expected UPN to cancel a show that was doing that well (for UPN) in the ratings.

[toadspittle]

Nice link (although I have to View Source to read the text for some reason…). Further notes:

First, let’s talk about what doesn’t happen: Multiple Parkers are not created by a Back Step. The one case where multiple Parkers were created was caused by a modification to the Sphere that resulted in a malfunction. And in the cases when the Sphere has landed in the hangar, we don’t see two of them. Under normal conditions, there is only one Frank Parker, and thus he can’t meet himself coming and going after a Back Step.

What does happen is that Parker and the Sphere vanish. And hoo-boy, are we glad the writers finally cleared this up!** (See the episode titled Buried Alive, in which Dr. Mentnor clearly states that the Sphere has disappeared from the hangar.)** Some fans have hypothesized that this could be an explanation of why Parker’s kept so firmly under wraps at NNL–it would be a security breach if he suddenly disappeared at a time when outsiders could see it happen. Note that people elsewhere can see the Sphere when it lands outside the hangar.breach if he suddenly disappeared at a time when outsiders could see it happen. Note that people elsewhere can see the Sphere when it lands outside the hangar.

[Lumpy]

Has it occurred to anyone that Project Backstep has never actually sent anyone into the past? Every time Parker backsteps, he erases the timeline which led to him being sent back.

[Ranchoth]

Not only that…but none of the backstep team besides Parker has ever seen an operational backstep launch. (Not counting those early tests, where the subjects were never recovered.)

Actually, they might never have even seen a test launch…the test spheres (and subjects) might just disappear a few days before the scheduled test, leaving the team to figure that whatever they were planning to do must have worked correctly. Maybe the only backsteps that they’d consider a failure are the ones where the universe continues to exist after the test—because it indicated that the subject either got sent into the future; into some other plane of existence; or was simply destroyed.

And it’s still better that 95% of all Star Trek time travel plots.