The world is so interconnected nowadays that, to the extent that we go along with the rest of this shaky timeline, one can imagine this "virus" spreading to all corners of the globe quite fast by immigrants who had children far away from their places of origin. I can therefore imagine that, save for some isolated…

Which is why they need to be distracted by the pleasures of procreation… Following which they'll have enough on their plates as parents to care that much about anything else. Indeed, I am now thinking that having children early might well be part of the strategy for loyal and obedient citizens, or at least ought to be.

"Extra credits if you carry twins!"

It seems this is all the biology that's left, more or less; there isn't a single animal in the town, and the book's cover showed sperm, which struck me as peculiar at the beginning of the scene.

Ah, I now see that my post above was somewhat off-target. I completely agree that natural selection as a major evolutionary force has been considerably suppressed in modern industrial societies, and it seems that the more humane and accommodating these societies become towards the physically (and mentally)…

Certainly; I was talking about suppositions. Pilcher clearly extrapolated from the information he had in the 1990s what might happen in the future if things continued on the same course (he mentioned "algorithms" which led him to the conclusion that he needed to stay in hibernation 2,000 years). His studies produced a…

I've never been in the presence of a string quartet except in that one concert a few years ago, so I shouldn't know what they tend to play on those occasions. Regarding examples of being acquainted with classical music through film, I can't come up with any right now (although there surely must be a few). However, I…

Good point about the rights, though I believe orchestras may be paid some royalties for re-use of their recordings. It depends on the orchestra.

But isn't that what natural selection is? It applies to intra-species dynamics as much as to inter-species ones. Mutations arise naturally within a population and compete with the other genes for supremacy. A mutation will dominate if it confers advantages in survival or mate selection, or it will die out because it…

Perhaps we could draw a distinction between dealing with the personal side of the situation (making life choices, providing for oneself and one's family) and pondering the more abstract fact of the tremendous loss suffered by humanity as a whole; thinking too much about the latter can drive you insane, especially if…

Dark ages in ideological and social terms, not economic. Material goods and consumerist attitudes are all very well (communist-style allotment of houses notwithstanding), but these people are forced to live in an unknown place with absurd rules for no apparent reason. That seems pretty mediaeval to me.

Regarding the selection of subjects/citizens, I don't believe the mutated gene was so prevalent back in the 1990s; health checks would be necessary before anyone was selected to be frozen, but it needn't be hard to find people without the mutation.

I hadn't paid much attention to the office at first because I was more interested in the conversation, but now I've downloaded the episode just for that purpose, and took a few screenshots. I have confirmed the Caravaggio: Bacchus (c. 1595).

1: My mother also went for the access-shaft theory; she joked at some point that, as Ethan and Pilcher were walking along a corridor, they'd climb a ladder and emerge at Lot 33 just as Theresa was passing by. It only later occurred to me that the facilities are in the mountainside, but still.

I can imagine Pilcher wanting the new generation to have a relatively normal upbringing, so they can experience and preserve the spirit of human community into the future. Clearly this goal wouldn't be served by an orphanage-like institution, its lack of warmth and personal connection often blamed for producing…

The only problem is that "the best therapists, counselors, psychiatrists and psychologists" would themselves receive a crushing blow by waking up in this new reality, from which many might not recover. Pilcher's best bet would be to try and convince them to volunteer, but I don't imagine anyone would; as I've said in…

What about global warming caused by aliens? That was two decades ago, though there were no monsters—just Charlie Sheen.

Wouldn't it be funny if it turned out that the town and its population existed only to give meaning and a sense of purpose to the dedicated volunteers in the mountain? A bizarre twist on The Time Machine…

Because he's smart. Lots of people would want to kill him or take him hostage for all sorts of reasons—people who have no particular target at the moment because they cannot see who is in charge. The most effective way to keep the secret is not to tell anyone*, and he doesn't really need to, anyway. (I agree with…

I think I am annoyed in the reverse: managing the problem of mobile phones has been a major challenge of mystery novels and films for the last three decades or so, and the sheer ubiquity of those contraptions makes suspense far more difficult than it used to be. The "flat battery" excuse got old fast, and there are…