Comments on: The Year of the Rabbit

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:37:48 +0000

Ahh, Geekboy, you’re totally right about the “You Got Mail” thing. There was a lot of IRC/Chat romance in those days.

By: Mel

Mel — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 12:23:01 +0000

I never got past the first half of the BW pilot. Just didn’t do it for me. Journeyman is keeping my attention thus far But… Pushing Daisies has me completely hooked.

By: GeekBoy

GeekBoy — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:26:30 +0000

I think they’ve pulled the right balance with the pop culture references so far. It’s kind of like when a movie switches to a scene in Paris, and they show you a quick shot of the Eiffel Tower as a shorthand way of setting the scene. Certain small details also have a way of triggering sense memories, and helping me get into the mindset of the time period. My favorite detail so far was in the second episode, when he walked into a plane cabin filled with cigarette smoke.

As for online dating, I had a Prodigy account in 1994-95, and was very active in the chat room scene. I definitely ended up phoning girls and going on a few dates as a result of that. More in 1995 than 1994 in my case, but the technology was definitely there and being used heavily by 1994. AOL had chat rooms and an early version of IMs as soon as 1993. So even though the phrase “online dating” hadn’t been coined yet, it was definitely happening a lot at the time, and not just among geeks. Keep in mind, the movie “You’ve Got Mail” came out in 1997, which means that somebody had to have come up with the idea for it in 1996.

Good point about the “Friend of Dan” situation. Especially if he’s going to stay in San Francisco, he’ll have to start recrossing his own tracks and meeting the same people, not only in the present but possibly in the past too.

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 01:21:47 +0000

The 1998 call was awesome. Especially seeing Dan look at that giant phone as he figured it out.

They have totally cold cased the old years by focusing on popular music/pop culture of the year. They have at least done a good job by making the people less of a caricature than Cod Case has done. The admission by the woman that she met the guy on the world wide web in 1994 made me wonder if she was using usenet or compuserve or playing MUDs back then. This is way before online dating was popular.

Nerd love.

I’m curious, though, to see if the cop who would no longer be a suspect in the past become a “Friend of Dan” in the present. At some point he’s going to have to run into people he’s saved/helped in the past in the present.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:04:44 +0000

Wasn’t that call in 1998 great? You almost saw the light bulb appear above Dan’s head when it clicked what had just happened. That’s a great new twist.

I am almost always tickled by the time stamp things you mention…Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong…that Dancing Baby….

I thought for sure Dan was going to POOF in front of his brother in that bathroom.