Frequency - General Discussion

[Meredith Quill]

Discuss Frequency Here!

[Just Here]

Airs on Wednesdays this fall, after Arrow.

"First Look" Trailer:

 

Official Description:

Quote

Detective Raimy Sullivan (Peyton List) has always wanted to prove that she is nothing like her father. In 1996, when Raimy was eight years old, NYPD Officer Frank Sullivan (Riley Smith) left Raimy and her mother, Julie (Devin Kelley), behind when he went deep undercover, got corrupted, and got himself killed. Or so the story has always gone. Few people knew about the secret undercover sting operation Frank was really charged with, led by Stan Moreno (Anthony Ruivivar), who has now risen to Deputy Chief of Police. Frank's former partner, Lieutenant Satch Reyna (Mekhi Phifer), is now Raimy's mentor and friend, and he has urged her to let go of the hurt and anger she still feels about Frank's disappearance and death, but the old pain still lingers. Raimy can barely bring herself to discuss Frank, even with her devoted boyfriend, Daniel (Daniel Bonjour), or her childhood friend, Gordo (Lenny Jacobson). Now, twenty years later, Raimy is stunned when a voice suddenly crackles through her father's old, long-broken ham radio - it's Frank, somehow transmitting over the airwaves and through the decades from 1996. They're both shocked and confused, but Raimy shakes Frank to the core when she warns him that the secret sting he is undertaking will lead to his death. Armed with that knowledge, Frank survives the attempt on his life. But changing history has dramatically affected Raimy's life in the present - and there have been tragic consequences. Separated by twenty years, father and daughter have reunited on a frequency only they can hear, but can they rewrite the story of their lives without risking everyone they love?

FREQUENCY is from Warner Bros. Television in association with Lin Pictures, with executive producers Jeremy Carver ("Supernatural"), Toby Emmerich ("The Notebook" feature film), John Rickard ("Horrible Bosses"), Dan Lin ("The LEGO(TM) Movie," "Sherlock Holmes") and Jennifer Gwartz ("Veronica Mars").

[Arynm]

Watched the trailer. I'm into it, looks like it could sustain an entire season or two. I have watched every trailer for the upcoming season and this one is the first that I have posted on. I didn't think I would be interested in watching a season.

[Kromm]

The question is... did this really NEED to be remade?  They'll need to convince me, since the original film was pretty good as they left it.

I'm not terribly bothered by the gender change of the main character. It's the timeshift that bothers me more. The original film worked because the "past" the main character was talking to was 1969--a time when Ham Radio made perfect sense. The "present" of that movie was about the same period THIS movie has as it's past period, give or take a few years (mid-90s to early 2000s), when it was posed as Jim Cavezial's character using his Ham Radio as a real oddity. Now it looks like even they knew how unlikely it was that our new main character would be a ham radio operator, so they have the conceit of the radio popping on by itself to sell that part of it... but even her Dad in the 90s is fighting credibility to have been using the darn thing in the first place.

Ah well. It'll all depend on the execution, I suppose.

[shapeshifter]

In the mid-90s my boss was still a Ham radio expert. However, his interest was starting to be sucked into the Internet. Are we sure her dad isn't in the 80s? My 32-year old was born in 83. How old is the younger version of the main character supposed to be?

[Chas411]

It looks good although very confusing.

[KaveDweller]

I remember loving this movie so much, although I don't remember anyone else I knew talking about it or even seeing it. I just thought it was great that they had the main character remembering two different versions of the past after he changed things. It looks like they are keeping that aspect. If all the clips in the trailer are from the pilot, it looks like they are burning through the movie stuff early though. I'm not sure what it will end up being for a full season.

I love any stories about time travel though. I am so excited that next season there will be this "communicating with the past show," PLUS tow shows about actual time travel."

On 5/20/2016 at 0:45 PM, shapeshifter said:

In the mid-90s my boss was still a Ham radio expert. However, his interest was starting to be sucked into the Internet. Are we sure her dad isn't in the 80s? My 32-year old was born in 83. How old is the younger version of the main character supposed to be?

In the trailer, they show the father was in 1996, and the daughter looks about 7-8. The actress is 29, so that works out pretty well.

[shapeshifter]

3 hours ago, KaveDweller said:

In the trailer, they show the father was in 1996, and the daughter looks about 7-8. The actress is 29, so that works out pretty well.

Actually, in 1996, my old boss (in rural northern California) still had his Ham radio operator license, but he was really more interested in the Internet (pre-Google) by then. Where is the father located?

[KaveDweller]

44 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Actually, in 1996, my old boss (in rural northern California) still had his Ham radio operator license, but he was really more interested in the Internet (pre-Google) by then. Where is the father located?

I think they are in Queens, NY.

[Tableau]

I'm sad they changed the father from a firefighter to a cop. I feel like they're not contrasted enough if he's a cop too. I liked the son having to lecture his dad about investigation and the uncertainty about if the dad could pull off what the son needed in order to stop the bad things from happening. With the father being a cop, it feels too easy.

[Tableau]

Boom. Original Flavor Frequency (2000) trailer:

This movie started my love for Hollywood thrillers. I hope this new version doesn't let me down!

[jtb34]

I can't decide whether to be excited or full of dread.  The original movie was so very good - I don't want to feel like it's ruined for me.  My DH wants to rewatch it before the show starts, but I'm not convinced that would be a good idea!

On the Ham radio question, my DH still has an operator's license and works with a group of guys who do disaster relief work providing emergency communications after natural disasters.  Ham is surprisingly still relevant.

[shapeshifter]

On May 22, 2016 at 8:40 PM, KaveDweller said:

I think they are in Queens, NY.

Anyone know if Queens was a backwater internet-wise in the 90s? That would explain Ham usage. 
Or like what jtb34 said ^

[Kromm]

12 hours ago, Tableau said:

I'm sad they changed the father from a firefighter to a cop. I feel like they're not contrasted enough if he's a cop too. I liked the son having to lecture his dad about investigation and the uncertainty about if the dad could pull off what the son needed in order to stop the bad things from happening. With the father being a cop, it feels too easy.

Yeah, I get that. I think this is a case of them giving up something to get something. 

The fireman bit was a great setup to have Dad operating out of his comfort zone, and to create some short term conflicts for him with the actual police. 

The problem they perceived might be in sustaining that. It would get somewhat wash, rinse and repeat sooner or later. Even if theres's a single uber-plot they're building (I bet what happens to the mother is not fixed that quickly), there are going to be weekly beats to this as well, and working those as a more straight procedural seems like it's designed to streamline things, so that Dad isn't always working around the system, spending all kind of plot time trying to stay out of trouble. 

Seems to me they can still bring the Future informs the past element, because the daughter is clearly going to have all kinds of informational advantages. The trick the film played with using forensics in the present to help in the past worked for the 90s talking to the 60s, but since that stuff already existed in the 90s, they kind of have to change things up when it's 2016 talking to the mid 90s. Probably something as simple as Google searching is the advantage. That didn't exist at all until the LATE 90s, and wasn't truly useful in terms of actually being able to find out almost anything until the mid 2000s. There have to be more things she can tell him from her perspective too, but that's the most obvious--what takes him a visit to the library takes her 3 seconds. It won't quite have the aura of amazement, since I think someone planted in the mid 90s will at least be easily capable of conceiving of what her advantage with a short explanation, but just think of the casual things we can do now. You can find any business in seconds, for example, get the street address, then in most cases call up a satellite view, and maybe even a street level view of the place (not a real time one, but even still...)  You can search a person's name and with only a slight bit of fudgery on what an average person can do now, see their public records (we can do it, but it's a pay service--somewhat that they'd just gloss over on TV). And of course, you can google a specific date and explain the major news stories of that day. Stuff like that.

I think the hardest part here will be finding enough for the daughter to do in her own time period when she's not in front of the radio. The Dad's part is easy to write in comparison.

[Kromm]

2 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Anyone know if Queens was a backwater internet-wise in the 90s? That would explain Ham usage. 
Or like what jtb34 said ^

That's irrelevant in a way, because what you could do in the mid-90s on the Internet was limited. The first seriously used Web browser was about 1993. Within 2-3 years plenty of people were using one, but the kinds of information you could get via it was fairly limited. You could use it to communicate--in fact that pre-dated the webbrowser by quite a bit--but it was a matter of market penetration. You could just assume other people had it, that businesses had serious information up there, that you could find any specific information. Internet use was very task oriented. A specific company, library, chat board, etc. might be there, but not EVERY company, library, kind of chat was. It was hobbyists still running things for the most part--at least in the mid 90s.

[ketose]

The mid 1990's was probably the last gasp of Ham radio usage. I remember there was a Ham radio club at college, but it wasn't well attended by then. My guess is that if you were already an adult at the time and had all the equipment, you might still play around with it until the Internet became a thing people used circa 1997. 1996 is definitely on the trailing edge of that hobby.

[shapeshifter]

7 hours ago, ketose said:

The mid 1990's was probably the last gasp of Ham radio usage. I remember there was a Ham radio club at college, but it wasn't well attended by then. My guess is that if you were already an adult at the time and had all the equipment, you might still play around with it until the Internet became a thing people used circa 1997. 1996 is definitely on the trailing edge of that hobby.

That's what I observed too.
They could make this work for the show since her dad was middle-aged, and then they could make part of the reason he reaches her be because the Ham airwaves don't have much traffic.

Edited May 30, 2016 by shapeshifter

[Tarasme]

I just realized how old I am; it was totally discordant to me when I saw "Mehki Phifer" associated with "mentor."

[Tara Ariano]

Quote

In the series premiere, a detective discovers she's able to communicate with her estranged father who died decades earlier via a ham radio. She then warns him off his untimely death, leading him to survive, but also dramatically changing the present.

[Bort]

The description makes it sound like it's the ham radio that killed him. 

[shapeshifter]

On September 30, 2016 at 0:13 PM, Tara Ariano said:

Quote

In the series premiere, a detective discovers she's able to communicate with her estranged father who died decades earlier via a ham radio. She then warns him off his untimely death, leading him to survive, but also dramatically changing the present.

 

On September 30, 2016 at 0:32 PM, kariyaki said:

The description makes it sound like it's the ham radio that killed him. 

Yes, it should be:
In the series premiere, a detective discovers she's able to communicate  via a ham radio with her estranged father who died decades earlier. She then warns him off his untimely death, leading him to survive, but also dramatically changing the present.

[CocoaGoddess]

I have a terrible feeling that this show is going to become a new version of Cold Case. 

[Bort]

Which works for me, I really liked Cold Case.

[Primetimer]

Or is the remake of the 2000 ghost-radio flick a quick 10-4?

View the full article

[Sarah D. Bunting]

A HAM RADIO KILLED MY FATHER

[ErinW]

I quite liked the movie, but the TV show kind of lost me when I found out the dad's present is 1996. The original took place in 1965 and 2000, I think, a 35-year difference to this show's 20. There was a very old-school new-school investigation element to the two guys solving the crime. In 1996 they already had the internet, for crying out loud.

Cool that they made it a daughter, though.

[BigBlueMastiff]

I loved this movie, and the fact that the dad is a firefighter not a cop, makes him helping investigate so much more interesting, as well as the obvious time period difference. 1996 and 2016 are too close in time and similarity to be interesting. Huge bummer that they are essentially copying the movie plot with minor differences. The movie did it better. Done with this one, back to Timeless.

[KaveDweller]

2 minutes ago, BigBlueMastiff said:

I loved this movie, and the fact that the dad is a firefighter not a cop, makes him helping investigate so much more interesting, as well as the obvious time period difference. 1996 and 2016 are too close in time and similarity to be interesting. Huge bummer that they are essentially copying the movie plot with minor differences. The movie did it better. Done with this one, back to Timeless.

They probably wanted to be able to make the main character in her twenties, because it is the CW and they are all about the youth. So that had to change the time difference and make it more modern. If I remember the movie correctly, the guy using the radio in the present was one of the only people still using that kind of radio. So it's kind of a stretch to have Frank using it regularly and expecting to talk to people. But they at least explained Raimy having the radio out in 2016.

I guess the way they are going to make the movie work as a show is to stretch the plot out across the whole season?

I liked it though, I feel bad for Raimy that she managed to change her past, but lost her mom and her boyfriend in the process. And doesn't even have her dad in the present to talk to. That's a pretty crappy day.

Was the guy Frank talked to in a bar the same guy Raimy works with in the present?

And I guess the Nightingale killer has now killed more than four times and is still active? I don't remember if that was true in the movie, I'm curious how they'll explain it.

[ketose]

On 9/30/2016 at 1:32 PM, kariyaki said:

The description makes it sound like it's the ham radio that killed him. 

At least it's not a ham sandwich.

So, Raimy (what kind of name is that?) remembers both versions of history, but not enough to remember she never met the BF in the new timeline. If she changes history a lot, is it going to end up like the Butterfly Effect, where the guy broke his brain from all the new memories being created?

I see similarities between this and Timeless, mostly because the heroine is trying to fix history. Even if the end goal is to his the big reset switch (or the switch that leaves Raimy's immediate family intact) history is getting screwed six ways from Sunday until them. How are they keeping that straight?

The Nightingale killer sees Jules in October, but doesn't kill her until January. Very handy to save that until mid-season.

[shapeshifter]

Well, this was my favorite of the pilot season thus far, which makes me one of those posters who says: I liked it, so it's going to be canceled. I like crime shows and time travel, so this is made to order for me. I never saw the movie, so I can't make any comparisons or express any relevant disappointments. 

I hated the lead's character in her previous scifi show, but really like her here.

[BigBlueMastiff]

34 minutes ago, KaveDweller said:

They probably wanted to be able to make the main character in her twenties, because it is the CW and they are all about the youth. So that had to change the time difference and make it more modern. If I remember the movie correctly, the guy using the radio in the present was one of the only people still using that kind of radio. So it's kind of a stretch to have Frank using it regularly and expecting to talk to people. But they at least explained Raimy having the radio out in 2016.

I guess the way they are going to make the movie work as a show is to stretch the plot out across the whole season?

I liked it though, I feel bad for Raimy that she managed to change her past, but lost her mom and her boyfriend in the process. And doesn't even have her dad in the present to talk to. That's a pretty crappy day.

Was the guy Frank talked to in a bar the same guy Raimy works with in the present?

And I guess the Nightingale killer has now killed more than four times and is still active? I don't remember if that was true in the movie, I'm curious how they'll explain it.

In the movie, the son found the ham radio in a box in the closet and plugged it in for nostalgia's sake. He wasn't using it otherwise, but Frank used it to talk to people often in the 60's. Who had and used a ham radio in 1996, hard to imagine. The guy in the bar is Raimy's boss and the same guy talking to Frank about staying away from his house as instructed by Julia. The extra nightingale cases and Julia's being one of them happened in the movie, but Frank died from cancer in the new timeline not a car accident.

[KaveDweller]

24 minutes ago, ketose said:

At least it's not a ham sandwich.

So, Raimy (what kind of name is that?) remembers both versions of history, but not enough to remember she never met the BF in the new timeline. If she changes history a lot, is it going to end up like the Butterfly Effect, where the guy broke his brain from all the new memories being created?

I see similarities between this and Timeless, mostly because the heroine is trying to fix history. Even if the end goal is to his the big reset switch (or the switch that leaves Raimy's immediate family intact) history is getting screwed six ways from Sunday until them. How are they keeping that straight?

The Nightingale killer sees Jules in October, but doesn't kill her until January. Very handy to save that until mid-season.

I think she remembers things when she pulls up her memories, but it isn't all in front of her mind. So her first thought is probably the original timeline, until she thinks about it and it's different. That's probably especially true with traumatic stuff like her mom dying. With the boyfriend she has no alternate memory of him, and I guess there's no other boyfriend, so it must be harder to keep track in her head.

1 minute ago, BigBlueMastiff said:

In the movie, the son found the ham radio in a box in the closet and plugged it in for nostalgia's sake. He wasn't using it otherwise, but Frank used it to talk to people often in the 60's. Who had and used a ham radio in 1996, hard to imagine. The guy in the bar is Raimy's boss and the same guy talking to Frank about staying away from his house as instructed by Julia. The extra nightingale cases and Julia's being one of them happened in the movie, but Frank died from cancer in the new timeline not a car accident.

Thanks.  It has been a long time since I saw the movie.

[memememe76]

I don't remember one thing about the movie. I really enjoyed this. The acting was good, I live for 90s nostalgia, a and I like the dad and daughter element. The CW doesn't cancel things too quickly so I will at least get one full season. 

[mustbekarma]

I really liked this. The ham radio didn't throw me off at all. First, I thought it was a neat device. Second, my hometown had a ham radio club and one of my best friends has his ham radio license. There are more ham radio operators out there than one would think. A quick Google search showed 801,424 in the United States alone.

[Whodunnit]

Apparently this was a short story before it was a movie or a t.v. show  (according to my dad, who read pretty much every sci-fi short story in the  60s).

[shapeshifter]

15 minutes ago, Whodunnit said:

Apparently this was a short story before it was a movie or a t.v. show  (according to my dad, who read pretty much every sci-fi short story in the  60s).

If your dad recalls the author or title (if different) of the story, or the title of a book containing it, I'd be interested. Hopefully you don't have to fire up a ham radio to ask him. ;-)

[CabotCove]

LOL Raimy Sullivan managed to mess up time and other people's lives more than Barry Allen (The Flash), didnt think that was possible 

Edited October 6, 2016 by DCLeague

[Whodunnit]

Well since I'm pretty sure he's asleep I thought I'd look it up but can't find anything to prove or disprove what he said. It wouldn't surprise me that the plot device of having two parallel timelines had been used by then, though. 

Anyway, I liked the pilot.  The twenty year age gap and other changes don't bother me (yet), so I think I'll be tuning in to episode two.

[Whodunnit]

She may have messed up time worse than the woman on Timeless (given that that lady was trying to fix time when it was broken by someone else).

[zxy556575]

I appreciated that they didn't drag out the discovery of the magic radio and eventual acceptance by both Raimy and Frank, because boring. I was also happy to see Raimy immediately tell her fiance what happened even though that didn't pan out. I guess it will now be par for the annoying course that Raimy will keep everything a secret, yet incorporate info she learns from her dad into her present day cases, causing suspicion and mistrust of her.

My primary memory from the movie is my dad, a ham radio hobbyist, nattering on about some inconsistencies or other. My mind shut him out to focus on Dennis Quaid.

[Netfoot]

I enjoyed it, as I am also enjoying Timeless.  

Raimy changes the past, not by visiting it herself, but using her father as a proxy.  The consequences are immediate.  (As soon as Dad was saved, I just knew that Mom was gone.)  But it should be interesting to see how it pans out.  Obviously Raimy and Frank will be resetting time to suit their own personal agendas, with little altruistic concern for the rest of the universe.  Actually, this is a little refreshing, after Timeless trying so hard to make sure that no stray butterflys get injured!  After all, if it was my Mom or Dad, I'd go for broke, and let the devil take the hindmost!

I wonder if timeline tampering will produce any changes globally significant enough to give the Sullivans pause?

Full disclosure:  I am an ham radio operator (DE GUS 8P6SM).  I am itching to talk about the many glaring, incongruous technical errors... but I won't, because I wouldn't want lordonia's mind to shut me out.  Except I will say that I don't recognize the rig, and actually doubt it is a radio at all.

4 hours ago, ketose said:

Quote

The description makes it sound like it's the ham radio that killed him. 

At least it's not a ham sandwich.

No, that was Mama Cass.  Yes, I am that old.

3 hours ago, BigBlueMastiff said:

Who had and used a ham radio in 1996, hard to imagine.

Really?  There are plenty of people who have, and use ham radio gear, right up to today.  Over 800,000 in the USA alone.  Oh, wait, someone already said that.  But also, radio signals do not respect borders, and there are over 3 million hams world wide.

---

Ham radio operators might be amused that this show is aired on a TV network called The CW.  Heh.

[BooBear]

7 hours ago, BigBlueMastiff said:

I loved this movie, and the fact that the dad is a firefighter not a cop, makes him helping investigate so much more interesting, as well as the obvious time period difference. 1996 and 2016 are too close in time and similarity to be interesting. Huge bummer that they are essentially copying the movie plot with minor differences. The movie did it better. Done with this one, back to Timeless.

I didn't like it. I heard such good reviews but for me this was poor. It was 100% a colorless copy of the movie... but much more flat. Peyton List is such a bad actress she can't pull off the emotion for this kind of series. She looked mildly constipated the entire time. I don't know why they changed it so her dad was estranged. That seemed to make things less compelling.  The relationships were so poorly drawn. Gordo didn't seem like much of a friend and doesn't seem to have much of a life. I also agree the time period difference loses a lot from the story. Also, Frank Sullivan really doesn't have good luck. Survives a murder attempt and then dies in a car accident. Doesn't help that the actor looks sickly. 

What happened to Mekhi Phifer?

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, Netfoot said:

...Full disclosure:  I am an ham radio operator (DE GUS 8P6SM).  I am itching to talk about the many glaring, incongruous technical errors... but I won't, because I wouldn't want lordonia's mind to shut me out.  Except I will say that I don't recognize the rig, and actually doubt it is a radio at all....

The  Wikipedia page for Frequency the Movie details technical inconsistencies used in the movie's ham radio equipment. Maybe we can sprinkle some handwavium over the show's equipment since it seems to be magical rather than a scientific anomally, despite the now-not-boyfriend's nattering on about Einstein and string theory.

[ae2]

3 hours ago, Netfoot said:

Full disclosure:  I am an ham radio operator (DE GUS 8P6SM).  I am itching to talk about the many glaring, incongruous technical errors... but I won't, because I wouldn't want lordonia's mind to shut me out.  Except I will say that I don't recognize the rig, and actually doubt it is a radio at all.

Start a thread! I know next to nothing about ham radios, but I'm infinitely fascinated by technology (even if it's practically ancient now ;) ) and would love to read about it.

[Netfoot]

1 hour ago, ae2 said:

Start a thread!

Not sure I know how.

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, Netfoot said:

Not sure I know how.

1. Go to the main Frequency page http://forums.previously.tv/forum/2520-frequency/
2. At the top center of the page, click the button/rectangle that is labled Start New Topic.
3. Type a clever title into the title field
4. In the "required" box below, type some text that explains the purpose of the thread.
5. Scroll down and click the Submit New Topic button/rectangle.

[Netfoot]

8 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Type a clever title into the title field

A clever title will be difficult because I'm not clever!  And if I come up with some witty Ham Radio title, nobody will understand.....

But I'll see what I can do.

[Netfoot]

I don't recognize that radio.   I'm no expert on vintage rigs, but I've never even heard of a rig with a built-in oscilloscope.  It could be a homebrew unit, but then, why would there be a logo/badge on the front?

I think it is some other type of equipment, being used as a prop (like when Dr. Who/Tom Baker used a Marconi sig-gen to start a starship engine built from old EDS-300 disk-packs), or perhaps something actually built by the props department, especially.

If anybody can identify the rig, please!  Do so!

[ae2]

To me it looked like something they built custom to look vintage and look cool. Take the face of an old radio, slap it on a box with some vacuum tubes - because who doesn't love some vacuum tubes that glow like Edison bulbs! - and slap on an o-scope just for kicks. 

Can't grab any screenshots right now, but the trailer on IMDB has a few shots of it. Starting around the 1:20 mark we get a nice lingering view of it with the top casing off. In other views the case is on, so if editing inconsistencies drive you mad be prepared! (The case became an important plot point in episode 1, though they wanted to show off the tubes they probably later realized the top needed to be on it.)

[Netfoot]

4 minutes ago, ae2 said:

To me it looked like something they built custom to look vintage and look cool.

I think so too.  The tuning dial is off an old broadcast receiver.  It has cities named around the top.  Boston, L.A., etc. 

It's built like an HF rig, but young Raimy is seen calling the Shuttle, which would require a VHF or VHF/UHF rig.  But then, they showed VHF, UHF and microwave antennas on the tower, so...  Oh, and I think they are using lamp-cord for feedlines, instead of coax or even ladder line!  

They had to put the cover on the rig, so she could see his cigar damage it, and later he could burn his message into it.  The need for a wooden cover explains why the rig is waaaaay older than any reasonable 1996 vintage unit.   (I worked Space Shuttle Columbia and the MIR space station using one of these (Icom IC-275H, one of the "heavenly twins")

and that was in 1990, years earlier.  Sure, some guys enjoy using using vintage gear, but I think TPTB just wanted that wooden cover as much as they wanted glowing tubes and ancient-looking tuning dial.