Parallels

Comes to Disney +, consisting of six episodes, of Parallels, the science fiction series made in France.

Everett’s theory of the multiverse postulates the coexistence of universes that lie beyond our conception of spacetime, which for this reason are called parallel dimensions. The intrinsically implicit rule of this proposition is that the elements of each temporal and spatial dimension cannot and must never meet, in order not to unleash a space-time paradox: a name that already inspires metaphysical fear, but which, it would seem, no one has never realized and therefore more science fiction than physical.

But a paradox can also take on another meaning, perhaps more semiotic and linguistic, than scientific: in Greek literature they were short narratives of extraordinary and bizarre events that very often took the form of syllogisms.

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Ironic, because such connotations and semantic configurations of “paradox” can be found in the Disney Parallels sci-fi series, available on the streaming platform for a total of 6 episodes. A coincidence perhaps too strange to be considered such, but which wants to establish itself as a new French production – produced and conceived by Quoc Dang Tran – along the symbolic lines of already consolidated film and serial examples, from the 1980s to today.

Parallels Disney+ Series

Parallels: A Necessary Comparison

The comparison with Stranger Things seems inevitable and unavoidable: from the narrative structure to the coexistence of four children, the mother of one of these and an agent, to the explanation of a mystery that unfolds between two mirror versions of the same world. 

The similarities are remarkable, even if in making an analytical survey of this serial product it is right and proper for it not to focus – at least exclusively – on the relationship of symbolic exchanges with the most famous Netflix series.

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Parallels is solidly maintained thanks to a basic composition based on the intelligible dynamism between territorial aesthetics (France) and the diegetic consolidation of that 1980s children’s cinema, which includes I goonies, Stand by me, ET, just to cite the most famous examples, up to the Stranger Things retrospective, already mentioned.

Four kids, Sam, Victor, Bilal, and Romane, are victims of a space-time upheaval that transports them to different time and space lines and who try in every way to repair the dimensional rift that divided them, to return to their previous life.

Parallels Disney+ Series

Parallels: a psychological adventure between ups and downs

In some ways, this citationist connotation goes beyond the desire to completely unhinge these famous filmic examples, inexorably leading to that confrontation that we have tried to deny. The narrative is projected onto a mirror that is now too much addressed in this genre, which is configured as an adolescent mystery at times psychologically referential. 

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The drama for the disappearance of the protagonists, which takes the form of a chase between parallel eras and universes, changes almost immediately into a one-way story that engages the smallest of the group, Victor, with dramatic centrality, creating a subplot. intrinsically converging with the main diegetic structure, which tries to show the viewer the repercussions, albeit in a metaphysical key, of adolescent loneliness and generational confrontation. 

This psychological side of the narrative unfolds throughout the series, but explodes in all its dramatic power in the last part, thus making the prospects for restoring the initial status quo difficult. But how many inner perturbations of Victor’s character have been dealt with and ultimately resolved seem truly influential on the staging site of the series, being too hasty and led by a deus ex machina represented by Sofia, the mother of Bilal. 

This, through intradiegetic signals that act only as a narrative propeller to hasten the final resolution, manages to completely divert the third act of the script towards an extremely forced good ending, which is cumbersome and cumbersome, depriving the viewer of that cliffhanger and that thrill. 

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Suspension of disbelief in a narrative of this magnitude. An unsuccessful mechanism, which completely cancels the fourth wall, immediately leading to the understanding of the presence of a narrating and thinking instance that has already prepared this expedient to resolve the matter in 6 episodes.

Parallels Disney+ Series

Parallels are proof that good intentions are not enough

The connotation of staging and editing manages to make the narrative quite convincing, supporting it in such a way as to configure a structure quite linear and pleasant diegetic, based on small twists at the end of each episode capable of luring the viewer into a vortex of circular disclosure. But, in the end, unfortunately, it must be admitted that intentions are not always enough to give life to an extremely effective series.