It’s a completely recognizable trope on television (not over used, really, but common enough) to take an episode to glimpse into an alternate version of reality. A version of the show created by a “what if?” What if something had gone differently? What would the world be like now?
This was probably most memorably done for a lot of people on Friends, where they posited 6 “what ifs” as each character is sent on their own alternate path. What if I hadn’t been fired? What if I was still married? (Jokes about how we know Carol is a lesbian even if she doesn’t realize it yet ensue.)
But in general this sort of experiment is often played out around the holidays, attributing the alternate timeline effect to some magical realism, or Christmas miracle, in homage to the classic example of an alt. timeline: It’s a Wonderful Life. (What if Ryan had never moved to The O.C.?)
I’ve written about magical realism turning up around the holidays before, and in general I have no problem with the idea of taking a temporary leave of absence from the rules of reality. But one thing has always struck me as strange, and it struck me particularly hard while watching this phenomenon displayed on Switched at Birth, where two characters awake to find themselves living an alternate timeline of their lives. What if Bay and Daphne had never been switched at the hospital?
It’s an interesting question, and clearly entertaining to come up with altered versions of familiar characters, based on small changes that would have accumulated to create totally different lives. But what about the effect on their on personhood? What about the differences their upbringing with totally different parents and in totally different situations would have had on their development? In the midst of this alternate timeline are Bay and Daphne retaining their memories and minds of their “true” selves, yet somehow adopting skills and lessons they would have allegedly learned in this version of events.
And here’s the crux of my issue with this episode: How are we supposed to wrap our heads around these characters having absolutely no knowledge of their life experience? They blunder through their morning trying to work out what is happening (why they can hear/have gone deaf respectively). They don’t know their own families, they don’t know what’s going on in the world – and yet, they can in key moments rise to the occasion and display talents they would have learned in that life: chopping garlic like a pro, or juggling a soccer ball like an olympian.
Of course George Bailey is the classic example, and throughout his nightmare trip through Pottersville he is constantly trying to reconcile the reality he sees in front of him with the life he lived – or would have lived, had be been born. See, while George Bailey wished himself out of existence, un-writing himself from the world, Bay and Daphne are still very much in the centre of things. They wished themselves into each other’s childhoods, and while the demonstrable effects they are consequently shown to have had on the lives of their friends and families is touching, unlike George who shows up as a stranger with no history, Bay and Daphne have whole lives to live up to, and yet they remember nothing.
It’s the whole issue with time travel… if the world is now mysteriously altered, shouldn’t they be waking up with all new memories too, like they never knew anything had been different? Or if they are truly their former selves posing in their alt lives, shouldn’t they blunder through without the skills they should have learned? Am I taking this too seriously? Of course I am. Usually these things end up being dreams anyway… sort of. And really as soon as you have a character wake up in a new bedroom with a whole new life, you’ve sort of relinquished certain claims to being taken seriously. But how do you rationalize it?
Because this isn’t a Freaky Friday kind of switch. This isn’t someone waking up in someone else’s place, the world expecting something of them that isn’t them. This is imagining that you yourself were different. So why then are you sort of the same?
Well obviously in order to undo the wacky life-switching the girls need to try and overcome their initial desire to have led a different life. It’s a learning moment, to figure out how to appreciate all the things you have, and love the life you have. But it doesn’t make any sense!
