The interests of genre fiction move in cycles. On year everybody is into zombies, then ninjas, then pirates, then robots, then space operas, then zombies again. Recently, it looks like everybody is obsessed with the idea of parallel worlds - almost every superhero comic is about it, it figured into the new Star Trek films, people still think CERN are looking for them. Its in that climate that this years Parallels was produced, but the film manages to stand apart from the multitude of multiverses popping up everywhere nowadays. Actually filmed as a television pilot that never went to series, the premise works far better as a stand-alone, self-contained film. Even if it does leave you with some head-scratchers. Focussing on an estranged family who come together when they discover an abandoned building covered in graffiti and notes about parallel worlds and alternate timelines, the film sees two siblings trying to track down an absent father who theyre convinced is lost on another Earth. Its like Slider, only with higher stakes and no John Rhys-Davies!
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
