Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives

Although broadcast on the PBS-aired NOVA series, Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives (which originated as a BBC production) is a decidedly atypical episode, what one TV critic deemed more of a “biographical mystery” than a science-based program (although some fascinating science is involved). Initially, you wonder if the paired stories of musician Mark Oliver Everett (of the alt-rock band EELS) and his late nuclear physicist father Hugh Everett III will take on the tragically dysfunctional dimensions of something like Capturing the Friedmans, but this particular father-son mystery turns out to have a very life-affirming outcome. As he travels across America trying to understand why his father (“a distracted genius”) is gaining newfound popularity among top-ranking physicists, Mark comes to realize that he has, in fact, inherited many of his father's qualities. Hugh Everett died of a heart attack in 1982 at the age of 51, convinced that his “many worlds” theory of quantum mechanics—rejected by eminent theorist Niels Bohr and still dismissed by many physicists—would someday be recognized as valid. Estranged from his father while Hugh was still alive (Mark describes the discovery of his father's lifeless body as “our most intimate encounter”), the younger Everett visits his father's academic haunts and talks with former colleagues, along the way gaining a greater understanding of the reasons behind his father's emotional distance and aloofness. An unusual odyssey presented with wry, understated humor, this NOVA documentary is highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (J. Shannon)