"Space... time... life itself. The secrets of the cosmos lie through the wormhole."
— Opening narration
Through the Wormhole, sometimes listed as Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, is a speculative science program hosted by Morgan Freeman. In the program, Freeman narrates explorations in the big questions of the universe — Time Travel, human consciousness, the existence of aliens, the edges of the universe, God, alternate dimensions, and more. These discussions come with interviews with experts in fields related to the topic of the episode, who may conduct experiments to support their theories, and sometimes short animations to explain to viewers a concept.
The show is very science heavy — you don't need a degree in physics to understand what the experts are saying, but it will help a lot.
Tropes in this work:
- Alien Tropes: The entire index is discussed back and forth — if aliens did exist, what would they look like, what would their society be like, what would they evolve like, etc.
- Artifact Title: The first season was primarily concerned with physics and space-related topics, such as dark energy and dark matter, how life began, time travel, black holes, etc. From the second season on, the topics stray into human consciousness, life after death, and the existence of a God.
- Bizarre Alien Locomotion: One hypothetical alien creature has a tubular body and vane-shaped fins that propel it through water by rotating like a drill.
- Our Wormholes Are Different: Examined as a means of travel between space, time, and/or dimensions, if they could ever exist at all. The show also notes that black holes are not wormholes.
- Speculative Biology: One episode is about how aliens could realistically look like depending on the planet they are from.
- Time Travel: Examined, including the possibility that the physics of the universe would simply not allow backwards time travel to exist to avoid a Grandfather Paradox.
- Title Drop: Aside from the opening narration, Freeman often delivers one if the topic involves black holes or wormholes.
- Viewers Are Geniuses/Viewers Are Morons: Mostly the former, some of the topics discussed are very complex and would only make sense to someone who knows a bit about physics and other topics. However, some episodes feature cartoons or other visual aids describing things in Layman's Terms after the Technobabble explanation is given.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: Every episode begins with a flashback from Freeman from his childhood. If the flashbacks are true, Freeman was showing more insight and curiosity about the world around him as a child than some adults exhibit.
