Yeah, that Llew is looking especially dynamite, good on you JayJarr!

Huh, Jump Leads is set in 2009? That just raises further questions!

BTW, it's spelled: "whose idea was that"

Aha, good catch Thomas. Serves me right for lettering this page while I'm ill!

Let's pretend that the "who's" doesn't appear in the original script. Because it doesn't. Nope.

"Huh, Jump Leads is set in 2009? That just raises further questions!"

Well, it's 2009 everywhere. The key is that the Lead Service was founded in a universe that's rather more technologically advanced than our own. Maybe the Dark Ages were a lot shorter. Either way, in the Lead Service's universe (and other convergent universes) humanity worked out multiversal travel around the same time that in our universe (and other convergent universes), we invented the aeroplane. Or in this universe, the horse collar.

I'd always just assumed that it was the other way round, that the universe with the Lead Service was the future of a universe at least similar to ours, and when they ended up in places that looked like modern-day Earth, humanity in those universes was developing a lot slower. The references to modern-day pop culture make a lot more sense now, though it's depressing to think that Footballers' Wives is a multiversal constant.

That Christina Aguilera joke still bugs me though. Either she DOES have a successful singing career, or they wouldn't have heard of her. Either way the joke doesn't work.

There are a number of reasons why the Lead Service may want to prevent Aguilera from having a successful music career. Maybe she's destined to do bigger and better things with her life, such as becoming a scientist who cures Cancer. Maybe her music will act as a catalyst which will cause the downfall of human society.

Or, and this is immensely more likely, maybe the bigwigs in the Lead Service think her music is utter shash.

Maybe she's famous in the Jump Leads universe for some other reason, but her singing career never took off and is a subject of ridicule. It might be the equivalent of joking that there's another universe where David Hasselhoff has a successful musical career. (Incidentally, it's called Germany.)

I want to be counted in the pro middle ages camp... Excited to see what happens

"The references to modern-day pop culture make a lot more sense now, though it's depressing to think that Footballers' Wives is a multiversal constant."

It's more that the Lead Service has the ability to cherry-pick culture from anywhere. Why anyone would want to cherry-pick Footballers' Wives is a different question, but there's no accounting for taste