Fringe excited science fiction fans around the world with its mysterious series of events referred to in the first season as “the Pattern”. Over the course of two seasons viewers learned that the Pattern was the result of an impending collision of two alternate realities, a catastrophic situation set into motion by the unwitting Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble), who crossed over from our universe into the other to save his son’s alter ego — after his own son had already died. Walter’s trip into different realities led to his bringing his Otherson Peter back with him by accident.

It seems to be Peter (Joshua Jackson) who holds the key to the fate of the two universes. He is the only person from the other reality to have crossed back and forth. Walternate, Peter’s father, has pursued a course of vengeance in retaliation for the abduction of his son. Fans of the show have speculated on blogs and in Fringe forums about where Peter’s loyalties may or should lie. So far, his feelings for F.B.I. agent Olivia Dunham seem to be the key to Peter’s loyalty. But now the two Olivias have been switched, so what happens if Bolivia (as some people call her) falls in love with Peter and his feelings turn toward her?

In a typical science fiction show it is almost always the starship captain who gets a string of women competing for his attention. In Fringe, Anna Torv ballances screen time between former lovers and current loves along with agent-partners who die in one universe but survive in the other. Anna has the boys spinning around her in a revolving door drama of emotional connections that the most ardent daytime drama afficionado would be challenged to keep straight.

This is the stuff that science fiction fandoms bond to and they seem to be bonding strongly. More than one SF fansite is trying to keep pace with the changing storyline and the logical twists that are designed to intrigue and fascinate a usually hard-to-sell crowd.

So far, Abrams’ team is doing their job pretty well. Fans are eager to tune in and see what happens next. Fringe is almost guaranteed a fourth season and we’ve only seen one episode of the third season so far. In another five or six episodes, fans may be clamoring for seasons five and six as well.

We have all placed a phone call where we have been dropped into an automated system virtually immediately. The voice on the other end is not computerized, it is just another example of voice over work. Someone had to enter a recording studio and say the prompts individually including all the numbers, as well as anything else that was wanted for the automated system. There is a lot more to voice over careers than most individuals would think. It sounds like it would be easy, but it takes preparing, expertise and patience. Voice over talent can lead to a fun and rewarding career behind the scenes or on-screen.

Many people are told that they should get into voiceovers because they have a good sound.If you have ever been told that you have a great phonation, then you may have thought of making use of that great sound in a professional way, as a singer, announcer or as a phonation over talent. sound over, or adding your phonation to advertisements and recorded messages, can be a very lucrative field for a trained talent. If you would like to get the training necessary to succeed as a sound over talent then here are a few steps to take.

remember one thing: in the commercial world all kinds of voices are needed: low voices, whiny voices, gravelly voices, flat voices and even average voices. So, even if you don?t have a classic ?good voice? you can enter the field if you have determination.

phonation Over work is an exciting career for phonation-over talent but you need training to develop professional voice-over skills to participate effectively in this industry. You often have just a few moments to analyze and interpret copy in a voice-over audition or a phonation-over job.

One of the particular challenges of this business of ours is that there is indeed a very highly paid and highly visible tip of the iceberg in almost every branch of the profession. This can either be very prohibitive for everyone else, who is not experiencing such fame and fortune, or worse, can be the kind of carrot which encourages beginners (and sometimes people with more experience who should know a lot better) to hold out for the glamour jobs at the expense of getting busy with the day to day gigs. These jobs may be little regarded and not very lucrative but they provide the grounding that can make you a realistic candidate for the better work when those opportunities do come your way.

These people – let’s call them fanatics – come alive on board a boat, forgetting the pressures of work and home in the sheer exhilaration of surfing down a wave on a tight reach, or coaxing the yacht upwind in a gusty force five.

I am married to one of these fanatics. He is trying to teach me to sail.

It is a difficult task, I admit, as I have absolutely no desire to set foot on the boat unless the wind (force 1 – 2), the weather (sunny) and the sea (calm) are just right. But, being a man of considerable determination and luck, he finally succeeded in giving me my first few lessons last month.

I learned a lot.

Sailing is, when you come down to it, incredibly simple – a matter of pointing the boat where you want to go, feeling for the wind, and adjusting the sails accordingly. Yet it is also incredibly complicated.

I used to race dinghies, sitting in the pointy end, pulling in the sails, but even so I learned a fair bit about lifts and headers, cunninghams and kickers. It all came flooding back to me as I helmed the yacht last month, dodging the ferries between Largs and Cumbrae.

For the first time I really began to understand the relationship between boat, sail and wind. I could feel the yacht responding to the helm; feel it spin in the water; surge down the waves, slow in the chop. I could see what was happening as the gusts hit and the sails either flapped in the header or the boat tipped over in the lift.

And that was my problem. The boat tipped over. I guess that I will get used to it eventually, but I just cannot be comfortable sitting at a 25 angle, staring down into black waves that look perilously close to my feet.

Dinghies don’t tip over, or at least if they do they are not too hard to bring back upright again. Yachts are different. They are supposed to tip over, and you are not supposed to swear blindly and gibber at the helm when they do.

And the noise! I thought sailing was supposed to be quiet! What with the wind on the sails and the boat slooshing through the water and the depth gauge beeping every two minutes, it was hardly peaceful at all.

So I learned a lot: I learned that there was a lot I didn’t know.

And my husband learned a few things too – most particularly, that there some things you just do not say to reluctant sailors who have consented to come on board:

• ‘Right! Well, why don’t you try reversing us out from the berth and then take us out of the marina!’

• ‘It’s only a tiny leak – nothing to worry about!’

• ‘No, of course yachts don’t capsize – not unless it’s really, really windy!’

• ‘I know the depth gauge is beeping. It’s not really working properly at the moment.’

• ‘Look at it this way, the boat really can’t tip over any more than it is already.’

• ‘When I said ‘aim for the buoy’, I didn’t mean for you to hit it!’

I, on the other hand, now know that it is not good to say:

• ‘So these are big cabins, are they?’

• ‘Which way is the wind coming from, again?’

• ‘Is this a tack or a gybe?’

• ‘I want to go home!’

• ‘Wow! Is the engine supposed to give off that much smoke?’

• ‘Oh! Sorry! Were those hatches supposed to be shut?’

• ‘What happens if I press this button?’

• ‘You didn’t tell me to tie it on!’; and finally

• ‘Well, it wasn’t too bad…’

Looks like I have another lesson pencilled in for next Tuesday.

For all the Reluctant Sailor articles go to The Reluctant Sailor.

Helen MacKenzie is a freelance writer. She contributes to the web site at http://www.sea-dreamer.com The Sea Dreamer web site has articles, guides and news on sailing and cruising on the West Coast of Scotland.