ABSTRACT
In the coincidence plot, the paths of different characters eventually converge, creating a sense of unity and closure. As author's analysis shows, the image-schematic plotting principles and the three models of causation discussed by Dannenberg provides a fruitful instrument for the analysis of serial plotting strategies in contemporary television drama. The thematic gravity of principle of branching helps to draw attention away from the diagnostic plot, but is ultimately a distraction irrelevant to the medical problem. The airplane accident over Albuquerque is a hyperbolic manifestation of this destructive force, taking shape self-reflexively along a coincidental path provided through authorial manipulation. Even though the meaning and origin of the numbers themselves remain a mystery, the causal-progenerative paths and the causal-manipulative forces evoked in the episode have been coherently integrated by the end of the episode.
