What was the connection between these two characters?

Question

In episode 8 of Electric Dreams, Impossible Planet, Norton and his coworker at a space tourism company are chartered by an old woman to visit Earth. Norton and Irma seem to be connected in some mysterious way.

Throughout the trip, Norton has various dialogues with Irma, the old woman. Through these dialogues, we learn that Irma's dream is to recreate the the story of here grandparent's thrift in a natural pool somewhere in Carolina. Norton seems to have flashes of a dream that we eventually learn is directly from Irma's dream, and ultimately, after the two of them suffer oxygen deprivation, they have a shared hallucination in which they reenact it in full. There's also the curious detail of Norton being a splitting image of Irma's grandpa, and fitting perfectly in his old clothes.

What was the nature of this connection between the two of them? How did this occur?

Answer 1

I do not believe there is any literal connection intended here, apart from an emotional one. When Norton has those dreams, it is his internal conflict... he wants to be a "good man" but the bad influences around him make it difficult.

When they take their helmets off, and are suddenly young and next to a beautiful pond in Carolina, I think it was intended as an expression of the fact that she knows she's had a positive influence on Norton's character and this makes her happy enough that she's willing to imagine the "Earth" part.

I also do not believe that Norton was literally intended to look so completely identical to Irma's grandfather, that it is either symbolic or just for the sake of adding weirdness.