The second installment of NBC’s “Journeyman” is the sort of thing that made a devotee of the pilot breathe easier. The show’s still just as good, doesn’t appear to want to needlessly complicate itself right away (this is always nice for people who may not have seen the first episode), and now it’s allowing itself to have a good time. Last week I spoke of “Journeyman” in relation to “Quantum Leap”; this installment reminded me a lot more of the old show.
As the story opens, Dan (Kevin McKidd) and wife Katie (Gretchen Egolf) are at the doctor where Dan is going through the old MRI process. Since his jumps through time are always preceded by massive headaches, maybe there’s something to be found inside his noggin? As viewers, we’re with Katie at this point, and for the first couple minutes we keep expecting him to disappear. The gag is taken to its logical place when Katie walks into the room and he’s gone – but he’s not; he’s just behind a partition getting dressed.
Skip forward to the couple going on a much-needed vacation that may also involve working on another child. They’re nestled quite comfortably in their seats when Dan decides to use the facilities. While he’s in the bathroom, the headaches hits and bam! He looks down and sees little wrapped bars instead of liquid soap. He stumbles out into the plane only to find himself smack in the middle of a seventies-era flight (Southwest, maybe?). Smoke is everywhere and not from a malfunction either. No, this is back when airplane travel was a far more swingin’ affair and people lit up right and left, the stewardesses were more like flying whores (thank you “Dice” Clay), and everyone was drunk. KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Get Down Tonight” echoes throughout the flight. Before long, Dan finds himself delivering a baby. Back in the present, Katie is forced to concoct an elaborate lie as to what happened to her husband. This entire sequence is (ironically) a breath of fresh air after the seriousness of the first episode. It’s as if the show is telling viewers, “We know how to have fun, too!”
As the episode moves forward, Dan finds himself dropping in and out of the baby’s life. He sees her grow into a young woman and realizes that perhaps his purpose is to reconnect her with the father she never knew, a storyline that delivers alternately hard-hitting and surprising moments.
Along the way, he’s only really once forced to visit his own past (to steal an old phone recharger from his apartment), although there is another great sequence in which he’s being chased by cops, and unbeknownst to himself, one of them is his brother Jack (Reed Diamond). He meets up with Livia (Moon Bloodgood) a time or two, only little is learned by either Dan or the viewer about what’s going on here, and it doesn’t seem Livia knows much more.
In the end, Dan and Katie try to vacate once again only to find themselves on the No Fly List. They also decide that perhaps right now isn’t the best time to shoot for another child. I say, “Wise move kids”.
