Category: Journeyman (Page 5 of 6)

Last week I bemoaned sweeps; this week I am grateful for them. This was easily the best episode since the pilot. The entire mythology of the series cranked up about 3 notches.

In 1999 Dan saved the life of a man who was set to testify against a gang, and in the process made his 1999 self a target of the same gang. So instead of his typical bouncing around from time to time in an episode, he’s forced to stay in one night to save himself – and his future marriage and child – with Livia aiding him for the evening.

What struck me as most noteworthy about this episode was the notion that Dan and Livia are far more suited to each other at this point than Dan and Katie. They understand one another and their lives have far more in common at this point than his “real” life, which is progressively becoming harder and harder to maintain. Katie would like to get back into the TV News game, but how can she with a child and the knowledge that Dan might disappear in a flash? Dan’s weekly assignments are to right the wrongs the timeline has massed up; what if “Journeyman” as a concept is all about righting the biggest wrongs of all? The loss of Dan and Livia’s relationship and the loss of Jack and Katie’s? For the first time in the series, I really, really liked Livia and she truly seemed to have Dan’s best interest at heart, especially in the scene where she ended up in the present, in his bedroom closet next to the moneybag – all while Katie and Jack argue footsteps away. What if Katie and Jack are actually supposed to be together? As was even demonstrated at the beginning of the episode, Jack possesses the potential to be a much better father than Dan is even capable of being at the moment. Jack’s a good man who simply doesn’t know what’s going on (although he’s getting much closer with each passing episode).

There’s something in “Doctor Who” called the Blinovitch Limitation Effect that posits “a dangerous energy discharge will result if two temporal versions of the same person come into contact”. I thought about this immediately when Dan kicked his own ass in ’99. Had this happened in “Who”, the universe would’ve exploded. Not that “Journeyman” is under any obligation to play by other time travel rules, but it was interesting to note that he was able to beat the crap out of his drunken ’99 self without too much fallout – well, um – other than screwing up his timeline anyway. The rest of the story saw Dan being forced to take the place of his ’99 self in a card game and thus he falls back into a night of gambling and drinking, all set to The Verve’s “Lucky Man”. The entire sequence punctuated by the arrival of ’99 Katie was the episode highlight.

But the FBI are closing in and next week things will get even stickier. Yes, the promise of this series is being delivered. By the way, “Journeyman” supposedly has 13 episodes in the can or at least nearing completion. No more have been ordered at the moment, but we should be good through at least the end of the year, what with the writer’s strike and all. I’m sure at the moment, studios aren’t placing season orders for anything.

This week’s installment of “Journeyman” was really hard to follow. There was so much going on, from pretty much every angle of the series as presented thus far, that unless you’ve been following the show from week to week, you’d have no idea what was going on. Yes, faithful viewers, the series has finally entered “The Continuity Zone.”

And that’s fine, because a series with a setup like this needs to go down these roads sooner rather than later. What’s frustrating is that the questions an average viewer has aren’t being answered: What’s Livia’s function?; Who’s behind Dan’s travels?; Is Dan restricted to traveling within the last 30 or so years?

The biggest problem with this episode was that it attempted to do so many things at once, and as a result left something of a hole in its core theme: The relationships between brothers. Dan found himself dealing with two brothers in the past that echoed the current gap in his relationship with his own brother, Jack. Aside from that, we saw references to the money stash last week, Katie trying to reignite her TV anchor career – which seems inexplicably ballsy given the life she’s been thrust into, and the assertion from a genius that time travel isn’t even possible. What does it all mean?

I did a little surfing and found an interview with creator Kevin Falls that was conducted last week. Go check it out by clicking here and then come back and see what I have to say.

Kevin Falls said: “Alex Graves and I are two guys who don’t believe in time travel, but we have a great respect for that genre.”

This hit me harder than anything else in the interview. Only the most involved of scientists and theorists are qualified to comment on the possibility of time travel, but I think the reason the genre survives is because of the romance that surrounds the premise. Why, as a showrunner, would you point out that you don’t even believe in the basis of your series? Do you at least believe in it insofar as the concept of the series allows? In qualifying your disbelief, does that inform viewers as to what they should expect as the series moves forward? I may be reading too much into Falls’ statement, but I can’t help but wonder what it means for “Journeyman” as a whole.

Kevin Falls said: “I think we owe it to the audience to find who Livia is, and who Dan is. I mean they were dating, and they are time travelers – why those two? That’s what we’re going to address in sweeps. You’ll know by episode 9, or actually 7 or 8 who Livia is. Then we’ll get into Langley and who he is up until episode 12, then god willing, towards the end of the season we’ll get into what this is all about in a global sense.”

So there’s a plan – a plan that involves the numerous elements we’ve been exposed to thus far. The Livia questions could be answered within the next two episodes. Langley, as I predicted, will be a major force. This is all great to know ahead of time, because there’s nothing worse than investing time in a series that ultimately fails to deliver. But frankly, statements about sweeps give me the cold shivers, even though I understand that’s how showrunners have to think.

Kevin Falls said: “I never watched ‘Quantum Leap’. I read the first 50 pages of ‘Time Traveler’s Wife’… “

Despite my constant comparisons to “Quantum Leap”, this doesn’t surprise me. But I think Falls and Graves could learn a lot by going back and checking out old episodes of THE series that did something of the same oh so successfully. My biggest criticisms thus far of “Journeyman” have been that I feel uninvested in Dan’s journeys outside of how they affect Dan and those close to him. Dan needs to be affected by those he comes into contact with and his journeys should mean more to him than “Another week, another leap”. That was always something “Quantum Leap” excelled at: You felt the weight of the travels on Sam Beckett’s shoulders.

Oh, don’t get me wrong – I love “Journeyman”, but you’ll not find a more critical time travel devotee than the guy who’s trying to guide you on these journeys [i.e. me]. When all is said and done, I expect this show will deliver, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried that it might not. Luckily, Falls seems to indicate that NBC loves the series, so here’s to hoping that they continue to stay behind it.

Last week’s “Journeyman” preview made this week look like it was going to be a heavy drama piece about Dan and his son, Zack. Turns out what was shown in that preview was mostly this week’s pre-credits sequence. Gotta love those marketing guys. Zack did play a bigger part than usual, but I’ll get to that later.

This was the first episode to really begin complicating things (well, not counting the pilot anyway) and at least a half a dozen noteworthy developments occurred throughout the hour. All of a sudden Dan’s actions from last week — running around a city street in a tux and brandishing a handgun — come back to haunt him when a police officer shows up at their door asking questions related to a robbery that night. Of course Dan isn’t home – he’s busy trippin’, so Katie’s forced to deal with the law.

Dan’s mission this time centers around a Vietnam soldier, a Cambodian refugee and his attempts to bring the two back together. It was a moving story and one of “Journeyman’s” more complex outings as far as this aspect of the series goes. So far, Dan has yet to fail, but I’m wondering, how long can this last? Surely he’ll sooner or later somehow botch a mission? Livia told him a few episodes back that he needed to get hold of some older currency for spending in the past. Thanks to this mission, Dan acquired a huge stash of ‘70s-era dough, so he oughtta be set for at least the rest of the season, if not the series itself. Speaking of the ‘70s, so far Dan’s journeys have been restricted to points in his lifetime (much like “Quantum Leap”) although I’m not sure it’s been qualified that these eras are the only times to which he can travel. Also, Dan first trip this time dropped into a foreign country, right? That’s a first. (Please feel free to correct me on any of this.)

And what is the deal with Livia, anyway? This dame always manages to show up at just the right time when he’s traveling about, and yet her function remains mostly a mystery. Perhaps Dan is so caught up in this new life that he doesn’t yet want to ask too many questions, or rather press her too hard for info. In 1976, Dan also met up with his father (the ‘70s-era newsroom was a scream!), who ran out him when he was Zack’s age, which mirrored Dan’s relationship with Zack in this installment. But now Zack knows of his daddy’s “magic”, which was a nice touch for the ending. Speaking of the ‘70s, I noticed ads for both “Jaws” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” on the sides of buses, which was a nice diversion from the show’s usual marking of eras through music and fashion sense. (The “Rocky Horror” one went by so fast I almost thought I imagined it.)

But for my viewing pleasure, the episode’s greatest scene was when Elliot Langley (Tom Everett) showed up at the paper. This is the professor Dan contacted last week to find out more about tachyons – the guy who knew his father. The scene was as nebulous as it was tense, and said a lot while saying nothing at all. Is this guy good or evil or somewhere in between? Is it possible he’s even got something to do with Dan’s trips? Dan did talk to him on the phone in the ‘80s in last week’s episode, which is referenced here and then the two move on. I wish I had a transcript of their conversation because it was fascinating, and really amped up the sci-fi aspects of the show. This guy’s gonna be a big factor in the coming weeks.

That’s assuming we get to. “Journeyman’s” ratings haven’t been stellar and I’m not sure it’s building an audience (but I don’t think it’s steadily losing viewers either). Luckily it’s on NBC, the network which has been giving good shows more of a chance to build in recent years. If the show can just make it through season one and then get that season out on DVD, it should be flyin’ high. This isn’t a show about huge developments like its lead-in, “Heroes”. “Journeyman” is a quiet little series that is proving to require patience for payoff.

Finally, last week I called the ubiquitous cafe “SoLuna”. It’s just plain “Cafe Luna”…but there is a Mexican eatery a few blocks from my house called SoLuna, just so you know where I was coming from.

Did you notice the nice nod to “Quantum Leap” at the start of this week’s episode? When Dan appeared in the church, marking his first trip of the week, the priest said, “Oh boy”. That’s what Scott Bakula used to say every week when he leapt into a new body.

I was wanting to mark this as the first weak episode of “Journeyman”, but as the episode rolled along I still couldn’t help but get sucked in. Not that there was anything “weak” about the story itself, just that it suffered from major shades of the “been here, seen thats”. The personal stuff between the four main characters was bumped up a minor notch without really going anywhere substantial; the drama was high, but the plotting was low. Last week Katie was a rock; this week she was mostly frustrated and pissed – and who can blame her at this point? Aside from its twist ending, this week’s mission didn’t do a whole lot for me and the show’s going to need to shortly come up with far more engaging missions if this thing’s going to last over the long haul.

The episode took a nice left turn with Dan’s attempts to reach a professor – a professor who knew his father – to discuss tachyons. Later on, the professor called him on his ‘80s phone when he was in another timeline! This guy, I suspect, is going to be a major player and end up giving Dan (as well as the viewer) the skinny on what’s going down here.

I was recently rewatching the “Journeyman” pilot. Dan’s very first trip, centered around a cab, was a little different than the many that came after. I wonder if there was a clue there? If you’ve still got access to the episode, go check that out and then check back in with me. Also, what’s the deal with SoLuna, the restaurant? (Did I get the name right?) It’s playing far too big a role in this series to just be Dan’s Regal Beagle.

Lastly, this was an interesting episode for me to use as an experiment. I’m visiting my mother, who’d never seen the show. She watched it with me, and once I gave her the basic scoop on the show, she had no problem following its intricacies and in fact said she’d be tuning in from here on out. So, well, there you go…