Journeyman - Season 1
Created By: Kevin Falls
Starring:Kevin McKidd, Brian Howe, Gretchen Egolf, Moon Bloodgood, Reed Diamond, Charlie Wyson
Premieres: Monday, September 24th at 10:00 p.m. on NBC
Journeyman centers on a guy named Dan (Kevin McKidd), who for some reason, finds himself occasionally traveling through time. During the course of the pilot episode, he is thrown into the past for no apparent reason. His visits to the past go on for various lengths of time and cause him to disappear from the present for even longer. Naturally, his wife Katie (Gretchen Egolf), his brother and co-workers become convinced that he’s gotten mixed up with drugs or something, which they believe, would explain his frequent absences.
Meanwhile, during one of his time-traveling episodes, he ends up in the 80s and saves a guy who was trying to commit suicide. When he returns to the present, he googles the guy and sees that he’s still alive. For some reason, Dan decides that next time he’s in the past he’s going to see about setting the guy’s life in a better direction. So in the series of visits to the past that follow, he interferes with the man’s life in tiny, almost accidental ways and in the end, he figures out what he’s supposed to be doing with this new out-of-his-control power.
There’s also a back-story involving a woman, Livia (Moon Bloodgood), whom Dan used to date and almost married. She was killed in a plane crash years ago and it still seems to be a sore point with his current wife. I guess that issue was never fully resolved. Somehow, this story is going to be relevant to Dan’s time-traveling. He even interacted with her a couple of times while in the past and at some point, meets a version of her that also appears to be traveling through time and knows what he’s going through. That part was brief and very mysterious but I’m sure we’ll find out more about that later on in the season. So are you thoroughly confused yet? That’s ok, it all starts to make sense as the episode goes on.
When you’re dealing with time travel in TV and movies, there’s always a chance that things can get confusing. There are a couple of things that this pilot doesn’t address. Like for one thing, when Dan interacts with his friends and family when visiting 1997, they don’t seem to notice that he’s aged ten years. He pretends to be the past-version of himself and no one questions it. How is that possible? Even the healthiest of men are going to show some wear and tear over the course of a decade, right?
I also felt that the question of why he has suddenly been granted the ability to travel through time (though he doesn’t seem to have any control over when or where it happens) might have been addressed a little bit more in this episode. When he meets his old girlfriend, who also appears to be journeying around time, she tells him to just go with his instincts and that chances are, things will go wrong but to be sure not to mess with anything, as though that would even be possible, seeing as his very existence in the past is sure to alter the future in various ways. That much was evident by the way he was able to change the suicide-man’s future. So I’m thinking the “why” and possibly even the “how” factor will play out slowly through the course of the series.
Here’s the thing though, while there were some confusing elements to the show, the concept itself could definitely work in a Quantum Leap sort of way. If you can get past the first twenty minutes or so in which it is extremely difficult to really understand what is going on with this guy or why its happening, there’s actually a good story being told.
The acting is pretty good on the part of all parties involved. McKidd does the role of Dan justice by keeping his performance simple but intelligent. Dan’s a normal guy with an established career and a great family. Most people should be able to identify with that on some level. Then there’s his wife, Katie, who is equally successful in life and fairly content with how things are up until her husband starts disappearing. Egolf does a great job in playing the role of Katie with the poise of a strong, loving wife and mother. She also manages to carry the bulk of the final scene in the episode, which I can say without a doubt, was my favorite moment in the pilot.
I have to say that after viewing the first quarter of the episode, I thought I was going to be panning the hell out of it when wrote this review but by the end of the episode, I realized I was wrong. Not only does the pilot have a really strong ending, but there’s definitely a lot of potential for this show to have a future if the writers can find interesting ways to use Dan’s time-traveling/live-changing abilities while also slowing unraveling the story of why he’s able to do this and what the Dan’s overall purpose is.
I also think its fitting that Journeyman will air after Heroes on Monday nights. Viewers who love watching regular people come to grips with having extraordinary abilities will probably appreciate Journeyman.
