A continuation/addendum to post A Highly Specific, Highly Prolific, Highly Entertaining Yet Highly Unsuccessful Genre.
Journeyman. Another gripping, emotionally complex time-travel mystery police detective post-Lost American drama show that couldn't make it out of one season. This show, like Awake, is also brought to us by NBC, which only proves my point how they drop shows like fresh beats (though NBC isn't the only one guilty of dropping a gripping, emotionally complex time-travel mystery police detective post-Lost American drama show (even though time travel aspects of Awake are debatable and it really might all be happening in Jason Isaac's head, but it could be argued time travel and that's really my point) and most of the major networks are equally if not more guilty of this (ABC, natch, since they're the network behind Lost and their following of the leader is the most excusable) I'm talking specifically about NBC right now (CBS doesn't have, like, any gripping, emotionally complex time-travel mystery police detective post-Lost American drama shows. What's up with that?)) Anyway, NBC.
I had specifically brought up the Cape last time because it was a show designed to pick up those flagging ratings, but also couldn't make it out of a season. (No time travel in this one... or at least none in the first and only season; maybe they were planning on expanding the superhero mythos later on.) It's baffling how NBC orders groundbreaking experimental new shows to pick up flagging ratings and then drops then if it takes a while for said experimental shows to find viewership. Seriously, they didn't do that with Law and Order even though it initially had poor ratings. NBC stuck with it until people got used to the then-revolutionary idea of combining lawyer and cop genres like that, and now it's one of the most successful television franchises of all time. That worked out, in the end. But generally they've been skittish after the infamous "no-hitter" year of '83. You'd think they'd learn to be either bolder or more conservative and then stick with it, but they go from one extreme to another. Anyway, Journeyman.
I was nebulously aware of this show when I first posted A Highly Specific, Highly Prolific, Highly Entertaining Yet Highly Unsuccessful Genre, but I had just figured it to be a docudrama based around the bestselling Journeyman Project series of video games (yes, seriously). This is one of those scenarios in which it would have been better for me to have been an outsider to the sci-fi field/industry, as there obviously would have been no chance of me making that mistake had I never heard of the Journeyman Project.
So, now that I know that the show also belongs in that category, I have to review it separately from Awake and the other shows from that post. To get its own post, this had better be the best of the lot.
It is.
The series revolves around Dan Vasser (Kevin McKidd), a journalist for the San Francisco Register who finds himself suddenly plagued by unexplained headaches. These apparently trigger warps through time, where he tracks and must help people through various stages of their lives. The casting director here is to be commended, as the characters throughout the stages of their lives are very believably casted timeshifted actors.
Dan does his best to help out those he's tracking to see where these people are at in life in the present to find and fix whatever's broken, using his own connections in the newspaper agency, his cop brother Jack (Reed Diamond), and judicious use of Finder-Spyder. The time travel mechanics as he tracks people and changes the past are secondary to the drama going on in Dan's life; that being said, it would seem to be a mutable timeline, with some element of fate over all of Dan's shifts. The word destiny is never explicitly dropped, but it seems to be a prevalent theme. "My life is slipping through my hands, and you're talking about some kind of order to all this. All I see is chaos."
Back at home in the present, Dan has to deal with the fact that his shifts are interrupting his work life at the newspaper and his home life with his son Zack and wife Katie (Gretchen Egolf), as well as his aforementioned brother Jack, who used to be engaged to Katie and still might have feelings for her. When Dan begins shifting, Jack suspects him to be gambling again, or worse. Try as Dan might, he can't seem to convince him of the shifts. Katie knows his secret, though, and Zack kind of accidentally sees him warp one time. Dan's warps happen at the most inopportune of moments, straining the relationship between him and Katie, who is at least understanding because she knows that Dan really can't control when he goes.
Throw in the wrinkle of Livia Beale (Moon Bloodgood), Dan's ex-fiance who was thought to have died in a plane crash but transpires to be warping through time too, and who is herself tracking Dan with her time shifts. Although initially Katie is suspicious of this development, she trusts Dan.
Moon Bloodgood plays this part with-... Wait. What the heck? Moonbloodgood? Are all gripping, emotionally complex time-travel mystery police detective post-Lost American drama shows conspiring to be connected somehow? Anyway, she's, like, Moon Bloodgood. I don't even need to tell you. She was in Day Break. Which was similar. It was on the list at number one, but now at number 2. Pushed down. Which, right, the list. Needs to be adjusted to fit Journeyman, now, doesn't it?
So, here's the complete updated list of all of the gripping, emotionally complex time-travel mystery police detective post-Lost American drama shows that only lasted one season, with footnotes.
- Journeyman~ † (NBC, 2007, 13 episodes)
- Day Break~ (ABC, 2006, 13 episodes)
- Awake* † (NBC, 2012, 13 episodes)
- Life on Mars † (ABC, 2008-2009, 17 episodes)
- Alcatraz ‡ (FOX, 2012, 13 episodes)
- FlashForward* † ‡ (ABC, 2009-2010, 22 episodes)
- Terra Nova † (FOX, 2011, 11 episodes)
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