I love this show. After the disappointment that was Heroes, it was so nice to be able to enjoy a show as genuinely entertaining as Journeyman that I think can really fashion a nice niche for itself on Monday nights (it came in third last night behind C.S.I. Miami and The Bachelor. I’m not even going to say anything.) It’s not the best show on tv by any stretch of the imagination, but it really is a wonderfully satisfying hour of original programming.
I’ll forgo my usual breakdown style since we aren’t really dealing with a big ensemble cast with multiple plots. In fact, as much as I hate to admit it, Journeyman is somewhat of a procedural, though certainly not to the extent that crap like C.S.I. is. While the episodic portion of the show is self-contained week to week, the serialized stuff is much richer and deeper than that of other procedural type shows. On the one hand, we’ve got Dan’s life to worry about. He has a time-sensitive job, a wife and son, a bitter brother, and yet he involuntary time travels several times a week. How the hell is this guy supposed to hold it together at home if he’s hardly ever there, let alone in the same decade?
More importantly, we’ve got the awesome Livia mystery. This dude’s fiancee, who supposedly died almost 10 years ago in a plane crash, is not only alive, but is an involuntary time-traveler just like him! I want to know more about this central conflict so badly, but I’m glad the writer’s are being judicious with their information. This week, all we learned is that Livia is “tracking” Dan, the way that Dan tracked Neil Gaines and Tanna Bloom, and that she’s a seasoned pro at this whole time-travel thing. How long has it been going on? When is her present? Where does she go when she’s not meeting Dan on an airplane in 1994? And why is she so damn beautiful? Sigh…
I think there’s a lot more hidden connection here than meets the eye. The fact that Dan’s brother Jack was the cop that chased Dan from the taxi when Dan first meets Tara in 1994? That Kate and Dan ended up together after she dated Jack, while Dan was engaged to Livia? I’m excited to watch this show unfold, a little important piece at a time, until the whole puzzle is complete.
My one worry is that the episodic stuff is going to get too formulaic too quickly. If you didn’t get it from the pilot, surely you see now that the person Dan tracks isn’t the one he’s meant to save. Rather, the person Dan saves ends up saving the truly important person. In the pilot, Dan tracked Neil Gaines, not to save Neil, but to ultimately save his son. This week, Dan tracked Tanna Bloom, not to help her (though he surely did), but to help Billy Marbles (what a ridiculous name, by the way. Gotta find a way to bring that one back.)
I love the realistic relationships between Dan and Kate, Jack and Dan, and Jack and Kate. All three feel very real, fully realized, and each is compelling for its own reasons. As much as I want to learn about the mystery surrounding Dan’s time-traveling (which he can now anticipate, by the way, which is dope), I’m equally interested to see what develops between these three.
Jump into Journeyman if you haven’t yet. The fun’s just getting started, there’s something for everyone (time-travel, mystery, adult relationships, romance, secrets), it features good writing and strong acting, and is a truly solid hour of enjoyable tv.
Grade: B+ (only the real cream of the crop can get A’s! JM still needs to prove itself a bit more before it can reach that upper echelon.)
