Journeyman is a decent drama. I only discovered it a couple weeks ago and am now catching up... Who's following this tale of a San Francisco news reporter who suddenly finds himself quantum leaping through time, following someone's life through the years by dropping in at key points in that person's life?
It's more fantasy than sci-fi, inasmuch as the method of his time travelling is not explained. And it's still heavy drama as he has to deal not only with putting things right as he travels through time, but keeping things right with his wife and child as he disappears at random points, throwing his own life into chaos. It doesn't help that his ex-fiance also turns out to be a time traveller like him, who is apparently jumping into his life the same way that he's jumping into others every week.
Complex? Yup. But as a serial drama, it's remarkably light and fresh while still maintaining my interest. Far more than Chuck or Bionic Woman this season, anyway, IMO. Thoughts?
Mark
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Saw an episode, reminds me a bit of "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey N-somethin'.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I saw a bit of an episode, but I wasn't very interested. I have no idea who he is or how he got the power or what the whole arc is, but for some reason I just didn't like what I saw. It was only two weeks ago and I already can't remember what it was that I saw, so maybe it was just a slow episode or something.
Speaking of Quantum Leap, I used to watch that a little bit when I was a little kid and liked it. Is it actually anything like QL?
Oh and if you're watching Chuck and Bionic Woman - are they any good? I fear Chuck to be silly and BW to be a flat featureless remake.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
It's like Quantum Leap in that an uwnitting man is leaped around time to right wrongs and change peoples' lives for the better, in often unpredictable ways. For example [SPOILERS TO END OF PARAGRAPH], in one episode he spends the whole time trying to manipulate events to bring a father together with his estranged daughter so he could get a bone marrow transplant - it turns out that they weren't a match after all and he was really just getting her to the hospital so that she could save the terminal patient who WAS a match, so that he in turn could save dozens of children in Africa. The side effect was that he did bring two people together and turned the daughter's life around, which was the point of the drama. Think "Butterfly Effect" if you could control the steps in between.
Now, this is NOT like QL because he is constantly jumping into people's lives and then BACK to the present, where he often has to deal with what's happened in his life after disappearing for several hours (the time he's in the past does not match the time he's missing in the present). He gets a headache before he jumps, but otherwise has no warning about when he'll next take off... Also, when he starts jumping every week, he'll visit his assignment's life in linear order, not forward and backward in time - each jump occurs after the previous visit.
And our hero doesn't have a hologram partner - instead, he seems to have his ex-fiance, a time traveller like him, showing up when he visits the past to help him out mostly with advice and moral support. When he's in the present, he Googles up the facts and background of the people he's tracking himself. The ex-fiance was with him for several years, but that apparently was just one long assignment for her - now she's traveling again, and seems to be permanently tracking him through the past. This is much to the chagrin of his present-day wife, who also knew the fiance and now feels in conflict with her.
Anyway, I'm liking it. It probably won't last the season (where "Chuck" and "Life" have gotten full season orders as of this week), but it's still compelling enough for me to keep watching. It might be a factor that I'm watching it all in a crunch, several episodes a week... There might not be enough week-to-week material to keep everyone interested if you have to wait seven days until the next installment.
Mark
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
You say "assignment" - is there any hint some intelligence is directing the whole thing?
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Only in that he can't be doing this COMPLETELY randomly. The only constants in every episode are that he drops in just moments before a key point in the lives of the people he's tracking, which he can influence for the better (or worse). However, his disappearances in the present seem to be completely random, or at least to the point of being awkward (disappearing while driving, or reappearing in a crowd after taking a gun off of someone). He can also return miles from where he left, and generally has to get back home on foot.
Our hero is trying to figure it out in the present too, and there's a suggestion that a tachyon expert he's talking to is more than he seems. His ex-fiance however is hinting that it simply has no explanation - that they can help and simply have to go with the flow when they jump.
Mark
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: Only in that he can't be doing this COMPLETELY randomly. The only constants in every episode are that he drops in just moments before a key point in the lives of the people he's tracking, which he can influence for the better (or worse). However, his disappearances in the present seem to be completely random, or at least to the point of being awkward (disappearing while driving, or reappearing in a crowd after taking a gun off of someone). He can also return miles from where he left, and generally has to get back home on foot.
Our hero is trying to figure it out in the present too, and there's a suggestion that a tachyon expert he's talking to is more than he seems. His ex-fiance however is hinting that it simply has no explanation - that they can help and simply have to go with the flow when they jump.
Mark
I haven't see it, but based on that description it sounds EXACTLY like "A Time Traveller's Wife", excerpt in the book he appears naked and without his fillings and is more concerned with staying alive than doing a Sam Beckett.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I like lots of stuff that I've heard about this show, but I lost interest during the pilot and haven't gone back because a.) I am a tired old man at ten o'clock now b.) I do not want to jump in having missed the beginning.