Journeyman - season 1 thread (5 Viewers)

[Nelson Au]

Hey Joseph, I experienced the '89 quake too! I'll be watching to see how they recreate that. It did look fake in the trailers though.

I missed the second half of the Pilot last week. I gathered from last night's episode, he found Livia alive in the past and this week reveals that she travels through time too and didn't die.

Funny to see him jump from an early cellphone to iPhone.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Loved last night's ep just as much as the pilot, it doesn't bother me that we don't yet know the cause of Dan's trips because it's still early and I don't expect the show to show me all of it's cards yet.

I'm loving Kevin McKidd in this role, he has a very sympathetic face and demeanor and one can't help but feel his frustration that this phenominon could potentially do serious damage to his relationship with his family.

I liked the little touch last night with him mistakenly giving a modern 20 dollar bill to the cabbie, it demonstrates that he's not quite come to grips with these trips yet and that he just didn't think. I also like how his ex-girlfriend keeps popping up, she seems to know more than she's telling and the mystery intrigues me, she reminds me of the time traveling female character in the book Replay, in that book she was the main traverler's only companion as it was happening to both of them.

So far I would best describe the show as Time Whisperer because it's just as endearing to me as Ghost Whisperer is.

Man I hope it lasts.

 

[DaveF]

Yes.

Quantum Leap was overt: Jack jumped into the body of someone who needed savin'. JourneyMan is trying to be more circumspect, less "simplistic": it's touch a person's life in oblique, seemingly disconnected ways, and the end result is more subtle than expected.

Quantum Leap would have been about helping the woman have the baby, or getting the daughter to be the donor for her no-good, mother-leaving father. JourneyMan is about getting the daughter born, and through critical moments in her life so, ultimately, she can save someone not even in the storyline.

It's more "modern". It's not "obvious". It's a different, and uncommon, approach to story-telling. But as Joseph said (well), there's no particular dramatic cohesion to it. I don't know if it's going to work and hold its audience.

 

[Joe_H]

The one thing that bugs me about it is that he hasn't asked the ex what seems to me to be an obvious question with all the issues he's now having in the current time- "Is there any way to control when I leave?"

Even if he asked that and she said no, I'd be much more satisfied by it.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I think the obvious answer right now is no he can't, if he could control when he left than he would never leave. He get's a warning (headache) and then ZIP, off he goes.

 

[Joseph Young]

I'm sure the answer to that question would be something like "I don't know," or "It's complicated" followed by some huge distracting boom/explosion/plot point that interrupts further discussion. Ahh, the mind of a tv writer.

Just to clarify my earlier statements criticizing the show: I really want it to succeed. It has a kind of innocence about it; it's not trying to be post-post modern or overly stylized or edgy, it's just trying to do something cool and interesting, and I hope it succeeds.

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

I agree with you. I like the show. One of the better ones of the new season. Not sure why everyone is criticizing the show but I am sure if it gets cancelled we'll have more reality shows to litter the air waves.

 

[Citizen87645]

The girl playing Tanna had a nice chin wobble going.

The show also reminds me of Cold Case.

 

[DaveF]

He's asked her related questions of where she's been, what she's following him, etc. She dodges those questions. It's apparent that asking "How do I control time travel" would be met with an equally opaque answer.

 

[Joe_H]

Right now he can't, but even just asking her if she knows how, since she obviously is more experienced at the time travelling would make it work just a slight bit better for me. Even if the answer she would say is "no, its impossible to control", it would help, but I'll deal.

 

[Greg_S_H]

Oh, no, you di'int! I was just coming here to call it Time Whisperer!

"Remember when air hostesses had hot pants? Remember?"

The raucous Sunshine Band music was annoying when he jumped back on the plane. I thought, at first, that he was in some hip club that had an airplane theme to it. That was laying it on thick. We knew from the smoke, the hostesses, the clothing, the inflight movie, and the newspaper headline that it was the '70s, so we didn't need the loud music that seemed to be serving as source music but surely wasn't.

Still, I like the show so far, even though I have to agree that the "missions" he's on are definitely not as compelling as the typical Quantum Leap fare. I guess the showrunner sees the character's own life as the draw, so the past events are just a means to an end. They really should resonate more as the show goes on, though both stories were decent Time Whisperer stories.

The cop chasing him for the future money was definitely his brother. That was the best part of the whole episode.

I like that the father and other people have so far not instantly recognized him. That's pretty real. I would expect the mother and daughter to, since they had meaningful interaction with him, but most people don't remember a face they see in passing. I'm glad they acknowledged the fact that he doesn't seem to age to people who see him and remember him from before.

 

[todd s]

I am sure he will eventually be able to control the "leaps". The ex-gf seemed to. Or at the very least he will have much more warning of a leap. In the pilot. His head would hurt and he would be gone. This week. He seemed to have a minute or so before he leapt. Thus allowing him to leave the newsroom and in another scene call his wife to tell her he won't be home.
I did like that at the end his wife comes to understand he is actually leaping. I was annoyed in that he "proved" he did this and yet she was giving him crap about something he COULDN'T control. Thats why that little talk they had at the end was so important. Where she acknowledge he has no choice. And he acknowledged how hard it is on her.

 

[JohnS]

I enjoyed this second episode.
But agree that these lives he's helping/changing needs to be stepped up.

I like it how Dan doesn't know/can't control his leaps.

Also like the fact that Dan eavesdrops on his past life to witness what he did or maybe even did wrong.

It was quite funny to see the transition of the 70's plane to the current plane, of how relaxed it use to be with almost a party like atmosphere, kids playing with toy guns, people smoking, served full meals/vs the small bag of peanuts.

 

[Jose Martinez]

I really liked tonight's episode. Both the present and past storylines were really engaging for me. It's interesting to find out out more about Livia. Especially since she was travelling back in time before the plane crash. It's also good that she found out about Dan's marriage to Katie and that Katie found out about Dan's meeting with Livia in his travels. I really like where this show is heading.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Still failing to grab my attention. After the first act, I listened to tonight's episode on headphones and watched out of the corner of my eye as I attended to other things. It's just not dramatic enough for me.

 

[DaveF]

I understand this opinion. But while JM is not riveting like Heroes is, I'm finding the show is strengthening as it builds on itself. The building of confusion, concern and conflict with his brother brings a consistency and increased reality to the show. His wife's dichotomous support and frustration is evolving and adds to the richness of the show.

My one increasing frustration, really, is the mystery aspect. If JM is part of some super-elite, hand-picked, time-traveling team, I can't comprehend why they wouldn't give him the ground rules, expense account and business cards straightaway. It doesn't make sense to send people off to muck about in the time-space continuum without more support than a Yoda-like (in her answers) ex-fiance.

 

[NeilO]

I'm thinking that first people are selected and it is a weeding out process to see how they can do with limited guidance. It is a learning process and if they can't adapt sufficiently, then they'll be dropped from the program.

I was surprised that Livia was traveling before she originally met him and then mysteriously stopped until she disappeared on the fatal plane flight.

So, in addition to the plot of the week, we have his family life/relationships, the mysteries of Livia's life, and the mysteries of the traveling process itself. There is quite a lot going on and I can see that the series should evolve in its own pace.

Neil

 

[Nelson Au]

My reaction so far to this show came last night. It was odd to see it right after Heroes and it almost felt like a continuation of a Heroes episode; as if the JM has a power too.

The other thing I react to is how and why Katie is so willing to believe that he really does travel through time. I find that one kind of hard to believe, but I suppose if they have a truely close bond, perhaps that's possible.

Oh yeah, the earthquake did not cause any streets in SF to buckle the way it was depicted as far as I recall. Of course they probably wanted the eye candy to serve the story.

 

[NeilO]

She wasn't willing to believe it until the end of the pilot episode when he showed her the proof that he did travel in time. He showed the resized ring buried under their patio years ago. That seemed to be pretty definitive proof that it wasn't all in his head. Then in the second episode she knows he disappeared off the plane. In this episode, while I don't think she actually saw him vanish, she did she him moments before he vanished and then not there right after.

Neil

 

[Will_B]

I'm still assuming its a "hand of God" type situation, not an elite group of time cops. Jean Claud van Damme cameo. But I also hope that the last episodes of season one will build up to a reveal of what is going on.