The Best Laid Plans...

Sometimes life gets in the way of goals that you set for yourself. In this case, the goal is the rather dubious one of watching as much television as is humanly possible and then writing about it. Unfortunately, it's been an unexpectedly busy week at work. C'est la vie. I figure if I get my summary out there before the 2nd episode of a show airs, I'm still doing my public service, right? So without further ado...

Journeyman: Mondays on NBC, 10:00/9:00 Central

Journeyman is the nightcap to the great new Monday night lineup on NBC. Dan Vasser has it all. He writes for the San Francisco Chronicle and has a lovely wife and son. Then one day, he hops in a cab and finds himself in 1999, 8 years in the past. Throughout the episode, Dan uncontrollably jumps back and forth between the present and seemingly random points in the past. This causes stress in his personal life, as when he travels to the past he is missing in the present for days at a time. Ultimately, through being in the right place at the right time (preventing a suicide, preserving a relationship, and preventing a murder -- all surrounding the same person) Dan subtly changes the present so that six kids are saved at the scene of a school bus crash.

Now, if every episode ends up being like this: Dan travels through time, changes the past, and makes the present a better place, it might not be a very interesting show. But there's something I haven't told you yet. We learn that Dan had a different fiancee, Livia, prior to marrying his current wife, but that she died in a plane crash years ago. In one of the best scenes of the episode, while in 1997 Dan visits the apartment that he used to share with Livia to change his clothes and runs into her. After leaving the apartment he immediately runs headlong into another Livia, the present day version. Their conversation is brief and cryptic, but we learn that she's a time traveler, too, and never died in the plane crash. In fact, there seems to be someone behind all of the time travel nonsense, making it perhaps not as random as it first appears. This overarching story line is what's going to drive the show, and make me tune in every week.

I should temper my enthusiasm by letting you know that I'm a sucker for stories centered around time travel. From Back to the Future to Prisoner of Azkaban to Quantum Leap, there have been countless brilliant movies and shows using it as a central plot device. I especially like that when Dan changes time periods it doesn't immediately tell us when he's gone with a large "1987" scrawled across the screen, leaving us as disoriented as him initially. There are little clues provided that tell us when he's jumped to (do you know when the NFL strike was?) before a newspaper headline or conversation outright tells us what year it is.

Add in a secret organization that may be behind the entire thing and the fact that Dan could inadvertantly meddle with his own past (since he can only jump around in San Francisco within the span of his own life), and you have a recipe for an intelligent and fun drama. The acting and production is strong throughout, too, making this the complete package.

If you missed it last Monday, you can catch up by watching the pilot on NBC's website. If you give it a try, I urge you to stick it out for the entire episode. It's hard to see the whole picture until you've made it at least 30 mins in. Then tune in to NBC tomorrow night at 8:00/7:00 Central and don't change the channel.