Saturday, January 12, 2008

Journeyman - A Love for a Lifetime - Review

Journeyman - San Francisco is the Setting for Most of the Journeyman Series

Journeyman - A Love for a Lifetime - Pilot Review


Journeyman (pilot) doesn't spend a great deal of time with character development, or setting the stage for the saga to come. Within minutes the central character Dan Vasser, played by Kevin McKidd, wormholes out of his domestic suburban San Francisco life in 2007 into the chaos of unexpected time travel.



Journeyman - Kevin McKidd as Dan Vass

In most time travel stories the time traveler pops into the past, and back into contemporary time instantaneously - that is not true in Journeyman. When Dan Vasser finds himself co opted into the role of savior of lost souls the time he spends in the past results in his disappearance in 2007.



Journeyman - Gretchen Egolf as Katie Vass

Dan's spouse Katie (Gretchen Egolf), friends, and brother Jack (Reed Diamond) take notice of Dan's disappearances, and come rapidly to the false conclusion that his ramblings about time travel are the result of a drug problem.



Journeyman - Reed Diamond as Jack Vass

The pace of the pilot is so quick that there's never much time to abandon one's sense of belief, which makes the pilot work. Of course with any pilot there are many questions which are left with the viewer about just where future episodes are headed, and what will become of the characters.



Journeyman - Monique Curnen as Nicole Gaines

The pilot has a throughly "modern" style (for this time). There are scenes in which the iPhone and bluetooth earset, 2007's cutting edge cellphone and trendy cell companion, are juxtaposed in the same act, and scenes with brick sized early model cell phoned. Cell phones which were considered cutting edge in their day, but which seem so laughable today. Perhaps as a reader from the future, you get a chuckle thinking of the iPhone as cutting edge? It's this effect that seems so interesting in the Journeyman. The creators of the series revel in their ability to step the viewer into the past. Who would have thought that 1997 would be considered ancient history?



Journeyman - Charles Henry Wyson as Zack Vass

Two thumbs up for this now apparently canceled series which can still be seen on the NBC.com website. With a writers strike in full force the series will likely remain available online, but for how long only a time traveler could say. If any NBC executives are reading this, please bring back Journeyman. The Journeyman was a class act from beginning to finish. The series had a luxurious feel to it. There was almost a movie like level of quality about it, and if it ends now, it is certain that science fiction fans will make reference to it for many years to come. Perhaps the series may be revived on the SciFi channel if NBC decides not to pick the show up again? In any case there's so much trash on television, just turn on MTV for example, that it's a sad thing to watch a good series like Journeyman suffer such an ignoble fate.


Journeyman - Christopher Warren as Neal Gaines

Journeyman Quote:

"Stories don't stress me out, deadlines - maybe".

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