TDL’s Sports, Wrestling, & Otherwise

This was the first pilot this season I was very torn on. On one hand, I enjoy sci-fi. On the other, I liked this show the first time around when it was called Quantum Leap. Journeyman’s story is thus: one day Dan Vassar (played by Rome’s Kevin McKidd) begins moving backward in time. After a short trip where he gets to relive one of the Niners’ Super Bowl wins, he begins taking trips back in time to visit important points of his target’s life. Dan saves his target from an attempted suicide, saves the mother of his child from having an abortion, and later saves his child life. The first episode deals partially with this storyline and partially with the way Dan’s family deals with his sudden, mysterious tendency to vanish without a trace for two or three days at a time.

And there’s mystery afoot when we discover that his first love, played by Moon Bloodgood, might not be dead like he thought when he sees her moving through the time stream along with him.

• Pros
• At least for the pilot, the storyline of the main character dealing with what’s happening to him and how it affects the people around him is interesting.
• Any reason to see women’s clothes and giant cell phones from the 80s get screen time is fine by me.
• Dan’s a pretty complex character. He’s got a lot of baggage and he’s just untrustworthy enough that everyone thinks he’s either crazy or on a drug binge.
• The pilot told a solid story from top to bottom, including sprinkling in just a touch of what the f*ck to make me want to watch next week.
• The idea of him shifting back and forth through time is interesting. In Quantum Leap, Sam adjusted one major event in his targets life. Quantum Leap’s idea was that single major events shape people’s lives. This one takes in to account that there’s a lot of life left to live after Dr. Beckett leapt away. Also, it addresses one of the major design flaws of the Leap project: Vassar gets to go home. It also doesn’t drop him into a body three days before someone committs suicide. It drops him into the world a few minutes before it happens so he can stop it from happening
• Cons
• Kevin McKidd’s delivery doesn’t really do it for me. Confused, happy, and sad all seems pretty much the same. He should be very confused but doesn’t really convey it.
• An extension of that, Dan Vassar seems to accept his lot in life pretty quickly. I mean, I feel like if I started involuntarily traveling through time to put right what once went wrong it’d take me a little longer to stop being confused.
• This show is being added to an already crowded Monday Night line-up. Between this, Heroes, 24, Monday Night Football, and everything else: I’m afraid it’s going to get lost in the shuffle.

Final Thought: I enjoyed it… I didn’t find myself writing this instead of watching it and I think the story’s interesting enough for now. Upgraded to series recording.