Of all the networks, NBC seems to be a bit ahead of this technology curve. At least for the upcoming fall season. They’ve made three of the pilots for new shows available in a few different ways. I watched them on my cable system’s On Demand system the other day.
One of those new shows is Journeyman. It focuses on Dan Vasser, a reporter with a bad history who finds himself periodically unstuck in time. The transitions between present and past are random and can strike him at any time. In the past, he has to “fix” things so the present turns out slightly different.
Now, if you’re as avid a TV watcher as I am, you’re already thinking “Hey, that sounds like Quantum Leap.” Or maybe you’re thinking of any number of other time travel shows that have come and gone over the years (like Seven Days or the real classic Time Tunnel). If you were watching shows that got quickly canceled in the middle of last season, you’re immediately going think of Day Break.
The pilot episode was a bit confusing–and that’s a good thing in a show like this. With no clear indication of when a time shift was happening, the audience was brought deep into Vasser’s own feelings of disorientation and confusion. There are some neat ways he discovers he’s slipped back in time, like being in the middle of surfing for info on his cellphone web browser and suddenly having no service.
Overall, the pilot was pretty solid. There’s a good gritty realism to the characters, a feel of realism, even though there is time travel involved. If they focus on that feeling–on that style–the show could last for at least a season, if not more.
Unfortunately, at the very end of the show, they introduced a special effects transition to the time shift. If they go that route, they won’t make it five episodes before they’re canned.
Speaking of time travel shows that didn’t make it far, remember Day Break? There’s a familiar face from that failed show in Journeyman. Moon Boodgood played the girlfriend of Taye Diggs’ time traveling cop in last year’s series. This time around she’s playing the ex-girlfriend of Kevin McKidd’s (fresh off of HBO’s Rome) time traveling reporter.
If this show doesn’t make it, she’s going to get typecast and earn a bad reputation.
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