Fall TV: "Journeyman"

The premiere of "Journeyman" this week was reminiscent of a recurring theme, with a slightly modern twist. To me, it seemed like H.G. Wells "The Time Machine", the "Back to the Future" movies, and the old TV series "Quantum Leap" all rolled into one. It was "The Time Machine" without the machine. It was also "Back to the Future" all grown up. And even though the premise seemed almost identical to "Quantum Leap", and almost seemed like a remake of that show, which aired from 1989 to 1993, there was a modern spin to it.

That premise, going back to the past to change events and thus change history, was like the Michael J. Fox movies, and the old TV series. But there is a new twist that is almost reminiscent of a "Twilight Zone" episode. The main character Dan Vasser, played by Scottish actor Kevin McKidd, is clueless. He finds himself in the past and doesn't know how he got there; in fact, at first he doesn't even know it's the past. He is totally freaked when he enters his own home in San Francisco, to find it inhabited by another man, who wields a baseball bat, ready to attack the "intruder". Dan sees a baseball game on the TV and asks what date it is--October 6, 1987. Dan of course knows that something is very wrong.

His wife Katie, played by Gretchen Egolf), knows something is wrong too; Dan has been gone for two days. When he gets back to the present as quickly and inexplicably as he entered the past, Katie is angry and understandably suspicious. Dan's job is in jeopardy, his marriage all but shattered, and he is beyond perplexed. Katie seeks the help of Dan's brother Jack (Reed Diamond). Brian Howe (Hugh Skillen), Dan's boss at the newspaper where Dan has missed a story deadline, is ready to put him in a drug rehab. There is an intervention, but Dan knows he has not abused any substances. He is confused and frightened as everybody else around him. There are edge-of-your-seat subplots: Dan saves a man from suicide in the past and seeks him out in the future to see how it all turned out, and he runs into his ex-fianceé who is supposed to be dead. In the end, he saves the marriage by digging up something he buried in one of his time-warp forays.

Questions still remain. We still don't know exactly what is happening to him. There is no machine or magic sportscar. It is evident that Dan's time travels are not dreams; he is really there. The changes he makes take effect and change the future, which is his present. So far, Dan is not changing world or national history; his interplay is between himself and people in his world, both intimately known to him, and strangers. You get the feeling that the man he saves from suicide could end up being the next U.S. president.

'Journeyman" is everybody's fantasy. Imagine if we could go back to the past and change the outcome of what we are now. For me, battling a debilitating illness, it would be the answer to doing everything I always wanted to do. If only I knew the cause of the ALS/Lou Gehrig's Disease which has changed my life, I could have lived differently. But, alas, there are still outcomes we couldn't have changed, even with the power to travel back in time. If we could, there would be no mistake, indiscretion, or error in judgment that we couldn't go back and erase. Life is a series of decisions, good and bad, that we hopefully learn from and grow wiser. And, given the power to erase them, negates who we are, and the wisdom we glean from them. "Journeyman" lets us continue that fantasy, and I will certainly be tuning in to subsequent episodes.