Note to NBC: Please Don't Cancel Journeyman

The one new fall TV show that I wanted to keep up with this year was Journeyman, and the NBC drama has not disappointed me. Unfortunately, the ratings for Journeyman have dwindled and the show is on the verge of cancellation.

This happens every year to me and my wife. We fall in love with a new show (like Reunion and Invasion) and the network doesn't renew it. I hope the show can be saved, but right now it's not looking good.

I like Journeyman for the same reason I like Medium. It takes an unrealistic premise (in this case, time travel) and applied it to an otherwise normal situation.

The pilot was a home run, as San Francisco reporter Dan Vasser (played by Kevin McKidd) was able to convince his skeptical wife Katie (Gretchen Egolf) that he wasn't cheating on her or relapsing into his gambling problem, but he was actually being propelled backwards through time without his knowledge.

In subsequent episodes, Dan's son and brother eventually learn the secret. Seven-year-old Zack handles it quite well, simply believing that his dad is magic.

The highlight of the series came in the second-to-last episode, when Dan accidentally left a digital camera back in the early 80s. This causes technology to zoom forward, so when Dan returns to the paper, he is astounded by the crazy holograms that he is now supposed to work with every day.

Dan is even more astounded when he comes home to realize that his son Zack has been replaced by a daughter named Caroline. Apparently the new technology misfired on the night Zack was originally conceived, causing Dan to have to return to work. So Katie conceived a girl on a different date. When Dan explains to Katie that he needs to get Zack back, she has a perfect "oh, no, you don't" reaction.

This series of events showed the enormous potential that the series has. Although Dan is careful not to accidentally change events (aside from helping one specific person on each leap through time), anything can happen that could change things drastically in the future.

Here are few issues that I would like to see resolved in future episodes:

1. How is Dan going to continue to keep his newspaper job while jumping back and forth through time?

2. What is the deal with these "tachyon particles" and Professor Elliott Langley? How much does he know about why Dan is jumping through time?

3. Why does Dan always go back in time, while his ex-fiancée Olivia jumps forward?

4. If Dan and Olivia jump through time because they were born when a rare comet passed the Earth, why doesn't it happen to everyone who was born on that day?

5. Who are these mysterious bad guys who may want to use Dan's powers for evil purposes, and how did they find out about his time traveling?

Hopefully, the writers strike will allow fans to get caught up on the show (perhaps on DVD) so it could return and answer these questions. It would be a shame for NBC to give up on such an innovative show.