Journeyman (TV series)

Journeyman
Intertitle
Genre	Science Fiction, Drama
Created by	Kevin Falls
Starring	Kevin McKidd Brian Howe Gretchen Egolf Moon Bloodgood Reed Diamond Charles Wyson
Theme music composer	Amanda Ghost, James Dring, Jody Street
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	8 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Kevin Falls Alex Graves
Running time	42 mins. (approx)
Original release
Network	NBC
Release	September 24, 2007 – present

Journeyman is an American science fiction television drama created by Kevin Falls for 20th Century Fox Television. Falls also serves as an executive producer alongside Alex Graves, who also directed the pilot.

The show premiered on Monday September 24, 2007 at 10/9c following Heroes on NBC. The series stars Kevin McKidd as Dan Vasser, a San Francisco reporter who involuntarily travels through time.

Plot

See also: List of Journeyman episodes

The series centers around Dan Vasser, a normal man who, for an unknown reason, begins jumping back in time. He soon learns that each series of jumps follows the life of a person whose destiny he seems meant to change, although it doesn't always turn out for the better. While in the past, Dan reconnects with Livia Beale, his ex-fiancée, whom he lost in a plane crash. And Dan may find that Livia has a secret life of her own.

Fictional cosmology

Dan's "shifts" through time occur seemingly at random, the only indication of the shift being a slight flash so brief that even Dan himself fails to notice some of the time. Dan appears to have no control over the shifts, though sharp headaches do precede them. The destination date is usually several decades in the past, but as a sequence goes on he usually moves ahead several years at a time - going from the mid-1970s to the 1980s and so on, as Dan alters a specific destiny. Dan can appear in a different place from where he departed, but he seems to limited to the same general area, for instance disappearing in one airplane and reappearing in another thirty years in the past. Dan can also encounter himself in the past.

So far, the shifts only affect Dan, with the exception of small objects in his possession. His personal effects - clothing, mobile phone, etc. - are almost always taken with him. Larger objects do not travel with him; for example, one shift pulls Dan out of a moving car, which proceeds to crash.

When travel into the past occurs, Dan vanishes from the present for a period of time that has no relation to that which he spends in the past (for example, he spends 15 minutes in past, but returns to the present hours later). For some reason, no one ever actually witnesses Dan shift, with the exception of his young son. This creates tensions with his family and co-workers, who wonder what has happened to him when he seems to suddenly disappear, sometimes for days. He was able to resolve some of this to his wife by leaving a time capsule under their patio.

Dan's journeys appear to have an innate purpose, which is not always apparent to him, but involves positively changing the destiny of certain people. Likewise, fate seems to conspire against him if he tries to alter other events beyond his current charge.

Cast and characters

See also: List of Journeyman cast members

• Kevin McKidd as Dan Vasser: A reporter for "The Register," a San Francisco newspaper. Dan is the main protagonist of the series, who discovered that he can shift through time and space, though without any control over it. He has been married to his wife, Katie, for 7 years, and they have a son, Zack. He previously was engaged to Livia Beale before her "death." Dan is recovering from a gambling addiction, which his brother Jack mistakenly suspects is responsible for Dan's disappearances. Following one "mission" into the past, Dan comes into possession of a large sum of money remaining from a robbery, which he's encouraged to retain as "spending money" only for use when traveling in the past.

• Gretchen Egolf as Katie Vasser: Dan's wife and mother of their son Zack. She is the only one in the present who knows what is going on with her husband's time-traveling. Katie was the long-time girlfriend of Dan's brother Jack but after their break-up nine years ago have remained somewhat distant, partly because Katie ended up getting pregnant by Dan and they married soon after. Katie always feels second best to Livia Beale, Dan's presumed deceased ex-fiancée, who she views as the love of his life. At the end of third episode, she finds out that Dan has seen Livia when she discovers a watch inside a jacket left by Dan inadvertently.

• Reed Diamond as Jack Vasser, Dan's brother. Jack, a police detective, is dating Dr. Theresa Sanchez (Lisa Sheridan), but also still has feelings for Katie. A subplot of the first-season arc is Jack's suspicion that Dan has resumed gambling, as evidenced by Jack's investigating of Dan and Katie's credit and bank accounts. The seventh episode begins with Jack playing Monopoly with Zach while babysitting, and Zach leads him the stash of robbery money. Subsequent investigation into one of the bills taken from the stash leads to additional complication by involvement with Federal agent.

• Charles Wyson as Zack Vasser: Dan's son. He is the only one to have seen Dan disappear into the past. Later, he told his father that he thinks it's “cool”, describing it as “your magic”. While playing, Zach finds the bag of robbery money, which he's told is play money and can't be spent.

• Brian Howe as Hugh Skillen, Editor-in-chief of The San Francisco Register, the fictional newspaper where Dan works as a reporter.

• Moon Bloodgood as Livia Beale: Dan's ex-fiancée who was presumed dead after a plane crash where her body was never found, almost ten years before the start of the series. When Dan encounters her in the past, she reveals that she travels through time in the same way that he does. She has only appeared to him in the past, acting as a mentor, giving advice on his interventions in other times. Livia typically appears in the same past time and place as Dan, though she often becomes absent once Dan has figured out how to deal with his present situation. On at least one occasion, she has traveled into Dan's present to assist him, while he was still in the past. Her "home" time was 1948, and her entire relationship with Dan was apparently one prolonged journey, the purpose of which has yet to be revealed. She has said that she returned "home" before the plane crash, but the exact year she lives in currently is unknown.

Production

The pilot episode (as well as other episodes) of the show was made available online (in stereo) on September 5, 2007, and distributed by NBC on a special fall preview DVD to Blockbuster and other retail rental stores.

The show will also be broadcast on Sci Fi Channel, Sky One, Network Ten, Global and KanaalTwee in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Belgium respectively.

Reception

U.S. ratings

• Nielsen rating info is from Your Entertainment Now [1], and weekly rating info is from ABC Medianet [2]

#	Episode	Air Date	Rating	Share	18–49 (Rating/Share)	Viewers (m)	Rank (Overall)
1	"A Love of a Lifetime"	September 24, 2007	5.9	10	3.7/9	9.48	#43
2	"Friendly Skies"	October 1, 2007	5.2	9	3.3/8	8.39	#50
3	"Game Three"	October 8, 2007	4.5	7	3.0/7	6.94	#61
4	"The Year of the Rabbit"	October 15, 2007	4.5	7	2.9/7	7.00	#67
5	"The Legend of Dylan McCleen"	October 22, 2007	4.0	6	2.5/6	6.28	#72
6	"Keepers"	October 29, 2007	3.8	6	2.4/6	5.93	#71
7	"Double Down"	November 5, 2007	3.4	6	2.1/6	5.25	TBA

See also

• Quantum Leap, a series about a scientist who is guided by an unseen force to alter historical events toward good outcomes.
• The Time Traveler's Wife, a novel by Audrey Niffenegger in which the main character suffers from an almost identical condition.
• The Journeyman Project, an adventure computer game series by Presto Studios featuring time-travel and solving temporal anomalies.
• Slaughterhouse Five, a novel by Kurt Vonnegut, features a character who continually jumps from time to time in his own life, reliving his experiences but unable to change them.
• Day Break, another time-travel TV series also starring Moon Bloodgood.
• Seven Days, a time-travel TV series about an NSA agent who regularly travels back seven days into the past using a time machine in order to prevent large-scale disasters.

External links

• Official website at NBC