Pilot Review: Journeyman

Journeyman
NBC. Mondays at 10
Cast: Kevin McKidd, Moon Bloodgood, Brian Howe, Gretchen Egolf, Reed Diamond

I must say that Journeyman perplexes me. I may even be flummoxed by it. Because, you see, for the first, oh, 35 minutes or so, I was completely and totally lost. I mean, the first three quarters of this pilot are ridiculously confusing. Almost as confusing as how Cavemen got picked up for a season. But suddenly, when those final 10 minutes came on, well, I think everything kind of kicked into place. And suddenly, I thought, “Well, what do you know? This show’s actually pretty good.”

And it is. The show has a whole bunch of good working for it. First off, it’s premise, that a man jumps back and forth in time trying to manage his own life and avert catastrophes in others’ lives is nifty. I mean, I understand this is basically a variation on the idea of Quantum Leap, but I still like it. Secondly, you have the pretty awesome Kevin McKidd as your lead. I loved Rome and think it’s entirely too bad that it was cancelled after two seasons, because I could have watched many more of the exploits of Lucius Vorenus, Titus Pullo, Atia, et al. McKidd rocked on that show, especially with his turn from the good guy in season one to his absolutely awesome Son of Hades psycho in season two. And he’s pretty good here too, despite me really wishing he kept his British accent, since his American one sounds a bit off. The rest of the cast seems alright as well, but this really is McKidd’s show and he rocks. Thirdly, you have those last 10 minutes where everything comes together, and those ten minutes are pretty freaking good, because that’s when McKidd takes full grasp of what he’s doing and why he’s time jumping.

That’s not to say that this isn’t a flawed show, it most certainly is. Remember those first 35 minutes I was talking about where I didn’t have a clue as to what was going on? Well, there’s a good chance that Journeyman is gonna hemorrhage viewers during that time. Because, frankly, I was getting pretty fed up with the show and was hoping that they’d get around to explaining what the hell was going on. But the biggest problem the show has (and I guess this is tied into those first 35 minutes being bad) is the whole storyline (or lack thereof) between Dan (McKidd) and Livia (Bloodgood). We get little teases and hints as to their past, but we’re never told exactly what the case was with them, and it’s a little infuriating, especially when SPOILER ALERT she randomly pops up and may be a time jumper as well, even though we’ve been told that she’s dead, but now maybe she’s not. That whole storyline is confusing and I think confused as to what the hell its supposed to be. I mean, are we supposed to want Dan and Livia to get back together (they used to be). Doesn’t that kind of conflict with the whole Dan is trying to save his marriage and family even though he’s time jumping storyline? Lastly, I get that NBC is trying to turn their Monday night into Sci-fi ish shows (With the combo of Chuck, Heroes, and this), but man, this show seems mismatched with those two. In fact, I think all three shows are mismatched with one another. I guess this kind of works with Heroes, but this and Chuck don’t really get along. There’s a whole lot that needs to be sorted out before this show can really hit it’s full potential evidenced in those last ten minutes. Man, those ten minutes were good. I mean, not like really good, but good enough that this show, despite being utterly confusing for a majority, gets the rating

Rating: Definitely Worth Another Viewing

PS: Moon Bloodgood’s name is freakin’ awesome.