Timeless
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- November
- 13
You know how on the soaps everyone is a brain surgeon or a district attorney except that the characters seem to spend all their time in designer bedrooms having sex or fancy restaurants pretend-eating? Everyone has a career, but no one actually, well, works — kind of essential in a high-powered career.
Those who bemoan the lack of career realism on the tube should check out NBC’s “Journeyman,” which has taken the current crisis that the print media finds itself in — with dwindling circulation, layoffs, buyouts, etc. — and run it right into a continuing subplot. On last night’s episode, Dan’s editor, Hugh Skillen (Brian Howe), hinted that he should do a particularly good job on his latest crime story. When a suspicious Dan (Kevin McKidd) asked if he should be looking elsewhere, the editor turned a meaningful eye on the poor, unsuspecting food writer. (This was the only unrealistic touch in the scene: If anyone’s going to survive the ax, it’s going to be the food writer, because, let’s face it, everyone has to eat.)
Later, Dan and wife Katie (Gretchen Egolf) celebrated her return to TV reporting: The second income gives them a cushion. And they’re going to need it, what with Dan’s uncontrollable time-traveling on behalf of others and the counterfeit loot he’s mixed up with, thanks to one of his adventures.
Last night’s episode also contained a major revelation about old flame Livia (Moon Bloodgood). She’s actually from the 1940s and traveling forward (whereas Dan’s always traveling backward). The two met in the real 1980s, where she got temporarily stuck. So she did what any woman would do with lots of time to kill: She got an education, got a job as a lawyer, got a man and got a life. She notes, however, that she could not have necessarily done this in the ’40s.
Poignantly, Dan realizes that the fact that she and he are coming from different directions to meet at some point in time means that they were never really meant to be together.
Dan and Livia may be bouncing around the last 60 years, but “Journeyman” is riding the contemporary Zeitgeist.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 at 4:18 pm by Georgette Gouveia.
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I love this show, though I fear I'm in the minority, Nielsen-wise. The strike might actually benefit it, since, despite sweeps, the networks should be reluctant to cut shows they have scripts for.
I loved the twist with Livia and the way they don't shy away from the impacts Dan's "travels" would have on his job and family. Too often sci-fi glosses over such details, whereas Journeyman makes them plot points. It makes for a very realistic take on an albeit unrealistic premise.
Now I just want to know how much that professor is responsible for or involved with Dan's time-traveling.