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	11 (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 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 backwards in time. He soon learns that each series of jumps follows the life of a person whose destiny he seems meant to change. Dan's jumping affects his family life with his wife and son, his job as a reporter, and instills suspicion in his brother, a police detective. While in the past, Dan reconnects with his ex-fiancée, whom he believed was killed in a plane crash, but is actually a traveler like him.

Fictional cosmology

Dan's "shifts" through time occur seemingly at random, the only indication he has to an oncoming jump is a feeling in his head which varies from right before he jumps to several seconds of warning. Dan appears to have no control over the shifts. The first jump is typically several decades into the past; through a series of jumps, he jumps nearer to the present, usually years at a time.

The jumps manifest themselves with a small blue flash and a ripple as Dan appears to vanish from the present, and appear instantly in the past. He is missing from the present for a period of time unrelated to the period he spends in the past. His disappearances and reappearances are rarely witnessed by anyone else; it is unclear if this is a factor in his jumps, or merely coincidence. Dan does not arrive in the same location he departed, but instead arrives near the person who he is supposed to help. His jumps seem restricted to the San Francisco area.

Dan's journeys appear to each have an innate purpose, which is not always apparent to him, but involves positively changing the destiny of a certain person. Likewise, fate seems to conspire against him if he tries to alter other events beyond his current charge. Alterations Dan makes to the timeline affect the present and the memories of everyone in it. His own memories, however, are unaltered, and he recalls events as they originally occurred before his interference.

Dan is not alone in his ability. His ex-fiancée Livia, thought to have been killed in a plane crash, actually travelled back to her "home time" of 1948, from where she jumps forwards in time. Dan meets Livia on his jumps into the past, as she jumps into her future to offer her experience and assistance with Dan's missions.

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, though without any control over it. He has been married to his wife, Katie, for 7 years, and they have a son, Zack. He was previously engaged to Livia Beale before her disappearance in a plane crash. Dan is a recovered gambling addict.

• Gretchen Egolf as Katie Vasser, Dan's wife and mother of their son Zack. She is the only one in the present who knows about her husband's time-traveling. Katie was the long-time girlfriend of Dan's brother Jack. Since their break-up nine years ago, the two have remained somewhat distant; partly because Katie ended up getting pregnant by Dan and they married soon after. Before marrying Dan, Katie was a television reporter. In response to cutbacks at the Register, and Dan's travelling, Katie returns to television to ensure a stable income for the family.

• 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. Dan tells Jack about his time travelling in the pilot, but Jack does not believe him. He subsequently forms a number of misconceptions about Dan's disappearances and apparent irresponsibility, including the suspicion that Dan has resumed gambling. He procedes to secretly use his police resources to investigate Dan's life.

• Charles Wyson as Zack Vasser, Dan's son. He is the only one to have seen Dan disappear into the past, believing his father to have "magic" powers.

• Brian Howe as Hugh Skillen, Editor-in-chief of The San Francisco Register and Dan's boss and friend.

• Moon Bloodgood as Livia Beale, Dan's ex-fiancée who was presumed dead after a plane crash nearly ten years before the start of the series. It is revealed that she is actually a traveller from 1948 who jumps into the future. After not being able to jump home, she was stuck in Dan's present and adapated to life there, where she began a legal career and fell in love with Dan, only to finally jump back home while on the plane. She now jumps to the same times that Dan visits and offers him advice and assistance in his missions.

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	#80
8	"Winterland"	November 12, 2007	4.0	7	2.4/6	6.08	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
• Petition to NBC to Save Journeyman from Cancellation