Journeyman: Fellow traveler

Spoilers for the final episode of "Journeyman" coming up just as soon as I figure out where Livia hides her cell phone in 1948...

Damn. Just about the only good to come from the writers strike was NBC's willingness to air all 13 episodes of this ratings catastrophe. "Journeyman" got markedly better as it moved along, the producers saw the writing on the wall early enough to make something resembling a proper series finale, and the thing actually aired all the way through. In a normal season, cancellation comes somewhere around the Dylan McCleen episode (right before the writers started to figure things out).

"Perfidia" had the same strike-induced raggedness as Monday's episode -- there were a lot of jarring narrative jumps, notably the revelation that Evan had been shot by Vogel's bodyguards -- but once again, the emotions were right on. The missions always worked best when there was a personal stake for Dan, so having him help another time traveler -- and, as it turns out, the man whose death led to Dan's own time-hopping -- was a good call. And because we'd just seen the danger of monkeying too much with the past with the Zach/Caroline switcheroo on Monday, it was much easier to get into the pathos of Evan's story. The dance scene was the first time in the whole series where I cared as much about Dan's target as I did about Dan and his family. (There was almost a "Cupid" vibe to that sequence, I thought.)

Between Evan's chatter and Dr. Langley's elevator conversation with Dan (which confirmed, as I suspected, that he was just lying to protect Dan the other night), we got about as much explanation of Dan's predicament as was possible -- and, for that matter, necessary. I don't know that I ever needed to know exactly who or what was controlling the trips, because the show wasn't about that. It was about the time traveler himself, and his wife, and the last two scenes (Katie giving Dan permission to keep traveling, and Dan waking Katie so she could finally see him disappear) beautifully brought that point home.

(My one and only disappointment is that Langley didn't explain how he was able to call Dan in the past, but it was such a cool moment at the time that I'll forgive the non-explanation.)

Godspeed, Dan Vasser, whenever you are.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Journeyman: I turn my camera on

An actual original episode of a network series I watch in late December? Is that allowed? I guess it is if the show's been canceled. Spoilers for the penultimate episode of "Journeyman" coming up just as soon as I throw out all my red turtlenecks...

I have to assume that this was shot after the strike began, because "The Hanged Man" felt like a first or second draft. The idea of Dan accidentally making significant changes to both the world at large and his own family was a very cool one -- about time Dan experienced the butterfly effect -- and I loved Kevin McKidd and Gretchen Egolf's performances in the Dan/Katie emotional tug of war about their child of variable gender, but too much of the episode needed polishing.

Almost all of the dialogue from Dan's trips to the past seemed like placeholders -- "I saved your life," "Thank you for saving my life!" "Son, it's the man who saved our life!" "Oh, thanks for saving our life" -- waiting for someone to take another pass through the script. Really, the entire mission was just an excuse to make Dan deal with the Zach/Caroline issue; in later drafts, I imagine it either would have been punched up or those scenes would have been cut even shorter to focus on the real heart of the episode.

As for that heart, Zach vs. Caroline is one of those time-travel dilemmas that's more than theoretical. Dan's got a living, breathing, very sweet little girl staring him in the face, but he's also the only one who remembers the living, breathing, very sweet little boy who's supposed to be there. He knows Katie's never going to remember this daughter -- not that this is any consolation to Nanotech Katie -- but he's still making a choice to erase this girl from existence. (There are also countless other changes in the Nanotech timeline he's erasing, but this show has been at its best when it focuses on personal matters directly affecting the Vasser family.) That's a hard choice -- even if it's one Dan knew he had to make, if only to appease The Powers That Be who sent him to save that kid's life in the first place -- and McKidd did his best work of the series in playing those scenes.

Jack investigating the late FBI agent was interesting, but what do you suppose was up with Dr. Langley? Did Dan inadvertently change something else about the timeline by letting the corporate espionage lady get killed, or was Langley simply pretending not to recognize him because the security guy was there? (Their previous encounters have either been one-on-one or in places away from where Langley works.) One episode to go, and I'm hoping we at least get an answer to how Langley was able to call Jack while he was in the past.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Journeyman: Christmas with Dad

Spoilers for "Journeyman" coming up just as soon as I find a black sweater that I can wear in any era...

And we're back! After a week off to try "Life" in this timeslot, "Journeyman" resurfaced, and it looks like the last two episodes will air next week (one on Monday as usual, the other in the "Life" timeslot Wednesday at 10). So there will be closure of some kind.

Another solid episode. The decision to include some kind of personal stake in every mission was a wise choice. I don't know if it's something that could be accomplished were the show to run five years ("Honey, you'll never believe who I ran into while I was back in 1983. It was my second cousin Frank!"), but in the short term it's made the time travel a lot more interesting than it was in the first few episodes. The trip back to the newsroom's '79 Christmas party was doubly important for Dan, as it gave him a chance to slightly alter his own history with his dad (more on that in a second) as well as a chance to save his job and other people's in the present.

Not sure I loved the blackmail resolution, though. Times are tough in journalism, and real newspapers everywhere are laying people off, regardless of who's in charge; can Dan really hold that secret over the publisher's head in perpetuity? And what's to stop the publisher from admitting that he was in the room while denying that he waited to call for help?

(Also, on a more nitpicky, Gen X-centric level, it was strange to see Robert Pine play the publisher in 2007 and the very shady-looking Anthony Starke play him in 1979, when any "CHiPs" fan worth his salt knows that Pine looked like this in '79. I'm guessing there's not a lot of "CHiPs"/"Journeyman" crossover audience.)

As for Dan and his father, what interested me wasn't so much that Dan was able to change something about his own life without personal consequence. Rather, I was struck by the fact that Dan didn't remember the revised timeline, even after he came back. The show has suggested this before -- Dan remember a conversation with Jack that he later erased from the timeline -- but never this directly. Some time travel stories adopt the theory that if you change the past, you only remember the events you experienced in the unaltered timeline ("Back to the Future"), while others suggest you either remember the new version only or somehow remember both ("Frequency").

Even though Jack is now openly helping Dan with research on his trips, it's interesting that Dan chose not to explain the role he played in their dad's confession. On the one hand, it might have been something they could have bonded over. On the other hand, this is ancient history as far as Jack is concerned; learning the truth behind it all these years later could freak him out, re-open the old wounds, maybe even resent or mistrust Dan again. If you're Dan there, what would you have done?

Finally, we got our first glimpse of Livia's life in 1948 -- and, conveniently, her period dress didn't look too out of place at a disco party. Here's something I wonder about Livia that I doubt the show will have time to address before it runs out of episodes: when she would travel into the '80s and '90s for long stretches to attend college and law school and to date Dan, was she gone for equally long periods in the past, or did she return not long after she left but much older? Either way, I imagine her life back then was a lot more complicated than Dan's is now -- though, as she explained a few episodes back, her trips got longer and longer over time, just as Dan's might if the show were to continue.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Journeyman: Sbarge saves

Spoilers for Monday night's "Journeyman" coming up just as soon as I buy an iPhone...

Reading the Nielsen tea leaves is supposed to be part of my job description, but I'm damned if I can figure out what Monday's numbers -- which, thanks in part to one of the worst "Monday Night Football" games ever, were up from the previous week but still terrible compared to "Chuck" and "Heroes" -- mean for the future of "Journeyman." Two more episodes are in the can, with the second one designed to provide some measure of closure in the event of cancellation, and I have no idea whether NBC will air either one. Yes, they promised that the show will be back in two weeks, but what if the already back-nined "Life" does significantly better in its Monday tryout next week? Given Hulu and other on-line methods of distribution, I imagine the other episodes will be available in some form, and there remains that slim chance that the strike could disrupt pilot season enough that even a charity case like "Journeyman" might get a small pick-up for next season, but I also wouldn't be shocked if "Blowback" was the last hour to air on the NBC television network.

And, if so, this wasn't a bad note to end on. No, we still have no clue about The Powers That Be's origins or motivations, but Jack has now been brought into the fold, Dan has learned the consequences of going off-mission, and Bennett did Dan the solid of killing that nosy FBI agent. Answers are always preferable, but we're at a good equilibrium point for the concept and characters now.

(Speaking of the FBI agent, how chilling was the moment where he starts ignoring Jack to mutter to himself about how "they" always need currency, implying -- as tachyon expert Dr. Langley suggested a few weeks ago -- there are always powerful men trying to track down and exploit time travelers?)

Raphael Sbarge did a good job in a showy role, playing convincingly nuts without chewing (much of) the scenery. Katie's been a problematic character for the show, but I pin that more on the writing than on Gretchen Egolf, whose fear in the apron/sandwich scene was very well done.

I kept wondering how far TPTB were going to let Dan go in his mission with the young Bennett. Would they, for instance, let him save Bennett as a kid and in turn undo the events of the previous episode and get adult Bennet out of his house? That might have been interesting, but would once again have led to a status quo reset. Jack needed to be in on the loop already, and I loved Reed Diamond's performance in the scene where Jack sees Livia across the newsroom.

(Also, had Dan rescued young Bennett, what would it mean for either of the girls Dan saved last week?)

I don't know that "Journeyman" ever has it in it to be a great show, but it's been solidly entertaining for the last five episodes or so. If it's done, I'll miss it but I don't think I'll mourn it, you know?

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Chuck and Life get the back nine (or whatever)

Hot off the e-presses, from NBC:

NBC has picked up the freshman dramas "Chuck" (Mondays, 8-9 p.m. ET) and "Life" (Wednesdays, 10-11 p.m. ET) for nine more episodes -- or the balance of the 2007-08 season -- it was announced today by Ben Silverman, Co-Chairman, NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios.

If the strike goes on and on, a back nine is moot, but as the release says, these two shows will get to make as many episodes as any other show with a full season order if/when the strike ends.

We all know that "Bionic Woman" is basically dead (expensive, constant backstage turmoil, nobody much likes it), so that just leaves "Journeyman" among NBC rookies with an undecided fate. That show's creator says the final episode they produced will provide some level of closure, which is something.

Don't know whether the announcement suggests real progress was made today in the WGA/AMPTP negotiations, or simply that NBC had to make decisions around now to avoid losing their options on the casts, producers, etc., but as I like both shows, I'm pleased. Click here to read the full post

Missing girls, extraordinary freelancers and old crushes

I haven't done too many multi-show entries this season, since some people complain about them and they generally draw fewer comments than the posts for single shows. But every now and then, I just don't have enough time or energy to devote multiple paragraphs to a show, or I come to it so late after it airs that it feels like the conversation's already come and gone. It's why I haven't blogged about "Grey's Anatomy" in weeks, for instance; I don't get to them until Saturday or Sunday, and by then, nobody cares.

Still, every now and then I want to touch quickly on some shows I've missed, or make room for a show I wouldn't have time to write about otherwise. So before I get back to writing my post-Thanksgiving columns, some brief thoughts on, in order, "Journeyman," "The Simpsons," "Grey's Anatomy" and, of all things, "ER," after the jump...

Things continue to get interesting on "Journeyman," as Dan decides to defy the "rules" by going after the pedophile kidnapper -- and, for whatever reason, the time travel gods decide, after a while, to let him do it instead of zapping him back to the present whenever he starts to go off-mission -- we get our first major instance of Dan rewriting the timeline in a way that directly affects him (by erasing all the progress he'd made with Jack), and Father Phil of the FBI gets the very bright idea to study the search history on Dan's iPhone. And after being a willing, almost enthusiastic accomplice the last few episodes, Katie is (rightly) back to thinking Dan's new side job is a tremendous imposition on their family. Looking forward to seeing where all this goes -- and, given the time travel milieu, a scenario where Dan gets to hit the cosmic reset button so the FBI stops looking for him wouldn't be such an annoying thing.

For the first act of this week's "Simpsons," I was in comic book geek heaven. A "Death of Aquaman" joke? A "Watchmen Babies" joke? Alan Moore, Daniel Clowes and Art Spiegelman (in Maus mask!) showing off super physiques and powers? Jack Black as an awesomely stereotypical hipster geek (complete with CD of ironic Korean Tom Jones covers)? All of it splendid... and then the episode made a sharp right turn and forgot about the comic book story altogether.

The "Simpsons" writers have been using the first act as a kind of self-contained red herring story for almost a decade, but this felt like one of the most abrupt shifts they've done. Usually Lisa or someone makes a meta comment late in the episode about how weird it was that they started out buying a funeral plot for Grandpa and instead wound up playing tennis against the Williams sisters, but here the fate of Comic Book Guy was left up in the air -- as was, for the matter, the status of Marge's super-successful chain of women's gyms.

And yet, despite being a strange, completely disjointed episode without even the usual token nods to continuity (say, a throwaway line at the end about how the gym chain went bust), this was a really funny episode even when the nerds went away. It's the second or third time now that Marge has gone on a fitness kick (I loved the steroid episode), but I got a big kick out of her shame at working in a gym for cool people -- complete with O.K. Go treadmill parody -- and especially at the Oprah spoof. ("When are you and Straightman getting married?" "You get a German cuckoo clock! And you get a German cuckoo clock! Everybody's getting a German cuckoo clock!") By the time they got to all of Homer's weird plastic surgeries, the episode went off a cliff, but even there there was a nice recovery with a fairly heartfelt discussion of why Marge is still with Homer. We've had the same conversation a few dozen times over the years, but when you're on this long, what are you gonna do?

"Grey's Anatomy" has been finding its groove again of late. The Lexie/Meredith relationship has added an interesting color to the show without stacking the deck in either character's favor. The Callie/Bailey chief resident switch should hopefully restore the dignity of both. Justin Chambers has convincingly begun to assert himself as a leading man type now that the writers are giving Karev more to do. Brooke Smith is welcomely bitchy in a way that evokes early Addison without directly copying her. Best of all, the current developments in the George and Izzie romance, while not redeeming either character, suggests that the writers have finally recognized what a dumb idea this was. (And if this was the plan all along, boy did they need a third-party character -- Cristina -- to point out early and often how they didn't seem like they'd work as a couple.)

This latest episode hit on Shonda's pet theme of how her characters (and/or their creator) have never really escaped high school. On the one hand, I'm tired of this worldview and wish that at least one of the regulars could let go of their adolescence. On the other, it's what "Grey's Anatomy" has really always been about, and Shonda's a lot better at, say, showing Bailey fawn over her high school crush than she is at writing big disaster episodes. (Of course, that's what it looks like the next two episodes will be. Sigh...) I really like what they've done with Thatcher Grey and how Lexie's situation mirrors Meredith's own, not that Meredith can see it, and I enjoyed that girl from "The Nanny" much better here as a teen outcast than I did when she was shoving her boobs in David Duchovny's face on "Californication."

Finally, "ER." Hey, remember "ER"? Every now and then, I get a compulsion to check back in on the gang at County General before giving up a few weeks later because I've seen all these stories a million times before with characters I had greater attachments to. With the show approaching 300 episodes (which will probably merit a column of some kind), it's been once more unto the breach the last few episodes, and... I haven't hated it. Really like parts of it, in fact.

The focus has been on Abby, who's the longest-running character and someone who, back when I was watching more steadily, vascillated between my favorite character and someone whose scenes I reflexively fast-forwarded through. (Oddly appropriate, given her family's history of bi-polar disorder, though I don't think the writers intend for me to have that reaction to her.) Maura Tierney has been acting the hell out of this story arc, in which Abby fell off the wagon and -- in a moment that felt exra-shocking because of how casually it was presented -- into the bed of the new ER chief. (Played by Stanley Tucci as if no one ever told him "3 lbs." had been canceled.) Alcoholic characters hitting bottom is a TV cliche, but it's being handled here in a matter-of-fact, quietly devastating manner.

A lot of the newer characters go by in a blur for me (though I'm glad Linda Cardellini went back to being a brunette; a much better look for her), but that may be part of the point. There was a funny meta joke a couple of episodes ago where Chuny, one of the few characters who've been with the show since the beginning, notes how much the ER has changed since the days Mark Greene and Doug Ross ran the place, and one of the newer nurses asked, "Who?" The show's been on so long that I'm sure a good chunk of the audience had the same reaction to that line. As with "The Simpsons," it's hard not to keep repeating old stories, but because there's been so much turnover in both the cast and the audience, they're still getting away with it. Whether this is the last season or not (John Wells was negotiating for one more before the strike began), I may have been sucked back in unti the end -- or at least through the upcoming Jeannie Boulet guest arc.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Journeyman: Take a shower, hippie!

Brief spoilers for "Journeyman" coming up just as soon as I get some change...

On the episodic side of things, "Journeyman" takes a step back from recent episodes, as Dan travels back to the early '70s for a lesson in cliches: a key party, Nixon resigning and hippies gone violent. (Though the Nixon thing did lead to the nice moment where Dan tells Katie he spent his time at the key party talking to Livia and watching TV.) Not since episode two's porno-plane and "INTERNET EROTICA CONVENTION" sign has the show been this unsubtle about Dan's trips back.

On the arc side of things, though, things continue to get interesting with the revelation that Livia's from 1948 and always travels forward in time, not back. I'm trying to figure out the mechanics of how a woman from the '40s managed to credential herself enough to become a lawyer in the far more bureaucratic, record-conscious '80s and '90s, not to mention why she's such a pro about out-of-date currency and the like when it never would have been an issue for her, not to mention why her clothes always look so modern when presumably she's just arrived unexpectedly from her home time the way Dan has, but the larger idea is cool. At least, it would be if the show were going to be around long enough to explain it all, which I doubt it will.

Also, I keep waiting for the Time Travel Gods to offer Dan a solution to his FBI problem, the same way they gave him Dylan McCleen in the first place to help him with his old currency problem. When the camera panned to all the bloody cash on the floor of the liquor store, I assumed that would in some way fix things, but the scene in the present with Jack spending the $20 from evidence would suggest not. (Also, did I completely miss the spot where it was explained how Katie hid the money from the feds and somehow got it into Dan's jacket?)

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Journeyman: Dan vs. Dan

I haven't written about "Journeyman" in a few weeks, which is unfortunate, since the show has gotten better. Spoilers coming up just as soon as I order "La Vida Loca" from iTunes...

The strike has been an odd ally for "Journeyman." With ratings like this, it would almost certainly have been yanked by now, never to return, but with the networks desperate to stretch out whatever original scripted content they have for as long as possible, struggling shows like "Journeyman" and "Life" will probably get to air 10 or 11 episodes. At the same time, though, the chaos that's going to be created by what everyone assumes will be a long strike means that a show like this has no real shot at starting up again whenever the strike is over.

If the show had been canceled three or four episodes in as it might have any other year, I wouldn't have cared, but now it's become just good enough that I'm going to be disappointed when the originals run out.

High concept shows often run into what I call the Premise Pilot Problem, where so much time in the first episode has to be devoted to explaining what's happening that there's no time to have any fun with it. "Journeyman" needed several episodes to get past that issue, but there came a point -- I want to say in the episode that began with Dan waking up in the church with a pipe wrench in his hand -- where Dan and the show began treating his time trips as a fact of life, and the show's been much better for it. A Dan who knows what he's doing is a much better character than one who stands around slack-jawed or has to spend time trying to convince his wife what's happening to him, and we've had some cool treats along the way like the Livermore scientist returning Dan's call while he was still in the past.

The stories of the people who Dan "tracks" are still hit-or-miss, but I've found myself involved in the Vasser marriage, which made an episode like "Double Down" so strong, since it abandoned the Victim of the Week a quarter of the way in to focus entirely on Dan, Livia, Katie and Dan again, with a dash of Jack here and there.

Last week's episode finally had Dan come right out and ask the standard reporter questions of Livia, and had her explain that she's as in the dark as he is, which removes the distraction factor from the scenes where they talk about their relationship and about his present circumstances. And just when I was wondering why, other than for dramatic purposes, Livia got sent to retrieve the money instead of Dan, Dan wound up saving the Victim a second time, which wouldn't have happened if he'd gone for the money. The internal logic is feeling stronger each week.

What did everybody else think? And given that we're probably never going to get answers to the series' big questions, anyone care to offer their own theories? Click here to read the full post

A case of the Wednesdays

Okay, I'm feeling seriously underwhelmed here. I've now gone through almost all of the hellacious amount of new series that are airing on Wednesday nights (I'm about a third of the way through "Dirty Sexy Money"), and outside of the previously-blogged "Pushing Daisies," nothing especially wowed me and yet nothing made me rush to change the channel. Hell, the best thing I watched all day may have been the last 20 minutes of Monday's "Journeyman" that had been sitting on the DVR. So really brief thoughts on what I've seen, and feel free to comment on any of those plus things I missed ("Kid Nation," the Fox comedies, whatever). Spoilers ho for, in order, "Journeyman," "Bionic Woman," "Private Practice," "Life," "Gossip Girl" and "America's Next Top Model"...

"Journeyman": I'm glad that the writers are giving the show a sense of humor as Dan gets accustomed to the complexities of involuntary time travel, and I'm starting to feel a bit invested in the Dan/Katie marriage. But by far the coolest thing in the episode -- really, the coolest thing in all four episodes -- was the tachyon expert calling Dan while he was still in the past. I don't know that the show will be around long enough for Dany to explore his condition the way Henry in "Time Traveler's Wife" did, but that one moment put a big smile on my face.

"Bionic Woman": Meh. M-E-H, meh. Sister angst bores me, the spark of personality they gave Jamie last week was gone at the expense of a contrived thriller plot with iffy fight and stunt choreography (I'm already tired of the one punch/block combo that Michelle Ryan knows), but the Sarah Corvus/Jae stuff remains worth my attention.

"Private Practice": Outside of the continued dishrag-ification of Addison, there's nothing as egregiously bad here as a lot of the messes Shonda has made on "Grey's," but has there been anything remotely as compelling as "Grey's" when it's good? The attempt to turn Hooper and Violet into a slightly older George and Izzie is disappointing (what's so wrong with the occasional rock-solid male/female platonic friendship?), but at least they're doing it early so we won't have to rewrite history later, and at least there's no adultery in the mix.

"Life": I'm always happy to see William Sanderson (beloved as both Larry of Larry, Darryl and Darryl and as E.B. Farnum) working, and I have to admit that Crews and his quirks are growing on me. Not enough to keep me fully alert during all the twists and turns of the murder case, but enough to stick around a while longer.

"Gossip Girl": Several improvements over last week: Chuck and Tiny Archibald were absent and completely unmissed, Dan stops acting like a superior prig, and Blair is back to being queen bitch after last week's softer side. (I particularly liked her improvisation during the jailbreak from the Dawn Ostroff Memorial In-Joke Clinic.) Still makes me feel like a very old man while I watch, though.

"America's Next Top Model": Looks like Heather's getting more comfortable around the other hamsters, based on her very blunt and accurate critiques of each of them, and she also provided some nice comic relief with her klutziness (which may or may not be Asperger's-related) on the ice. Bianca had been growing on me as kind of a Fun Bitch the last few weeks, but her shredding of Lisa after Lisa came back from the bonus photo shoot was more the nasty, please go home soon (not that she will) kind. It's interesting how those two are the only ones to consistently stand out in terms of screen time (in addition to whoever the bottom two is each week); foreshadowing the finale, or just the editors playing up the two most compelling "characters"?

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Vacation, all I ever wanted

Spoilers for, in order, "Heroes," "Journeyman" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" coming up just as soon as I call a limo...

How boring was "Heroes" last night? So much so that I vastly preferred the episode of "Journeyman" that followed it. (Though, in fairness, it was a decent episode of "Journeyman." More in a minute.) The new characters range from repetitively dull (Maya and Alejandro, who are now 3-for-3 in plots where they're temporarily split up, though at least here Maya actively decided to use her powers) to completely annoying (West the flyer, the Lucky Charms gang). The stories are moving at a snail's pace, typified by Peter getting the magic ID box but refusing to open it, largely because it gives the writers an excuse to keep him off the board as long as they possibly can.

The only real highlight -- other than, as Fienberg joked to me this morning, Parkman and Mohinder coming out of the closet as Molly's two gay daddies -- was the return of Sylar and the news of his apparent depowering. I said last year that he had reached a point where the writers needed to find a way to shake loose most of his acquired abilities because he was too powerful for them to write interestingly. (The season finale was proof of that.) So I hope that he's really back to ground zero, in need of acquiring an entirely new batch of powers, rather than having his talents temporarily repressed. And I definitely hope that he was unsuccessful in picking up Candace's illusion-casting powers, as they became really annoying in the last third of season one, giving the writers a Get Out of Scene Free card by allowing Candace to appear anywhere as anyone. (The power did give them an excuse to keep the character around briefly despite the loss of Missi Peregrym, and the writers finally pulled the trick they should have in the season finale by showing us, sort of, what Candace really looked like. If you want, fanwank it as the default illusion being so powerful that it can work even when she's unconscious, but not when she's dead.)

"Journeyman," like I said, was halfway decent. I don't know that it's a show I'd watch every week, but Dan's mission -- and the complications generated by its setting -- was a lot more interesting than the first two. Having to change something small while ignoring a big event is a familiar trope of this kind of show, but it's something "Journeyman" had to do at some point, and Dan's failure to save Hugh's sister illustrated some of the limits of what he can do. (If the guy playing Hugh wasn't a regular, though, it would have been a lot more interesting if Dan had saved the sister and then returned to the present to discover that he had a new boss, because Hugh was still a drunk without his sister's death as a wake-up call.)

That said, making him a reporter was a mistake, because there's no way a guy who's supposed to be a topnotch investigative journalist would be spending this much time with Livia without constantly badgering her with questions about the who, what, when, where, why and how of their "traveling" -- especially now that he's adjusted to the situation. I know I harp on this a lot with Jack and The Others on "Lost," but this is even worse, because it's the thing Dan is trained to do. That doesn't mean the writers have to make Livia spell everything out for us by episode four, just that there need to be reasons for Dan to not ask (i.e., his target shows up or Livia disappears as he's in the middle of a query) or for Livia to not answer (even "I don't know" or "I'm not allowed to tell you yet" would suffice). The ratings are lousy enough that I suspect this is a moot point, but if the show were to be around long-term, it would bug me.

Finally, that's two bad "Curb Your Enthusiasm"s in a row. This one was, I guess, partially redeemed by the sight of Larry and John McEnroe -- Larry's equivalent in the world of tennis -- screaming at each other outside the party, but the rest was a mess. The internal logic didn't work at all. I understand Larry wanting to help out the limo driver -- he got into trouble for something similar in the episode where he took a fork out of the restaurant -- but why invite him into Ted's house? Why not bring him a book or something else to help the guy pass the time? Why would McEnroe tolerate all of Larry's questions instead of just shutting the divider? Why on Earth would McEnroe invite Larry into the party after that fiasco at the cemetary? Etc. When "Curb" works, it's because you understand why people are behaving the way that they do, even though they're being ridiculous. This was just a lot of forced wackiness.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Wiener-iffic

Spoilers for the second episodes of "Chuck" and "Journeyman" coming up just as soon as I boot up my old Apple IIe for a game of Choplifter...

Many regime changes ago, someone in NBC research did a study claiming that even the most devoted fans of TV shows watch, on average, only half the episodes that air each year. The executives change, but that one theory stuck, and so many decisions at the network are made with it in mind: airing episodes out of order because they think no one will notice, or making producers of new series thematically repeat large chunks of the pilot episode with show two just in case people weren't paying attention or newbies waited a week to sample.

There's a little of that going on with "Journeyman" (more below), and a whole lot with "Chuck," where the second episode is basically an extra pilot episode. We get more of Chuck unsure of his loyalty to Sarah, Casey, or both; so much talk about "secrets" that I hope to God Josh Schwartz has the word banned from all future scripts (it wouldn't be half as annoying if they changed it up now and then, or stuck to a more official-sounding phrase like "classified intel" or whatever); an A-story designed to explain why the government can't just extract all the secrets (grr...) from Chuck's brain, etc. It's not really until the third episode that the series proper gets going -- which somebody in NBC promo agrees with, given how many of the "Chuck" ads during last night's Giants-Eagles game featured scenes from episode three versus this one.

That said, I appreciate what's going on here, especially after watching the "Bionic Woman" pilot. While the tones of each show are polar opposites, the basic substance is the same -- ordinary person gifted with superhuman powers and forced against their will to work for shadowy government types -- and yet the series that's actually taking the time to hit all the emotional buttons on the journey is the goofy comedy and not the dark drama. "Bionic Woman" just zipped past almost all of its lead's reactions to almost dying, losing her baby, turning bionic, having to work for Miguel Ferrer, etc., and if "Chuck Versus the Helicopter" is occasionally repetitive and maybe a shade too frantic (particularly the farcical dinner scene), at least it's trying to help you understand and care about its hero's feelings. Yes, it's mainly a comedy, but I've always believed that the best comedies feature recognizable human emotion at their core, and Schwartz and company are working at that.

Plus, it has that awesome fight at the Wienerlicious stand, which was miles better than the big "Bionic Woman" catfight in the rain. It featured so many wonderful things, including everyday objects (plastic forks, wooden hot dog sticks) being used as lethal weapons, plus a pretty girl kicking butt in a ridiculous outfit (the secret to the early genius of "Alias").

Next week's "Chuck Versus the Tango" is better, but there was other good stuff sprinkled throughout, including the "Lost" joke during Dr. Zarnow's test of Chuck ("Oceanic Flight 815 was shot down by (garble garble)"), Morgan trying to role-play with Casey, Captain Awesome (real first name: Kevin) saying "Indeed!" in delight when Sarah describes Ellie as awesome, the notion of mini-quiches with tracking devices (lest anyone try to take anything about the show too seriously) and even the tablecloth running gag (though there is no excuse for them to not have Morgan say "The flowers are still standing!" when his attempt failed).

Meanwhile, "Journeyman" loses a good chunk of whatever small goodwill the pilot's closing scene built up by coming back in episode two with Dan's wife again thinking he's a nutjob and not a time traveler. Then it loses even more with some of the least subtle period cues you can imagine (the disco/porno airplane, the "INTERNET EROTICA CONVENTION" sign at the hotel) and that completely random explanation for why Dan was tracking that girl's life. Why spend an hour getting us to, in theory, care about what happens to the girl and then reveal that she was entirely besides the point, and the entire mission was about the pilot who we met for all of 30 seconds? There's a difference between being unpredictable and just jerking the audience around.

There were a few nice touches on the margins, with Livia giving Dan advice on how to survive on his trips to the past (though the olde-timey cell phone is only going to work when Dan travels to a year when he had a plan for it, no?), but barring a brilliant episode in the next week or two, I don't think there's anything to see here.

What did everybody else think?

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Monday rookie round-up

I reviewed all three of "Chuck," "Big Bang Theory" and "Journeyman" in today's columns, but I'll have some brief additional thoughts on each coming up just as soon as I price out nail guns at the Large Mart...

Like I said in the column, of the three "Chuck" episodes I've seen, the third is the strongest (the second is the weakest). This one obviously spends a whole lot of time setting up the premise, introducing the three worlds in which Chuck will move (home with his sister, at work with the Nerd Herd, and saving the world with Adam Baldwin and Olivia Wilde lookalike Yvonne Strahovski). I like Chuck the character a lot already, thanks to Zachary Levi (who doesn't play it exactly the same way Adam Brody would have, even though they also look alike) and his chemistry with Joshua Gomez as Morgan the sidekick, and I love the little deadpan comedy moments, like Chuck being menaced at the Large Mart by the bomb maker, Chuck's "Any Way You Want It" ringtone going off in the middle of a crisis and, of course, the porn star computer virus saving the day.

One thing I didn't get around to mentioning in my "Big Bang Theory" review is how much obvious contempt the writers have for all three of the main characters. I'm not saying you can't have a comedy where the characters aren't very likeable for the audience, but the writers have to like them on some level for it to work. It was obvious that Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant had great affection for David Brent on "The Office" even as they made him behave like an absolute git, or that the "Taxi" writers probably would have preferred hoisting a beer with Louie DePalma more than any other character on that show. I don't get that at all between these writers and these characters, who just come across like the stereotypical two dweebs and an airhead that the premise suggests. Jim Parsons made me laugh a few times with the way he delivered his lines, but beyond that, bleah.

Where some of my optimism about "Chuck" comes from having seen further down the road, the lame second "Journeyman" only makes me less enthusiastic about a show I was already agressively meh about. As a literary-type drama, it's not going to hold a candle to a book like "The Time Traveler's Wife," and the creators aren't interested enough in the sci-fi trappings to have any fun with the rules of time travel. There was one scene in the original pilot that I really liked, the bit where Dan unearths the toolbox with the engagement ring to prove to his wife that he'd traveled to the past, but I realized in watching the final version that most of my affection for it came from the U2 song being used; The Fray doesn't carry it nearly as well.

What did everybody else think?

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Let's not do the time warp again

The second of today's two columns opens with a review of "Journeyman":

"Journeyman" is the story of Dr. Sam Beckett, a prize-winning scientist who uses his own time travel invention and winds up trapped in the past, leaping from life to life, putting things right that once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home.

No, wait. "Journeyman" is the story of Marty McFly, a high school kid who drives a DeLorean 30 years into the past, where he bumps into his parents as teenagers and has to make sure they fall in love so he can be born.

No, wait. "Journeyman" is the story of Henry DeTamble, a Chicago librarian who suffers from a genetic disorder called Chrono-Displacement and spends his life shifting back and forth through time, always finding a way to return to his beloved wife, Clare.

No, I'm sorry. None of that's right.

There's also a review of "Big Bang Theory," which I wasn't a fan of. To read the full thing, click here. Click here to read the full post