"I went to a place to eat. It said 'breakfast at any time.' So I ordered french toast during the Renaissance". --Steven Wright ... If you are a devotee of time travel, check out this song...

Monday, November 12, 2007

Journeyman Continues: 8: Livia's Story

I don't care how Journeyman is doing in the ratings - if there were any justice in this cosmos it would be in the top 5. Maybe it will, someday. Who knows what impact the WGA strike will have the ultimate winners and losers on television this season.

As it is, Journeyman just keeps getting better and better. And tonight's Episode 8 on NBC was the best so far.

We finally learn some more about Livia. I'd figured, pretty obviously, that she was not from this time. I thought her other-worldly quality likely made her from the future (like the heroine in my own time travel novel, Sierra Waters, in The Plot to Save Socrates). But it turns out that Livia's from the past - 1948 - which would also account for her other-worldly quality in 2007, if you think about it. And, as she explains to Dan, she gets boosted from the past, into the future, just as Dan gets yanked from the future back to the past. Symmetry in time travelers - very nice, poetic touch.

Dan also later tells Katie that the sojourns in time will get longer - which creates a good, sad tension in their relationship.

Meanwhile, it turns out that Jack did roll over for the FBI guy - as I thought last week - but he redeems himself this week, and does all right by Dan.

And one other thing - our tachyon scientist contacts Dan - and it is 100% clear, now, that he is aware of what Dan is doing, and, I still think, at least in part calling the shots.

What's setting Journeyman more and more apart from Quantum Leap is the way Journeyman is slowly, powerful weaving together Dan's specific missions and his larger story. Last week, the unabomber character was clearly conversant with time travel. This week, one of the misguided hippies in the 70s is hip to quartz, which the tachyon scientist said he was looking into...

It's all coming together, like a shattered puzzle coalescing, I hope creator Kevin Falls and his team can keep this fine science fiction going.







5-minute podcast of this Journeyman review

My reviews of other Journeyman episodes ... 1: NBC Quantum Leaps Into Journeyman ...2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ... 6... 7 ... 9. Dan Unravels His Present ... 10. Jack's In! ... 11. Livia's Beau//Save the Newspaper, Save the World ... 12. The Perfect Time Travel Story ... 12. The Perfect Time Travel Story ... Lucky 13






The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book


more about The Plot to Save Socrates...

Get your own at Profile Pitstop.com



Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates
.... FREE!

10 comments:

MC said...

I don't think the Scientist is in control because then Livia's journeys don't make sense.

What I do think is he was studying the phenomenon, and may actually be like Dan and Livia... someone travels through time, which would explain the phone call.

The big difference I notice between this show and QL is that unlike Sam Beckett, Dan is always Dan, and he is always on the periphery of the lives he is changing, not the active participant in them.

I do like the possibilities that the Livia revelations open up... like perhaps Dan will end up in the future or farther in the past(like popping up in 1906), both eras which will give him little clue as to what needs to be done.

Paul Levinson said...

Good point about Dan always being Dan...

But why does the Scientist in control , or creating whatever propels Dan and Livia through time (in their different ways), negate or make meaningless Livia's journeys? Suppose he's head of an organization, or even just works for an organization, that shuffles all kinds of people around in time, for whatever reason...

MC said...

I meant, how could he have been the one to cause Livia to start hopping so to speak, because there has been no clues to lead to that particular conclusion in my eyes, especially since her home time likely predates his birth.

Paul Levinson said...

True, but he could have pulled her into it, in the same way that Dan was (if not the Scientist, someone or something did)...

Michael A. Burstein said...

I've been enjoying this show a lot and your commentary. Could you please devote more time in an episode of Light On Light Through to this show and time travel in general?

Anonymous said...

I get the going back in time bit, all you have to do is make sure you don't mess up anything to change your future self (tricky for sure). I do have an issue with Livia jumping forward and into the future though. It makes for an excellent story, but if you try and wrap your head around it, it's a little more difficult. Livia must not have a lot of family or friends in the past. Each time she jumps into the future, that past timeline will continue and she would be known as a missing person in the time she jumps to. She could probably even look up herself in news clippings if someone had reported her missing or something. Her jumping back readjusts the timeline again. A little more difficult in my eyes I suppose, certainly a lot more to think about when writing a story for it.

MC said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MC said...

I think in a strange way genetics/natural selection are involved, as that would explain why Livia and Dan were drawn to each other.

I mean, Dan's father disappeared too, didn't he? And the analogy last night about Livia and Dan being like Foreign Correspondents seemed very telling to me.

keppet said...

Thanks for reassuring me that there are Journeyman fans out there. I am in the UK and my fellow US-tv fans here all think Journeyman the hit of the season- real and emotional with a genre twist. But I was beginning to despair that the other side of the Atlantic appreciated it as much as us.

The only thing I have to add to the theorising is that Langley said Dan didn't fall far from the tree (or words to that effect), on the surface implying that he looks like his father. Which he obviously doesn't so the real motivation to that line must have been that they have time travel in common. I look forward to discovering the role Langley played in Vasser Senior's life.

Anonymous said...

I would like to add that you cannot always go by ratings anymore to determine if something is popular anymore. I am a big Journeyman fan but I hardly ever get to see it on Monday nights. (Do to various reasons.) So when I watch it I get it off of NBCs website the next day. I am sure that I don't count on the ratings and one must wonder how many others are there like me.

InfiniteRegress.tv