"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." -- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Journeyman Continues: 6: Unabomber and Tachyons

A strong Episode 6 of Journeyman last night, in which three significant things occurred:

1. Dan and Jack's relationship is healing. This is good to see, because Dan will need all the help he can get in the adventures before him...

2. Something that Livia said early in the episode clarified, for me, what she is doing in the story: she travels back to help Dan. This is obvious, but what I mean is that Dan is the problem that Livia is traveling back in time to fix. She shows up whenever he needs any help. We still don't know what her home base is - I suspect maybe some time in the further future - and whether she's being yanked back to help Dan (which I suspect is the case, or maybe she said that on an earlier show), or is initiating the jumps. I look forward to see how this is played out.

3. There's more to the Ted Kaczynski (the unabomber in our world) character in last night's episode - Kowalchuk in last night's show - than meets the eye. He's conversant with tachyons, and provides a crystal clear explanation of their power. He sent a letter to our tachyon scientist, Langley. He believes in time travel, and correctly id's Dan as a man who is time traveling (he asks Dan if he's from the past or the future, and Dan says the future). He tells Dan that his shoes gave Dan away as not being from 2000, the time in which they are talking...

But, in the end, in 2007, the "cured" Kowalchuk says he's come to see that time travel is not possible, after all. Yet, he still notices Dan's shoes.

We have not seen the last of tachyon-savvy characters in this story...







4-minute podcast of this Journeyman review


Reviews of other Journeyman episodes: 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ...
7 ... 8 ... 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 ... 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

2 comments:

MC said...

I got the impression that those were letters not written because of Dan. It was that thing I wanted... the ripples, just like the importance of the story he was working on.

BLTDonahue said...

BIG SPOILER SPACE!








Kowalchuk IS Langley. Same actor, just given the age treatment. Go watch the previous two episodes again on NBC's homepage.







Yet more spoiler space.

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