Quantum Leap (2022) 1.4: The Other Side

A momentous Quantum Leap 1.4 on NBC tonight, in which--

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

1. We learn what it feels like to be on the receiving end of the Quantum Leaper.  And we learn this from Magic, whose life was indeed changed in Vietnam by Sam Beckett in the original series.  He tells Ian (a great character, well played by Mason Alexander Park) that he lost all awareness and when he awoke found he had saved the life of Sam's brother Tom.  Not only that, but Magic had some slivers of memory of what Sam in his body had done, and that's what motivated Magic to restart the Quantum Leap project.  That episode back in October 1990 -- "The Leap Home, Part 2" -- was one of the best in the original series, and working it into tonight's episode 1.4 made it the best episode of the new series so far.

Would've have been nice had Christopher Kirby been able to play Magic again in the new series (even though Ernie Hudson's doing a fine job) -- and looking at his IMDb page,  Kirby's been incredibly busy -- but the story of Sam and Tom again got me thinking that we need to see Sam in this 2022 sequel.  I'm still predicting that we will, and the part will be played by Scott Bakula, despite what he's said to the contrary.

2. And, if all of that good plot stuff wasn't enough, Ben in this episode also remembers that he loves Addison.  The pace of this sequel is fast -- which makes for a taut, exciting narrative -- and one of the reasons that the new Quantum Leap just picked up the order for the closing six episodes for a full season of 18.   I'm hoping and expecting that we get some episodes tied to major public rather than essentially private life and death events.  As I said in my first review, this sequel series is off to a good start.

See also Quantum Leap (2022) 1.1: Off to a Good Start ... 1.2-1.3: Overarching Developments

 

Quantum Leap (2022) 1.2-1.3: Overarching Developments

Even with the original series, I usually was more interested in the overarching story than the individual narratives recounting Sam's historical saves.   The new Quantum Leap, now three episodes in, is shaping up the same way.  In fact, though the astronaut and boxer stories in 1.2 and 1.3 were quite good, the central narrative, the connective tissue, has gotten a lot more interesting in at least two ways:

1.  Ben is going further into the past, earlier than when he was born, by bouncing off the times he visits and using that boomerang energy.  He and we still don't know what his ultimate goal is.  

2. In fact, we learn in 1.3 that Al's daughter Janis may have set all of this -- Quantum Leap (2022) -- into motion.   That moves the ultimate goal we need to know from Ben's to Janis's.  

Let's look at this a little closer.  We still don't know if Ben and Janis are collaborating on this, if Janis is using Ben, or if someone else we may or may not have met yet (likely not) is using both of them.  And, for what end?  The likely answer is somehow tied to Sam's disappearance, which makes me think even more that we'll be seeing Sam again before this new incarnation is concluded, which I certainly hope takes a lot longer than just this season.

Addison has already become the most important character in Ben's journey, whatever exactly that is.  Episode 1.3 addressed the important issue of her getting physically exhausted back in the present as her hologram supports Ben in his various pasts and seeks to save him from the errors he inevitably makes.  I wouldn't be surprised if the team in the present considers the pros and cons of her actually physically accompanying Ben on his trips.  The pros of the hologram are she can't be hurt in the past, and can't be seen.  But the big pro of her actually being there with Ben is that she'd be there regardless of how much her holographic connection to the present wavers.  Of course, it's not clear if and when it will be possible to send Addison back to the past, let alone in a way that allows her to accompany Ben.

Meanwhile, we also learn at the end of 1.3 that Janis may be planning on joining Ben -- why else would she take her father's equipment?  This again raises  the question of to what extent Ben and Janis were working together before his jaunts to past began.

Lots of possibilities already in motion in the new Quantum Leap, and I'm looking forward to seeing where they lead.

See also Quantum Leap (2022) 1.1: Off to a Good Start

 

Quantum Leap (2022) 1.1: Off to a Good Start

The new Quantum Leap sequel debuted on NBC tonight.  I was prepared not to like it, though recently, I've very much enjoyed the sequel of The Man Who Fell to Earth on Showtime, and, for that matter, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on Paramount Plus.  And turns out I did enjoy this first episode of the new Quantum Leap, for all kinds of reasons, which I'll tell you about after I warn you about spoilers ahead...

[In case you missed that: Spoilers ahead ...]

First, I very much like the way this new Quantum Leap handled its connection to the original Quantum Leap, on NBC  from 1989 through 1993.  We learn that Sam, the original leaper, never returned from his last mission.  This leaves open the possibility that he could return in some way before this rebooted series concludes.  I predict that we'll see Sam again, older and played by Scott Bakula, in the final episode of this season (even though Scott Bakula himself says we won't see Sam again).  We also learn that Al, played by Dean Stockwell, passed away last year -- a nice homage to Dean Stockwell, who also left us last year, and who also received a nice dedication at the end of this episode.  Also worth mentioning is that Al's daughter is wearing his ring, which means she'll no doubt play a role in the new series.

Next, I think Raymond Lee's Dr. Ben Song is a good time traveler, offering an effective balance of physicist smarts, wisecracking, and even willing to throw a punch, which of course hurts his hand.  Likewise his fiance, Kaitlin Bassett's Addison, whose hologram more or less accompanies Ben on his jaunts.  That job was done by Al in the original series, who was pretty much the only other major character in the original.  The 2022 series has expanded the team, and that looks like it'll work well, too.

Of course, everything in Quantum Leap depends on where in the past the time traveler lands -- in whose body the traveler finds himself -- and what the traveler needs to do.  In the original series,  the best episode was the double episode in the final Season Five, in which Sam leaps into the body of Lee Harvey Oswald.  I'm hoping we get a least one such cosmically important story in the new season.  In the meantime, I'll look forward to all the twists and turns this unique kind of time travel can bring us in the new series.

more about quantum entanglement in this FREE movie on Amazon Prime

or read the novelette

Manifest Sneak Peek 9 and 1/2 Mins: Could Be Outstanding

Having flown back a few days ago from The Mars Society Convention in Pasadena, and time-travel being my all-time favorite genre, how could I resist watching the 9 and 1/2 minute sneak preview of Manifest, a series about a plane that travels instantly through time from 2013 to 2018, to debut on NBC at the end of September?

I couldn't.

Airplanes have been vehicles of the very best time travel, from "The Odyssey of Flight 33" on The Twilight Zone in 1961 to John Varley's brilliant 1981 novel, Millennium.   Can the NBC series possibly live up to this?

Very possibly.

Under ten minutes is not much time to tell, but I'd say Manifest has a fair shot of doing this - of finally telling a time travel story on network television in the same league as the very different Quantum Leap, now decades old.  The key to any good story is memorable character development.  From what I saw on YouTube, where you too can see this sneak preview - I've posted the video below - the people in this story are real and appealing.

But it's still too soon to say for sure.   We'll know more after the first episode, after which I'll be back here with a full review.  And even then, the history of television is littered with great debuts that never went anywhere, or flew way off course.  I'm hopeful that that won't happen with Manifest, where the flying of course already took place, but through time as well as space.

See you here in about thirty days.

Travelers: 12 Monkeys meets Quantum Leap meets Air Raid, with a Story All Its Own

The premise of Travelers - people from the future coming back to save our world from devastation, by changing the past, and traveling via insertion of their minds into 2016 bodies, of people who are on the verge of dying - is something we've seen before in time travel, notably in 12 Monkeys (save the world), Quantum Leap (mind from the future into present bodies), and Air Raid/Millennium (bodies on the verge of death).  Travelers even feels a little like Trancers (1984) - which is to say, very welcome, since Trancers is one of my all-time favorite low-budget time travel series of movies - but the actual story and stories of the new Canadian series, streaming since a few days ago on Netflix, has twists and turns and an appeal all its own. And, in the end, it's altogether outstanding.

Indeed, the episodes get better and better, with the last few being brilliant pieces of time travel narrative, culminating in a puzzle as profound and vexing as ever we've seen on television, and left almost in mid-air and crying out for continuation in a second season.  This first season is a classic case of a story that goes from interesting to engaging to absolutely riveting.

Time travel, of course, can never work exactly as planned.  Imperfection is the demon of the most carefully designed time travel strategy, and it makes for an intriguing story.   The present bodies that our future travelers shunt into are supposed to be in good physical and mental health, about to die by accident or some external assault, but sometimes the future's reconnaissance on the would-be hosts is not up to snuff.  One of the most interesting characters ends up in the body of someone who was supposed to die of his first drug dose, but the hosts turns out to be an addict.   Another appears in the body of young woman who was to be killed by some thugs, but her brain is already suffering from a congenital problem that the new possessor has to deal with.   Romantic relationships from the future and past also complicate and animate the doings of our time-travelers, and become mainsprings of the stories.

There are a couple of weaknesses in the plot - the main one being that new travelers from the future appear a bit too often as solutions and dangers.   But the fundamental tale is strong and provocative, the acting excellent -  especially good to see Eric McCormack (of Will and Grace) and MacKenzie Porter (of Hell on Wheels) on the screen - and we're treated to not only superior time-travel reckoning but sophisticated AI dilemmas as well in Travelers.

The big time travel questions are handled well, including the chestnut of how will the future unexpectedly change due to the changes deliberate and accidental in the past, especially with unforeseen consequences for the primary mission from the future? The details are done with savvy, including the travelers can't go further back in history than the digital age, since our computers are needed to precisely track times of death for the hosts and arrival for the travelers. So how would I rate Travelers in comparison to other time travel television series now or recently on the screen?   Better than Timeless and Frequency, and in the end as good as 12 Monkeys, which is high praise indeed.   Great work by Stargate creator Brad Wright.

 
 travel a little further back in time

Frequency 1.7: Snags

Frequency 1.7 was in something of a lull on Wednesday night, with a good enough personal story, but little furthering of the time-travel (information from future to the past) story, and not too much in the hunt for the serial killer, either.

This gets back to the fundamental challenge of time travel in a television series, and explains why Quantum Leap did well and Timeless is currently doing well with a different time-travel story each episode.  12 Monkeys on SyFy is like Frequency, with one continuous, central plot, and 12 Monkeys adheres to this with episodes that are always exciting, metaphysically bizarre, and sometimes over the top.

Frequency has a harder job of this.  In 12 Monkeys, our heroes and heroines are struggling literally to save the world - and, in the second season, even time itself.  Frequency has a much narrower purview, and it's tough to keep the story pulsing in that more limited frame.

There's also a disproportion between the two major characters - Raimy and Frank - which I don't recall in the movie, in which John (Frank's son) and Frank had more equal roles, at different ends of the seesaw of time.   In the television series, Raimy is the more interesting character, but I'm not sure why, since Frank is the only one who can change history - nab the serial killer before he takes Raimy's mother.

There's still plenty of room for course correction and development in the series.  I was disappointed to see that Frequency was not picked up for a full 22-episode first season, which instead will be limited to 13.  That's ok - there are lots of outstanding 13-episode or even fewer-episodes-per-season series - including 12 Monkeys - and I'm looking forward to more of Frequency.

See also Frequency 1.1: Closely Spun Gem ... Frequency 1.2: All About the Changes  ... Frequency 1.3: Chess Game Across Time ...  Frequency 1.4: Glimpsing the Serial Killer ... Frequency 1.5: Two Sets of Memories ... Frequency 1.6: Another Time Traveler?

                       more time travel

Timeless 1.5: and Quantum Leap

As Timeless progresses on its enjoyable way - now through episode 1.5, in which our heroes show up at the Alamo, and fight alongside Davy Crocket, Jim Bowie, and Colonel Travers - it's becoming clear that the series is most like Quantum Leap, which holds a special place in the pantheon of time travel stories on the screen.

There are differences, of course.  Sam Beckett mind-traveled into the heads of real people who played various roles in crucial events in the past.  Lucy, Wyatt, and Rufus travel physically to the past.  And so far, as of the first five episodes, Timeless is dealing with bigger, often world-shattering, or at least America-determinative events than did Quantum Leap, where Beckett often dealt with more minor, even off-the-radar situations in history.

But the episodic tempo of the two series is similar, with the stories in each episode having no connection to the others, other than our time-travelers being the same, and, in the case of Timeless, a central story with an apparently bad guy time-traveler, Flynn, in the thick of it from the very beginning.

You might think that a captivating central story to tie the episodes together is a plus, and it can be, but it can also be a hindrance to the series, because its existence requires the series to decide how much information to dole out this underling story in each episode.  Quantum Leap suffered from no such problem.  Neither does Frequency, another time travel series on the air this season, which operates on a very different scale than Timeless. But other science fiction series, such as Lost and Westworld, did and do.  I enjoyed Lost - at least until the very very last episode, which was atrocious - and think Westworld is one of the best series on television now, but critics have expressed frustration with its low ratio of answers to questions, and viewers can be lost in those kinds of gambles.

So far, Timeless has been doing a good job in threading this needle.  It will be fun to see how it fares in the weeks ahead.

See also Timeless 1.1: Threading the Needle ... Timeless 1.2: Small Change, Big Payoffs ... Timeless 1.3: Judith Campbell ... Timeless 1.4: Skyfall and Weapon of Choice


             more time travel in the 20th century

12 Monkeys 2.11: Teleportation

Another blockbuster episode - 2.11 - of 12 Monkeys this week, which featured yet another time-travel gambit:  use of the time-travel device not to travel to another place, but another time, instantly.  In other words, teleportation.

There have always been two kinds of time travel in both literature and movies.   In one, you travel in time, to the past or the future, and arrive in the same place or location.  This is the kind I used in The Plot to Save Socrates, Loose Ends, and Ian's Ions and Eons series.   In the other, you can not only travel through time but through space, and therefore end up not only in a different time but a different place from where you started.   Quantum Leap excelled in this approach on television.

12 Monkeys has always used that approach as well.  But, if you think about it, you can also use it not to travel through time at all - or maybe just a split second into the past or future - and to a completely different location.   In that case, the time machine becomes a teleportation device, which is a nice touch in a time travel story.

In the end, our heroes don't use the time travel device for that at all, but we still get a fine story leading up to it - a story about Jennifer.  As I've said before, Jennifer is in many ways the most important and memorable character in the series, and any story about her is compelling.  But in 2.11, we get a story of her death, and her rebirth - via time travel - and you can't get much more compelling than that.

12 Monkeys in its second season has become a veritable compendium of time-travel gambits and their possibilities, and you can't get much better that that, either.

See also 12 Monkeys 2.1: Whatever Will Be, Will Be ... 12 Monkeys 2.2: The Serum ... 12 Monkeys 2.3: Primaries and Paradoxes ... 12 Monkeys 2.4: Saving Time ... 12 Monkeys 2.5: Jennifer's Story ... 12 Monkeys 2.6: "'Tis Death Is Dead" ... 12 Monkeys 2.7: Ultimate Universes ... 12 Monkeys 2.8: Time Itself Wants Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 2.9: Hands On ... 12 Monkeys 2.10: The Drugging

And see also this Italian review, w/reference to Hawking and my story, "The Chronology Protection Case"

And see also 12 Monkeys series on SyFy: Paradox Prominent and Excellent ...12 Monkeys 1.2: Your Future, His Past ... 12 Monkeys 1.3:  Paradoxes, Lies, and Near Intersections ... 12 Monkeys 1.4: "Uneasy Math" ... 12 Monkeys 1.5: The Heart of the Matter ... 12 Monkeys 1.6: Can I Get a Witness? ... 12 Monkeys 1.7: Snowden, the Virus, and the Irresistible ... 12 Monkeys 1.8: Intelligent Vaccine vs. Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 1.9: Shelley, Keats, and Time Travel ... 12 Monkey 1.10: The Last Jump ... 12 Monkeys 1.11: What-Ifs ... 12 Monkeys 1.2: The Plunge ... 12 Monkeys Season 1 Finale: "Time Travel to Create Time Travel"

#SFWApro

podcast review of Predestination and 12 Monkeys

 

12 Monkeys series 1.2: Your Future, His Past

12 Monkeys continued its story on SyFy tonight, with a phrase that captured the predicament of Cole and every time traveler.   When he asks his boss, Jones, how someone could say Cole was responsible for a scar, but Cole has no memory of even meeting that person, Jones replies that you'll meet him in your future but his past. That's about as neat an explanation of twisted interconnected timelines as you're likely to get in a time travel story.

And we don't even know the name of the guy that Cole will scar.   We know he's played by Tom Noonan, who has a pretty good beat on the weird, creepy, slightly psychotic, having played one very well back in Hell on Wheels - in everyone's past, that is, in the 19th century, unless you haven't seen the fine series as yet, in which case it also will be in your future.

Meanwhile, there are other significant conversations between Cole and Jones.   He doesn't like taking orders from her, but who does (like taking orders).  And although she starts the episode strictly forbidding Cole from interacting with Cassandra - lest he throw off the timeline that resulted in the future first finding out about a possible way to stop the plague - she comes to realize that the mission may need Cassandra, after all.   So Jones, like all good heroes in time travel stories, including the scientists behind the missions, is willing to risk paradox on behalf of the mission's success.   If they weren't, they likely wouldn't have gone into time travel in the first place.

Speaking of missions, this episode of 12 Monkeys had a brief gambit that was positively prescient about what recently happened in our own off-screen timeline less than a month ago.  Cole ends up for a few harrowing moments in North Korea, in, what was it, 2006?   Now these kinds of misfires are common enough in time travel stories - we saw them in Quantum Leap, and, for that matter, in the 12 Monkeys 1995 movie.   But North Korea?  Are you kidding me?  Unbelievable coincidence with our reality - I half expected to see Seth Rogan in the scene with Cole.   It's a good thing the North Koreans didn't hack the SyFy Channel and start making demands, though maybe I shouldn't be joking about this.

But there were lots of interviews in this episode - sorry, I couldn't resist - the best being the one with Cole and Jennifer, who looks like the best kind of nutcase character, or one with some very serious, not crazy, information.

Looking forward to next week, which I may or may not see in the next 24 hours, on SyFy On Demand.

See also 12 Monkeys series on SyFy: Paradox Prominent and Excellent ... 1.3: Paradoxes, Lies, and Near Intersections ... 1.4: "Uneasy Math"


podcast review of Predestination and 12 Monkeys


 three time travel novels: the Sierra Waters trilogy


 three time travel stories (with more to come)


The Chronology Protection Case movie 

~~~ +++ ~~~

#SFWApro

Heroes 4.16: The Trial of Hiro

A thoughtful, captivating Heroes 4.16 last night, mostly because of the trial of Hiro.

Actually, he's not really on trial, he's dreaming he's on trial during the dangerous operation to remove his brain tumor and save his life.  This could have been a pretty trite piece, but Heroes served it up nicely with George Takei back as Hiro's father and now judge, David Anders back as Adam Monroe and now prosecutor (a good night for Anders - he was also on 24), and Ando (of course) as defense counsel.  The trial featured some of the best meta-lines of the season, with Hiro mentioning "Law and Order," and Monroe chiding Hiro's defense statement for cribbing from the opening lines of Quantum Leap - "putting things right that once went wrong".  How can you not enjoy that sort of poke-at-itself television?  I certainly did.  And the substance of the trial - the charges against Hiro, that he was wrong to ever try to manipulate the present by changing the past - was pretty good too.  Trials are not uncommon in science fiction, from Star Trek to Dr. Who, but I don't recall ever seeing one quite as focused on the rights and wrongs of time travel as this one.   Could become a YouTube classic.

Meanwhile, Sam and Vanessa almost make it.  But they don't, and this sets Sam on what will likely be his final destructive course.   More interesting and surprising is the strange relationship beginning to develop between Sylar and Claire.   He tells her there are really alike.  She resists, and puts a pencil in his eye.   But he (of course) recovers, and by the end Claire is beginning to realize that the two may have some things in common after all.   Where this will lead is interesting - will Sylar become better (he's already saying he's not his old self), Claire become evil (which would be a significant development indeed), or both...

It looks as if Mohinder might be taking his final leave, when he says goodbye to Noah at the beginning of the show ... but in response to Noah's "I guess this is it,"  Mohinder smiles and replies, "in our lives, when is it ever."

You know, say what you will about Heroes, but I think it still has something very special.  I'd miss it if it was gone, and I hope that doesn't come to be for a long time.



5-min podcast review of Heroes

See also Heroes Season 4 Premiere: Metaphysics, University, Carnival ... Heroes Meets The L Word in 4.5 ... Heroes 4 Mid-Season Finale  ... Heroes Season 4 Resumes ... Heroes 4.15: The Chess Game Continues

See also reviews of Season 3 Heroes Gets Lost ... Heroes 3 Begins: Best Yet, Riddled with Time Travel and Paradox ... Sylar's Redemption and other Heroes and Villains Mergers ... Costa Nuclear ... Hearts of Gold and the Debased ... Seeing the Future Trumps Time Travel ... Superpowered Chess with Shifting Pieces ... Villains and Backstories ... The Redemption of Sylar ... Thoughts on the Eclipse, Part I ... The Lore of the Comic Book Store ... Hiro's Time Traveling Closure ... Augmented ... Shades of Recalibration ... Baby, Rebel, and Last Fantasy ... All that Shape Changes Remains the Same? ... Season 3 Finale: Hopeful Deceptions

Reviews of Season 2 Heroes: Episode 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 7. Heroes Meets 12 Monkeys ... 9. How Immutable Are Fate and Isaac's Futures? ... 10. Penultimate for the Fall ... Heroes 2 Finale: Heroes Who Didn't Survive

And from Season 1: Heroes in Focus ... Heroes Five Years Gone: Triumph of Time Travel and Comics ... Heroes the Hard Part: Only the Pictures Not the Words ... Heroes Landslide: Winnowing and Convergence ... Heroes Volume One Finale

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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

Life on Mars #6 Meets Itself on Television in New York

Ok, I've gotten it out of my system - Life on Mars, at least in America, is not time travel. It has nothing to do with Journeyman or Quantum Leap or The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

It is, however, one very interesting series of post-modern, meta-fiction - hey, I don't get academic on you all too often - and Episode 6 brought that out in high mirrors-on-mirrors style. This one really is infinite regress...

Sam in 1973 hears enough through his coma in 2008 to know that he's in danger of being taken off life support unless he gives the future some kind of little sign of life. He's gets sucked into another 1973 caper, in which he's knocked out, reminded about the value of life, and smiles through time, to the future, so the people around him there know there's still something ticking within - at least, that's what Sam and we see on television in the soap opera in 1973 featuring a man in a coma in a hospital room...

But Sam in 1973 also soon sees Maya saying goodbye to him and the guy in the coma on the soap opera. This frees him to get together with Annie - I hope/think - and in the last scene he sees Annie in a bar, she looks at him, and the final credits roll...

Actually, not quite final - for Episode 6 of Life on Mars (in America) circa 2008 - for the credits we first see are on an old fashioned screen. Those credits are for the soap opera Sam has been seeing - "Life on Mars".

If this makes your head spin, that's all to the good.

One question that sill occurs to me about the coma and no time travel - is Sam definitely in the coma in 2008, dreaming of 1973 - or could it be he's in a coma in 1973, dreaming about 2008?

The thing about comas is that they can cut both ways.

On the other hand, how would Sam in 1973 have any knowledge of 2008, unless he first was in 2008?

Ok, I think I got it now...

See also Life on Mars Debuts in America ... Life on Mars 2nd Episode in America: Coma, Time Travel, Mars Rover ... Life on Mars Goes On in America: What Happens When a Time Traveler Runs Into His Earlier Self? ... Life on Mars #4: All in the Family ... Life on Mars #5 Meets the Wire ... Life on Mars #7: Is Annie Real?

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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...





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

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Life On Mars Debuts in America

Fine start of Life on Mars on ABC tonight, and you know that I'm going to review this American version of the British series here on Infinite Regress, since I watch everything I can get my hands on regarding time travel, including Journeyman, relevant episodes of Lost and Heroes, and Deja Vu, too.

Here's the story: Det. Sam Tyler is after a kidnapping killer in 2008, who apparently has just grabbed his girlfiend and colleague crime fighter Maya. He steps out of his car with David Bowie's "Life of Mars" playing on his iPod- and gets hit straight on by a car. He wakes up with David Bowie still singing the same song, but now off cassette tape- because Sam is back, in the exact same place, in 1973. David Bowie has thus given this series a perfect acoustic segue along with a memorable name.

As is the case with Journeyman and Quantum Leap (3 series, featuring 2 Sams and a Dan), neither Tyler nor we can be sure at first if he is really in the past, or just dreaming in a coma. In Journeyman and Quantum Leap, that question is resolved by the end of the first episode - the time traveler is really time traveling. Further, we even pretty quickly learn why: to correct some bad event in the past. What we never learn in those two series is who is calling shots - who or what is making the time traveler travel?

Life on Mars provides even fewer resolutions in this first episode. There is a hint that maybe Sam's purpose in the past is to learn and/or do something that can help save Maya in 2008. Possibly, Sam has already done a little in that direction, by talking to the kidnapper as a boy in 1973 at the end of this episode.

But unlike Journeyman and Quantum Leap, Life on Mars will be one continuing, over-arching story, with Sam from 2008 back in 1973. I'm glad to see this, since I thought both Journeyman and Quantum Leap gave too much attention to specific episode story lines, and not enough to the backbone of the plot (Journeyman improved greatly in this respect near the end).

Most of the 1973 touches are authentic and excellent. The music is outstanding - in addition to Bowie, it was great hear the Stones "Out of Time". So was a bit with Cannon - the great Quinn Martin detective - on television in 1973. And the misunderstanding of Sam's saying "cell phone" as his wanting to "sell" something was nice.

The NYPD detectives in 1973, though, are a little bogus in their roughing up of suspects and disregard of their Miranda rights. Miranda v. Arizona was decided by the Supreme Court in 1966. I know, it's tough to get every little historical detail right, but Mad Men has set a pretty high standard, and the culture of 1973 cops is pretty central to this new series.

But Life on Mars gets credit for having the courage to use the Twin Towers as a 1973 backdrop. And the shout-out to Fordham University - Sam's likely romantic interest in 1973, Annie, got a degree at Fordham in psychology - certainly makes me and my students happy.

Looking forward to more time in the past- next week.

See also Life on Mars 2nd Episode in America: Coma, Time Travel, Mars Rover ... Life on Mars Goes On in America: What Happens When a Time Traveler Runs Into His Earlier Self? ... Life on Mars #4: All in the Family ... Life on Mars #5 Meets the Wire ... Life on Mars #6 Meets Itself on Television ... Life on Mars #7: Is Annie Real, Or, Is Life on Mars a False Memory

=== But I just came back - don't say I never give you anything - to post this great video of the Stones' "Out of Time" ... whew, "You're obsolete, my baby, my poor old-fashioned baby..." the original, ragged, Rolling Stone 1966 album performance...



And here, courtesy of ABC TV, is entire premier episode of Life on Mars, for your viewing pleasure...

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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...





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

The Time-Travel Blind and Journeyman: My Response to TV Guide's Adam Schubak

Journeyman was included in TV Guide's Worst TV of 2007. Writes TV Guide's Adam Schubak, "The major problem with this show is not so much the time traveling as it is the two completely unnecessary love triangles . . . . Week after week, the show spends half the episode dealing with the family drama while the rest is spent in the past trying to help random strangers whose fate has them going on to do something great in the future."

Wow, talk about clueless. The great strength of Journeyman is its powerful mix of family/love triangles on the one hand, and the societal issues on the other, and this mix was brought to a near-perfect pitch in the last two episodes.

But beyond the fact that Schubak just didn't get Journeyman - and was by no means alone among TV critics - I think there is a more serious, and therefore more interesting, factor at work here.

I realized a long time ago, when I was just a kid, and I'd spend hours holed away reading science fiction, and my mother would chide me for wasting my time, that some people, otherwise intelligent and even sensitive, are just blind to the virtues and appeal of science fiction. Years later, when I published my first science fiction novel - The Silk Code, in 1999 - my mother was steadfast in her well-meaning opinion. "You're a good writer. Why don't you write novels about real things?"

"Ma, science fiction is about real things ... ," I tried to answer.

In fact, it's about the most real things in our existence - our uniquely human capacity to edit the very nature of the universe.

As a genre of science fiction especially complex, time travel stories bear a special challenge. You've got to love the buzz-saw of paradox, have a high tolerance for - actually, a zest for - the nearly incompatible, the things that don't add up to any common sense.

The appeal of a time-travel series such as Journeyman is that it is especially uncommon. How can a man choose between a son he knows and loves, and a daughter that has just been brought into being in a new timeline he has created? Whatever choice he makes brings him pain, personal and cosmic.

Adam Schubak is entitled to find a show that presents such a choice of little interest - just as a color-blind person might understandably turn his back on a magical sunset.

"Quantum Leap it ain't. Heck, it's not even Back to the Future Part 3," Schubak concludes about Journeyman. He's right about Quantum Leap, at least - Journeyman, especially in its last two episodes, was far better. As for Back to the Future - well, let's just say that Part 3 was an integral part of the trilogy masterpiece, which doesn't jibe with Schuback's "not even Part 3".

But, it's ok. Schubak is time-travel blind, so of course he doesn't get it. It's just that ... well, maybe next time TV Guide should take its cues from someone a little better versed in the genre.

My reviews of Journeyman episodes ... 1: NBC Quantum Leaps Into Journeyman ...2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ... 6... 7 ... 8. Livia's Story ... 9. Dan Unravels His Present ... 10. Jack's In! ... 11. Livia's Beau ... 12. The Perfect Time Travel Story ... Lucky 13

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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...





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

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

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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...





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

Quantum Leaps into Journeyman on NBC!

I love time travel - hey, I've written one novel, The Plot to Save Socrates, which is completely time travel, and another, Borrowed Tides, in which time travel plays a role, and I've written half a dozen time travel stories, some of which have been nominated for awards, one of which was made into an award-nominated radio play and a low-budget movie* ... so, you can see how much I love the genre.

Among my favorite episodes of Star Trek are "The City on the Edge of Forever" (Star Trek: The Original Series) and "Yesterday's Enterprise" (Star Trek: The Next Generation). 12 Monkeys is one of my all-time favorite movies, and I really liked Deja Vu, too. And if we're talking classic science fiction, well, Isaac Asimov's The End of Eternity is one of my all-time favorite novels, and Robert Heinlein's Door into Summer is right up there, too...

So, how does Journeyman stack up?

Well, it's off to a pretty good start.

Dan Vasser gets yanked around in time. Kevin McKidd plays the role well, and does have a timeless quality - likely because he was so memorable as Rome's Vorenus on HBO.

The getting yanked around gives Journeyman a Quantum Leapish flavor - and Quantum Leap was a pretty good series - but I have a feeling Journeyman will be better. Quantum Leap was mostly the story of the leaps, and only rarely (and powerfully) told the story of the leaper, Sam Beckett. But Journeyman, at least in the first episode, was if anything a little more focused on Vasser's story - more focused on that than the situation in the past he had to resolve (sent to do that by whomever or whatever, we do not quite know, as yet).

Since Dan Vasser's story looks pretty interesting, keeping that on the center stage of Journeyman looks to be a good move. The woman he was going to marry was killed on a plane crash. Moon Bloodgood as Livia Beale looks almost as scintillating as she did in ABC's shortlived Daybreak, and that's good, too. Turns out she was not killed, but is also part of this time-yanking business - I realized that a minute or so before it was revealed - and that's the kind of set-up I like to see in a time-travel story. Dan was already being touched by time travel 10 years before our story began tonight.

Meanwhile, Dan married Katie, who ten years ago was involved with Jack Vasser, Dan's brother. This also creates the makings of a nice hornet's nest of tension.

I also liked the way Journeyman handles gadgets. It looks like Dan has an iPhone in the present - he turns it sideways to see a video - and when he takes it or whatever cell phone it was to the past, the screen suddenly tells us no network. Hey, you don't have to travel to the past to get that message, but it was a nice touch.

I have high hopes for this series, and I'm looking forward to next week. I think Journeyman has the potential to be one of the best time-travel series ever on television...

*That would be "The Chronology Protection Case", the trailer for which you can see right here ...



and here's a free podcast of the complete radio play...

See also my reviews of Kevin McKidd as Vorenus in HBO's Rome

and my reviews of other Journeyman episodes ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ... 6 ...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


8-minute podcast analysis of Journeyman

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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