Journeyman- I Didn't Know Time Travel Could Be This Boring

Journeyman is boring. The premise was sort of intriguing: a guy travels randomly through time, changes events, and tries to affect the future. The pilot was just a mess.
The show has been set up to have two main components. We’ll have a procedural element where each week he has a specific timeline that he has to go through and manipulate to a particular goal and we’ll have a larger story arc about his dead fiancé actually being alive and also travelling through time and him trying to figure out the mystery of that.
The mess in the pilot comes from there being too many components to the plot in the main story arc. The main character is married with a son but he has this ex-fiancé who he thinks died at some point in the past in a plane crash. He has a police officer brother that he doesn’t get along with. During his various trips into the past in the pilot we find out all these details- like his current wife was once married to or dating his brother but the show suggests they were having an affair while he was with the fiancé and she was with the brother. In the present they complicate the story by having him disappear every time he goes into the past. This leads to an intervention on the show and so we get hints that maybe he had a drug problem in the past. All this stuff weighs the show down because you just want him to get on with the time traveling, or with anything other than wallowing, really. Further complicating the show is the fact that it’s painted itself into a corner with its central love triangle. This guy lost his great love and now he’s found out that she may be alive and travelling through time with him. He also has opportunities to be with her in the past. At the same time they show him as a devoted family man who will do just about anything to save his marriage. It’s pretty much a no-win they have set up there. There’s a scene towards the end where he finally proves to his wife that he can travel through time by using their wedding ring and their garden that’s actually lovely and works very well on the female demos. One scene isn’t nearly enough to recommend this, though.

Verdict: Journeyman has a fantastic spot right after Heroes. With that comes the responsibility of retaining the lead-in’s viewers. I don’t see enough people sticking around to watch this. I think NBC will keep this for at least a season, but it will lose its time slot.

Would I Watch It? No; but I think it’s cool if it connects with other people.