Journeyman: "Perfidia"

"Series finale"
The last episode...most likely.

Things kick off when Dan lands in a heap on the courtyard of a mental institution with a cut on his head. As he gets his bearings, it's clear that it's not too serious. I raised an eyebrow when a patient said it was 2007.

Evan, a patient, comes up to Dan, saying he saw how Dan flashed in and said he was a time traveler, too. Evan says he hasn't been jumping since he started taking some prescription meds the people with arm vests made him take. I wasn't sure at first, but I leaned toward believing him. Evan says he has to get out to see his wife. Though Dan isn't sure, he goes along, creating a diversion to let Evan slip out, then flashes back to the present. There he learns that Evan got hit by a car while jaywalking during his quest to see his wife.

As Dan researches Evan, Annette urges Katie to leave Dan and Jack tries to get Dr. Langley to spill what he knows about time travel. Annette served no purpose except to vocalize the doubts that Katie must be feeling. Katie chooses to stay with Dan by the end, but if the series had continued, I'm sure we would've seen more drama in that area.

It was nice seeing Jack work as Dan's strongest ally, but if Langley had admitted to being in on Dan's time travel calling, what would that have accomplished? And his pregant girlfriend is nowhere to be seen.

Anyhow, Dan meets up with Livia on his next trip back to September 2007 (about the time he started jumping?). Livia's extremely unhappy as she's prepping to get married back in 1946. And she made sure not to repeat her faux pas with Dan by telling her next fiance about her time travel calling. Dan wishes her well and decides to continue helping Evan, while Livia wonders if he's the mission and if he has all his marbles. Evan points out that Livia's shoes give her away as a time traveler. LOL.

Incidentally one wonders how Livia appears with modern clothes and hairstyles so often?

When Dan and Livia help Evan get to his wife, she doesn't know him from Adam. Evan then admits to our duo that he made an enemy during one of his missions, who killed his wife. So he changed things to keep them from meeting at Stanford to let her live. Then his past self saw him and things went on steamrolling downhill...

When Dan flashes back to the present, he learns that Evan got shot by the security detail bird dogging the new husband of Evan's new spouse, a San Fran council member. Dan tells Evan on his next jaunt, but Evan doesn't care. He wants to prove to himself that he hasn't been completely erased from his wife's consciousness. Romantic, but then what once he establishes he's right?

Evan triggers a spark with his wife at a fundraising event for her new hubby, who's campaigning for reelection, when he takes her for a salsa whirl on the dance floor. When they finish, the two're giving each other rapturous smiles when Evan spontaneously drops dead. Apparently he's not meant to live no matter what. But this death is more annoying (and contrived) than the first two. And Dan and Livia also have to two-step a couple times to avoid running into the past Dan to keep the timeline on track. It seemed to me that the only reason past Dan didn't see them on at least two close calls was because the show's directors and writers ordained it. Dan and Livia exit when they witness past Dan get into a cab and flash for the first time.

When Dan gets back to the present, he finds Dr. Langley waiting for him at the newspaper. Our resident scientist admits to Dan that he's part of a group that watches time travelers (shades of the Buffy/Angel and Highlander watchers). There's more depth here, but I'm on the fence about this.

The powers that be are unknown to the time travel watchers (and the time travelers and viewers), but the system seems to be breaking down (for unknown reasons) since Dan (along with Livia) is apparently one of the last time travelers on the watchers' grid.

Unknown people are watching the time travelers, who want to exploit 'em. Dr. Langley and his group of watchers want to help keep the secret, and he pledges Dan his unflinching support. The jury's out on whether Langley is who he says he is, but we won't know that since the series is virtually cancelled now.

Dan goes home to Katie, who wants him to take the pills that Evan took to put a kibosh on his temporal sojourns. Only Dan doesn't see his jumping as a curse anymore, but as a calling in which he has the valuable ability to "set right what once went wrong" ("Quantum Leap" quote). Couldn't blame him. I'd make that choice.

Katie then reminds Dan of his promise in the pilot episode in which he said he'll "always come back home." Good nod to continuity. When Dan gives the affirmative, she says she'll "keep the light on." Great show of support. And the final note of a promising series.

When I look back on the series, I feel that a number of things caused potential viewers to change the channel when the latest installment of "Heroes" ended. One is the predictable time travel plots of the earlier episodes and the (overly?) complicated love quadrilateral of Dan, Livia, Jack, and Katie. On another note, Livia was apparently an independent time traveler before she conveniently stayed in the "present" for several years, where she went to law school and met Dan and got engaged before leaping again. Then once Dan started leaping, she apparently leaped only to join him and play a poor man's Al Calavicci to Dan's Sam Beckett.

The second and more major issue was the incongruences througout the show (like Livia's modern clothes) and the lack of a "cause" generating the "effect": Dan's time jumps.

"Cause and effect." A major principal of science and science fiction. And good storytelling no matter what the genre.

The series established the "what" of its premise: Dan traveling through time a la "Quantum Leap"'s Sam Becket to help people.

But the dramatic "how" Dan is sent through time and "why" Dan being born during the passage of a fictional comet makes him a time traveler.

Without knowing the "how" at all and a part of the "why" until the next to last episode, Dan's jumps through time come across to me as contrived.

Only because I'm a SF fan (especially time travel) did I have the patience to stick with "Journeyman" through its growing pains. Unfortunately, the general viewing audience didn't have my kind of patience. Hence the dropping ratings and NBC's refusal to pick up the series' option.

In Hollywood, many self-proclaimed SF film/TV producers and writers say it's possible to do anything with SF. I would point out that the best SF stories work on internally consistent and logical rules that are effectively relayed to readers and viewers.

IMHO, "Journeyman" didn't do this and paid the price with its premature cancellation. Hopefully, others will learn this lesson.