Journeyman: "Emily" (Episode 109)

"Maybe our ratings are in here!"

The rumor over at Ain’t It Cool News is that if this two-parter episode doesn’t do well for NBC, Journeyman is going to get pulled immediately. I find that hard to believe as the networks are sucking on the straw, trying to find that last little bit of milkshake that is scripted programming. On the other hand, if there’s a show that deserves to be pulled off, it’s probably this one. Sometimes a rerun of SVU is just the way to go. The ratings are flagging severely and the creative direction isn’t exactly… good. I read the comments over at TivoCommunity.com and elsewhere and I am shocked when people comment on how much they dig this show. I enjoyed the pilot enough and I came into the show really wanting to enjoy it (and I love wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff), but this show is just horrible. Every single episode has more than a few examples of poor story choices, poor acting choices and poor directing choices. Hell, in this episode I even saw a poorly completed rack focus from the camera department. None the less, I am going to continue recapping and reviewing the show until the bitter end and lament all that could have been. Besides, I know I would rather read a critical review than just another rambling post about how much the reviewer likes the show and pondering the direction that it might be going in. And I find my critical recaps so much easier to write than the ones about the shows I love.

Ran so fast, he went back in time.We begin with our hero, Dan Vasser, going for a jog. Oh, but everyone knows that the Journeyman can’t go for a regular jog, not even with his oh-so-iconic especially new version of the iPod earbuds. Quick headache (sometime quick, sometime long) and Dan flashes into a rave, his forward momentum carrying him into some dancers complete with glowsticks. Ahh, the early nineties. Dan also happens across Livia, but Dan quickly realizes that it’s an early nineties version of Livia and we learn later that she is newly freed from the binds of her forties life.

Dan spots some bricks that are… vibrating from the music (?) and after quickly pushing and pulling on the loosened mortar, Dan does not find himself in a version of The Cask of Amontillado, but does manage to find a tiny room with a girl who has clearly been kidnapped and kept there.

"Wait til' you see how they toughen me up in part two!" After rescuing the girl, he tries to find help, but manages to ask a man in a suit who seems one hundred percent out of place at the rave. The girl quickly identifies him as the man that took her and the cops suddenly arrive… to arrest everyone at the rave. The police are scatterbrained to say the least, but they figure out that the girl is someone who has been reported missing. Dan still hasn’t learned to keep his mouth shut about the future (idiot) and then the police pull their guns on him even though he’s not doing anything but complying (unrealistic).

Cue crazy backwards credits. (Kevin Falls, I hate you. Thanks for getting a time-travel show on network television and blowing it.)

The police are arresting Dan until they can figure out what is going on, but of course they ignore all pleas to go after the real kidnapper from both Dan and the girl that was actually kidnapped! And conveniently, Dan leaps not as soon as he saved the girl, but after he’s put into the police car, handcuffed. And Dan has added at least one more report to his historical rap sheet.

Back in the present, Lil’ Dan is having problems at school. And his principal is a bitch and more intrusive than public school official would be in real life. And speaking of intrusive, there’s Jerk-Bro’s girlfriend (who we don’t care about) who’s doctorly advice consists only of the suggestion to have Dan committed.

Dan shows up at the school (how did he get there?) in the cop’s handcuffs (no one noticed?) and Wifey helps him out by trying out keys on the handcuff in a sex shop (what?). No, seriously, wha-ut? First of all, I’m pretty sure that they don’t use the same handcuffs on the police force that they sell in sex shops. Second of all, I’m pretty sure police issue handcuffs wouldn’t have skeleton keys that will open all handcuffs. Third of all, Wifey is trying a ring of handcuff keys as if the sex shop sells them separately. Fourth of all, they give the shopkeeper the handcuffs as a gift as if he a) had keys to a pair of cuffs that he didn’t have and b) can sell cuffs that don’t have their own key. That’s five crazy leaps of logic in one scene! I hate this show.

At the paper, the FBI is still snooping by asking Hugh questions about Dan’s missed deadlines, as if that is proof of anything. Hugh basically tells Chapelle to shove it. How is it that Hugh is the only one on this show that ever seems to have believable motivations? Oh, actually I guess the kid wanting to not lose Wii privileges is actually valid as well.

Dan chats with Hugh and learns about what happened to the girl that he rescued (not much good) and that another girl turned up dead and that the kidnapper dodged suspicion. Dan tries to put his brother onto the kidnapper in the present, since murder has no statute of limitations. He and Jerk Bro butt heads, but Jerk starts to thaw to the idea of time travel when Dan knows undisclosed details about the bad (read: future) currency in the past. Jerk Bro agrees to entertain the Dan’s ideas and questions the kidnapper. And he’s sketchy.

"Look at my boob. But only my left boob..."In the mid-nineties, Dan and Livia are on the hunt for the girl, Emily, which Dan rescued to give her some much needed help. And Livia is wearing… something. In the future (or the past) was it popular to make dresses that highlighted one breast over the other? Dan finds the girl and goes toe to toe with a dirty homeless drug dealer and rescues Emily once again. Then, despite being worried about contaminating the timeline and vowing not to intrude on his apartment anymore, Dan and Livia take Emily to their place to eat Chinese food and they don’t seem the least bit alert to the fact that one of their past selves might make an unscheduled trip home in the middle of the day. Long story short, Dan decides to go after the kidnapper, despite Livia pleading for him not to and warning him that he’ll mess up the timeline. She says this with an air of someone who has dealt with it before. Dan leaves while Livia stays behind to help young Emily.

Dan tracks the kidnapper to his office and watches him extol the virtues of chat rooms and chat lines. Oh the joys of Windows 95. In an awkward cut to the present, Lil’ Dan gets into a fight. Don’t care. Back in the past, Dan tries to take a look at stuff on the kidnapper’s desk, but he gets caught in the act. Dan confronts him and tries to chase him down, but of course he blinks out at the most inopportune moment. But why did he stick around as long as he did after helping Emily.

"But I don't want to be a red fish!"Back in the present, in the most ridiculous extended red herring ever, Lil’ Dan complains about his head hurting exactly in the way that Big Dan always does before leaping. Wifey takes her eyes off of him for a moment and he vanishes. Not like flash-of-light vanishes, but probably just went and hid the way kids do. Was the audience really to believe that he traveled? The writers’ throw in a commercial break to amp up the tension and make the red herring even more ridiculous. Dan arrives home at just this moment so he can panic as well, just before they find Lil’ Dan hiding in a cupboard. Yawn. That was a bunch of pointless dramatic action which did nothing to advance character or plot.

At least nail your camera moves...Again more junk with Jerk-Bro and his even more annoying girlfriend. Jerk finds a bit of something in the casefiles that intrigues him and he starts to buy Dan’s story. In an awkward timelapse cut, Dan gets a call from Jerk acting like Jerk and he tells him that he’s not going to worry about Dan’s “condition” right now, but he’s going to work on bringing the guy in now. Back home, Wifey is already fed up with Dan’s leaping… jeez, where would the character go if the show wasn’t going to be cancelled? Dan vanishes while sitting at the kitchen table and she smashes a mug.

Dan appears in the past, somehow at a full run out of the “tachyon hole” (my words), despite the fact that he was seated when he vanishes. Great continuity (sarcasm). Livia shows up with her car from the past (does she bring it or does she always steal the same classic cars). They catch up with Emily selling drugs in the most obvious way possible and they convince her to leave her drug life once again. And Dan continues to talk about the past (learn!). Emily reveals that she never came forward on the kidnapper because he didn’t kidnap her, but rather she met him after talking to him on a chat line. Although, it was still kidnapping. Livia beats up the drug dealer from before who is somehow still alive.

Dan is fed up and rushes off to deal with the kidnapper himself, again despite Livia’s warnings. Dan knows how to save the second girl and he’s not going to let her die. To one of the most annoying songs of 2001, Dan sneaks home first and sees a little baby version of his son and fast talks his way out of a confrontation with the babysitter.

In a scene that lasts far too long, Chapelle checks the records from Dan’s iPhone and reads all of the things that Dan has “spyder-found”(?) in the past. Of course, since Dan has changed history, this only amounts to him reading about people who have done good things with their lives and made the world a better place. Stupid.

"I'm the guy with the crowbar." -See! Hollywood needs these writers!Dan rolls up to the condos that the kidnapper is currently developing and finds the guy himself. After an overly dramatic battle, Dan subdues the kidnapper and breaks a lock to find the last missing girl. Although I’m pretty sure a sexually abused girl (which, face it, she must be) wouldn’t jump into the arms of a male savior, no matter how Scottish and futuristic he is.

"He always comes home... So far."At home in the present, Wifey comforts Lil’ Dan with lines cribbed from the pilot: “He’ll come home. He always does.” Which of course they can’t know and in Livia’s case, wasn’t true.

Back in the day, Dan saved girl number two and gave Hugh the tip for the story. Kidnapper is going away for a long time. In the present, the case is all wrapped up and Dan throws the case file back into a file cabinet willy-nilly. But Dan learns that the kidnapper got out of jail recently (Hello? Red flags anyone?) and gets Hugh to agree to a piece about the district that Dan’s kidnapper redeveloped. Although he didn’t. But I guess someone else would have. I’ll give them that one.

Jerk shows up demanding Dan go to see a shrink. Dan is blown away by the fact that Jerk hasn’t changed his mind. Although, it finally sinks in that he changed history. Why, oh why, is Dan so freaking slow when it comes to time-travel and causality? The show finally deals with some causality and its first effect is to keep Jerk-Bro a jerk.

And back home, Dan catches up with his loving family. But so does the kidnapper, newly released from prison.

NEXT WEEK: Bullets! And Jerk Bro sees a living Livia. At least in that timeline.

"Now, I have tattoos and a little ponytail! Awesome, right?"