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2007-2008 Season Post-Mortem Part 7: "Journeyman" |
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Tuesday, 03 June 2008 |
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By John Keegan
Visit Critical Myth for an archive of John's TV Review archives, with more than 1100 entries.
| This season, I’ll be summing up this unusual 2007-2008 season with a post-mortem on the majority of the shows I’ve reviewed during the year, ranking from the very worst to the very best. In some cases, the term “post-mortem” is all too applicable. This is Part 7 of this 11-step journey, focusing on the first season of “Journeyman”.
Unlike fellow freshmen “Bionic Woman” and “Moonlight”, “Journeyman enjoyed a solid production and writing staff and a singular vision. There were few (if any) examples of forced revision along the way, and the showrunner was able to put together a smart and mature story arc over the course of 13 episodes. With all that going for the series, what went wrong?
In short, four things held “Journeyman” back from the success that it deserved.
First and foremost, the network had no concept of the kind of show they had in hand. Based on all the promotional material sent out before the show aired, the network seemed to think that it would be a slightly different take on “Quantum Leap”. The descriptions were so similar that many potential viewers refused to watch the show based on that impression alone.
The second problem was scheduling. Two promising shows had failed in the exact same timeslot the season before (“Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” and “The Black Donnellys”). In some respect, that was a failing on the part of the shows in question, but the post-“Heroes” timeslot was quickly acknowledged as a showkiller. After all, the “CSI: Miami” war machine was solid in that hour, making it very hard for a new scripted show (especially one given deceptive promotion) to gain ground.
With the show being something different than promised, and the timeslot less than ideal, the series had to start with a solid and compelling pilot. This was the third problem: the very first episode began with a confusing and mediocre first half. It wasn’t until Livia arrived on the scene that the premise began to take shape, and the final act was more than worth the wait. Unfortunately, quite a few potential viewers chose to turn the channel before any of that happened.
Even so, the series had average ratings as a start, so it might have gained ground. This is where the fourth and fatal problem arose. To put it simply, a number of viewers were put off by the mature tone of the series. The show was less about time traveling antics (though there were quite a few) and more about the effect of the unplanned and unwanted time travel on Dan Vassar’s personal and professional life. It was a show about relationships, and a fairly realistic depiction of what such a phenomenon would do to an already troubled relationship. (Ironically, strong characters and ongoing consequences are often desired by genre fans.)
Week after week, the show lost viewers. For some, the true intentions of the show just weren’t interesting enough. For others, they had little patience for a narrative that demanded patience. In many respects, “Journeyman” was similar to “Invasion”, a series from the 2005-2006 season that seemed to start slow, but was taking its time to set up conflicts and consequences.
Hopefully the inevitable DVD set will allow for a second look at the series. I think a number of people who passed on the show during first run will be surprised if they revisit the show in its entirety. After all, the series earned a Critical Myth average rating of 7.6, and it was consistently above average along the way. “Journeyman” was a smart show about consequences and character, and it deserved better than it received. |
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