the verdict is in

Journeyman: awesome.

It's like Quantam Leap meets The Time Traveler's Wife. Good combination, if you ask me. Spoilers ahead, obviously.

Dan, who is the "journeyman," is somehow being transported through time. This causes problems for him, obviously, and everyone assumes he is on drugs. They even stage an intervention for him. Which I thought was pretty funny. He randomly jumps through time, back and forth from the present to the past, leaping from life to life, putting things right that once went wrong, and hoping each time the next leap will be the leap home... oh, I mean, no. I'm getting confused. That's not quite what happens. But he does have to fix something that happened wrong. In the pilot episode, he has to save the life of a kid named... James? Was that it? He has to save this kid from being murdered - he convinces the mom to keep the baby, and he prevents the dad from killing him later on when the mom is leaving the dad and taking the son with him. We find out in the end that the kid is a super genius, basically, and he saved the lives of a bunch of people who were in a bus crash. (I think it was a bus.) "It was all about saving the kid's life," as he says. Only he says the kid's name, but I can't remember that.

In the middle of that, he has to prove to his family that he isn't actually on drugs, or drinking, or whatever it is they think he's doing when he's gone. Because he just vanishes, sometimes for hours, sometimes for days. He just appears or disappears anywhere at any time. And then one day, he went to the library and the librarian there knew him and told him she'd known him since she was a little girl, and that she knew they were going to get married one day. Oh - no, that's... that's wrong again. Sorry. Um, no, he's married to this lady, who is named... Katie. Yeah. That's it. (Not Clare.) He tried to tell her that he was time traveling, and she was like "no. You are on crack. There is no other explanation." And lo, there was much frustration. But it actually ended up being okay, because the next time Dan went back to the past he took Katie's wedding ring, got a box, put the ring in with a newspaper from that time period (which was 1997), and buried it in the backyard of the house he would eventually live in with his family. He goes home finally after saving the bus kid, and when he gets there, Katie is really mad, because he's been gone a long time, and she's so ready to start a fight right there, but Dan is all "hold on, okay" and he gets a shovel out of the closet (closet?) and goes in the backyard. Katie is thinking he is even crazier than before. Dan, standing on this nice stone patio, is like, "when did we put this patio in?" She says, "right when we moved in..." and then he starts hacking away at it. And Katie goes "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" and Dan says, "saving my marriage," and Katie says, "not really!" But then he digs up the box with her wedding ring in it, gives it to her, and all is well with everyone, except for me, because the entire time that was happening they were playing a song by The Fray.

I think this show is awesome and has a lot of great potential. I love time travel stories, and I like all the characters so far, except the wife actually, she bothers me a little... but I don't know. It's only been one episode. But I'm really interested in finding out what went on in the pasts of these people, because Dan kept running into this girl Livia, and you find out he was engaged to her, and that she apparently died in a plane crash, and he shows up at this restaurant where his past self is having an engagement lunch with his brother and... Katie. Katie and his brother are together in the past, and he's engaged to Olivia. So what went on there...? Livia dies, Katie leaves the brother and marries Dan. It's pretty obvious that she's in love with Dan in the past, even though she's with his brother. It seems sort of complicated. But interesting!

And THEN, SUDDENLY, Dan is doing something in the past, and he just left Livia in his old apartment, and he goes down the stairs and runs into... LIVIA? And he's all, "how did you get...?" And she goes "Come over here. NOW" and runs into this alley thing, and then you see... Livia... leaving the apartment. So! It would seem that not only is Livia NOT DEAD in the present, but she is also one of these time-challenged people who are jumping around. She goes, "Do you know why you're here?" and Dan goes, "The never found the body, so does that mean you're alive? Did you even get on that plane? Are you like a ghost or something?" and she's like, "I don't think I'm supposed to be here" and runs out another door and then there's the flash of light that means she left to go to another time. Dan is very confused, but that's all you hear about on the subject in this episode.

So add this to the long, long list of shows I'm watching this year. You should watch it too. Good stuff so far.