Journey On

It appears that the writer's strike has finally dealt it's first major blow to my personal television viewing schedule, well, besides the fact that only eight of the 16 LOST Season Four episodes have been produced. Tonight the (presumably) final episode of my favorite new show of the season aired.

Journeyman wasn't the greatest show ever. I won't even try to say it was. Honestly, the only reason I wanted to watch it in the beginning was its main plot device: time travel. Time travel is such an interesting story telling technique and has created some of my favorite movies such as the Back to the Future trilogy and the two Bill & Ted movies. Even the plot of the book I'm currently writing revolves around time travel. It's an ability we wished we had (as a species), but is, in all likelihood, impossible. This yearning combined with infeasiblity stirs the creative juices of many writers such that so many different conceptions of time travel have been created.

The main reason I loved Journeyman is its rules of time travel. The main character, Dan Vassar, randomly started traveling and didn't know why. He soon found that, through his actions in the past, he could change his present, but his knowledge of his "original" present remained. For instance, in one of the better episodes of the series, he returns home to find he doesn't have a son, but has a daughter. His wife doesn't even remember the son. Now, the writers pulled some funky stuff with a psychic knowing the son's name, but the basic premise remains the same: he changed the timeline and he didn't change. There were no predestination paradoxes or other types of paradoxes. The writers seemed to have created a version of time travel that was at least logically consistent with itself.

There were some things I didn't like about Journeyman. The first few episodes of the series weren't that great (which I think is part of the reason it never caught on). It took a little while for the show to find its legs. The writers didn't seem to know if they wanted to do another Early Edition or a more involved series. Some of the characters were hard to emotionally invest in. The newspaper editor Hugh seemed to be nothing more than a token character Dan had to answer to in order to keep his job. Most notably, Dan's wife Katie was hard to invest in. Partly, Dan's time travel partner Olivia was a more interesting character, so I wanted Dan to end up with her. Partly, I don't think the writers ever found a good story for Katie beyond sitting at home waiting for Dan (which a woman clearly cannot do in today's entertainment industry). At one point it seemed as if she would go back to work, though perhaps that story was dropped when the writers knew the series would be shortened. Overall though, Katie was likable. What was worse than her shortcomings was the characters that came along to try and "tempt" her away from Dan, saying he was crazy and she could survive on her own such as her mother and sister. The two never felt like more than caricatures written in to give Katie someone to interact with and to quantify her inner struggle. It would have been much more interesting had she invested more in Dan's brother Jack, her ex, or found another outlet, perhaps another guy.

I'll miss Journeyman, although I'm not completely sure it's over. True, NBC hasn't picked up the option on the show, but why would they with all the writers' strike hoopla putting the entire television season into jeopardy...and I don't mean that every network will just air the game show over and over again. Also, if NBC drops the show, I wouldn't be surprised to see it end up on another network (I'm looking at you SciFi.). The most important piece of evidence for the show being in limbo and not sent down to cancellation hell is that the fans are the only one uttering the ugly c word. The creator seems to think some hope still exists. The network hasn't said yes, but hasn't said no either (although, women tend to use that technique and it often does mean no). Most convincing to me is a line from tonight's episode:

"I don't know why, but I think it's going to be a while," Olivia

Something about that statement stuck out to me. Within the context of the story Olivia was having some sort of premonition that she wouldn't see Dan for awhile, but an integral part of the drama of when he traveled, at least for me, was her being there too. They were like the ultimate time-traveling-crime-solving duo. If they didn't see each other for awhile, there would be no story. Outside the story, even if the show is picked up, because of the strike it won't be back for awhile.

Whatever happens to Journeyman, somewhere, somehow, may Dan Vassar journey on.

I Am Legend Review

Director Francis Lawrence is quickly moving up my list of favorite film makers. He has an uncanny ability to blend those poppy blockbuster visuals with interesting character pieces that don't devolve into psuedo-intellectual philosophizing. In a way, he is what Michael Bay wishes he could be. He takes a big name star, combines him with a fantastical premise, and brings it to life in a way that puts all types of movie goers in the seats. The incorporation of Christian undertones doesn't hurt his cause either. This time, he trades Keanu Reeves' Christ-like John Constantine for Will Smith's Christ-like Robert Neville.

Much of the movie is an establishment of Neville's state of mind. Through present day events in the year 2012 and flashbacks to the fifteen minutes before the final quarantine of Manhattan, Neville is forced to endure tragedy after tragedy. Smith succeeds in using his natural charisma to make us sympathize with the character, but not feel sorry for him. He is not someone that we want to help, but someone that we want to help himself. As the movie progresses, you want him to figure out how to heal the disease, not just for mankind's sake, but for his sake. Smith is enough Tom Hanks in Castaway, Ahab in Moby Dick, and himself to make it work; and, I'm not animal lover, but the dog they cast as Sam is simply beautiful.

Several scenes throughout the movie are sure to become classic. You'll never look at mannequins, watching the Today show, or going to Blockbuster the same ever again. My personal favorite involves the quoting of one of the most quotable movies ever. Not knowing what to do, Neville walks into his living room where Shrek is playing and delivers both Shrek and Donkey's lines from one of the duo's famed squabbles in perfect unison in both timing and intonation before culminating with, "I like Shrek." Anyone who likes Smith or Shrek will delight in the moment.

The truth strength of the movie though comes in its finale. You see, apparently fans of the book are mad at how badly it was betrayed. They have a point to an extent, but here is an excerpt from that ending:

They all stood looking up at him with their white faces. He stared back. And suddenly he thought, I'm the abnormal one now. Normalcy was a majority concept, the standard of many and not the standard of just one man.

Abruptly that realization joined with what he saw on their faces -- awe, fear, shrinking horror -- and he knew that they were afraid of him. To them he was some terrible scourge they had never seen, a scourge even worse than the disease they had come to live with. He was an invisible specter who had left for evidence of his existence the bloodless bodies of their loved ones. And he understood what they felt and did not hate them. [...]

Robert Neville looked out over the new people of the earth. He knew he did not belong to them; he knew that, like the vampires, he was anathema and black terror to be destroyed. And, abruptly, the concept came, amusing to him even in his pain.

[...]Full circle, he thought [...]. Full circle. A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever.

I am legend.

The ending of the movie turns this relativistic conception of disease and culture on its head. I won't go into the details to save you the enjoyment, but I will say this: Turning a relativistic stronghold into a Christ allegory is brave story telling that you're either going to love or hate...and I loved it.

4/5 Stars.

The Mist Review

Let me begin by saying I'm not a Stephen King fan beyond the fact that he's a Red Sox fan. Sometimes he writes really original and entertaining stories and I give him all the credit in the world for those few, but most of the time he falls into the category of a genre writer, churning out so many Goosebump-esque tales RL Stine would be jealous. The Mist is one of those stories.

I went into The Mist not expecting much and found myself pleasantly surprised. The cast was sprinkled with familiar faces beyond the Punisher (Thomas Jane) as apparently alpha male David Drayton. The Shermanator is a bag boy. Marcia Gay Harden is a religious local. William Sadler (Death from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey and the villian from Die Hard 2) is a surly local. I was excited. I thought this movie might be going somewhere. Then the Shermanator bit it.


Wanting to prove their worth, Sadler, the Shermanator, and another local ignore the warnings of the Punisher and attempt to open the door to the loading dock of the grocery store within which they're trapped. Their goal is to unclog a meaningless generator. Giant tentacles reach under the door as the door rises and latch on to the Shermanator, ripping pieces from him until finally ripping him from the arms of the Punisher and the assistant manager of the store, one of the few likable characters in the movie. The death isn't so much tragic as it is pathetic. It is also the catalyst for the conflict of the story.

What happens over the rest of the film is a supposed allegory on the Hobbesian nature of man. In other words, when push comes to shove, we don't cooperate, we fight. The first divide is between the Punisher and a New York lawyer who thinks the hicks from Maine are playing a big joke on him. He and a few others walk into The Mist never to be seen again. Then Marcia Gay Harden's character kicks into gear.


If you're a Christian, stay away from this movie. Your faith is drug over the coals as if this movie was made in the days before Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, and FoxNews. Harden immediately starts crying Revelations and the End of Days. She demands blood and sacrifice and after the pretty brunette is stung by a giant bug and her face bloats up killing her (always a tragedy), people begin to follow her. It isn't long before they turn on the others in the store, turning on a metro-sexual military young man, even though he's a locale, because The Mist came from the government's mysterious Arrowhead Project in the mountains. After Harden's turn in this movie and Law and Order SVU, it's apparent she is good at playing stereotypical right wing nutjobs, but at least in SVU she was an undercover FBI Agent trying to bring down some Neo-Nazis. Here she just proves how freedom of speech in a crisis isn't always a good idea.

To be fair, it isn't until the final moments that the movie loses most of its worth. Over the large majority of the story, it is a paint-by-the numbers horror movie, complete with stock characters and conflicts. The ending, however, reminds us that every likable character in the movie is killed and that the Punisher, the supposed hero, has left behind everyone he cared for the entire movie in an attempt to do what's "right" instead of doing what's right. I'm all for a tragedy and/or a tragic hero, but when the tragic flaw is just being a dumbass, it leaves you thinking, "Well, at least I know I could easily survive a situation like that one."

1.5/5 Stars