Let the Journey continue!

Hey! I want to save a show!

I've been in this position before. There's a show that I just love, and the cursed network with all their money and power TAKES IT AWAY! That's not right! We've all had this happen. You really dig the show, but for some reason or another, no one ELSE seems to be watching it! And then the powers that be realize they can replace it with something that will get better ratings and more advertising dollars ("When Domesticated Animals Attack 7!"), and with ZERO regard for YOUR feelings, they yank it on you! The nerve, I say!

In the old days, when your show went udders-vertical, really all you could do was whine and move on. But in the internet age, you've got a PLACE to whine...where people from around the world can hear you! And you can also find lots and lots of other fans of the show who are just as obsessed with it (perhaps even more) than you, and usually one of them is enterprising enough to organize a campaign to SAVE THE SHOW! It's a common tale these days.

And during this age, I've cared enough about a handful of shows to get involved. I did, first, with Millennium. Season 2 of that show was one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen on television. And then...the ax! Well, a bunch of us fans got busy and started a postcard campaign (okay, someone else started it...I just found out about it and sent one...), and it worked! They gave us a third season! And it SUCKED!! It was an insult! I own seasons 1 and 2 on DVD, but refuse to buy the third (that I worked so hard sending a postcard to save) and try my best to pretend it never happened. Man, talk about your backfires...

I also got involved with Angel, when it was about to go. Once again, us fan-types won, and we got one more season. This one, thankfully, didn't suck, and we were happy to have it. Mission accomplished.

I was MOST involved, however, with Firefly. THAT was my big obsession. And that's a well-documented fan-save story. Fans of this show were NOT typical TV show fans. "Browncoats", as we came to be known, rallied like a freaking army. Tim and I used the Nice Guy site to join in the fight. And I got involved any way I could, as did many people I knew. And what happened? Well, we didn't get our show back...but we got a movie, at least. Not some made-for-TV movie, but a real big-screen Hollywood movie ("Serenity")! Did we want more? Yeah. But we got a hell of a lot more than most people who lose their shows ever get. And some of us managed to make a lot of new friends out of it, too. Very cool.

This season I decided try out a few of the new network shows. None of them were really working for me. Some were okay...and weren't bad or anything...but they just didn't move me enough to make spending the precious time to watch them worth it. One, though, did do it for me. It was called Journeyman. It was not a new concept. It was, in many ways, Quantum Leap. You got this guy (a reporter named Dan Vasser) who started jumping through time (involuntarily) to fix things. Only with this show, our main character really had no idea WHY it was happening. I just started.

What made it different though, as I told people, was that it was Quantum Leap for grownups. This guy wasn't some action hero. He was a thirty-something guy with a wife and a kid. And with a past (recovering gambling addict...a wife who died in a plane crash...and a new wife that used to be his brother's girl (d'oh!)). But his life was going along pretty good...until he disappeared from a cab and reappeared a number of years in the past... HATE when that happens. And when these disappearances happen, and he returns, he doesn't return to the exact moment he left. He's gone...for a while. And this causes all kinds of problems in his life (marital, and, quickly, legal...). And as if suddenly slipping back into the past wasn't confusing and distressing enough, imagine what it's like for him when suddenly his dead wife starts showing up...who's not only NOT dead, but travels through time like him?

This show has a really awesome cast, one of the main reasons I kept coming back. Dan is played by Rome star Kevin McKidd. His (current) wife, Katie, is played by the wonderful Gretchen Egolf. His mysterious time-traveling ex-wife, Livia, is played by (the really, really smokin' hot) Moon Bloodgood (the name alone makes me want to marry her...and let her keep her name, of course). And his cop brother, Jack, is the reason I decided to try the show in the first place...he's played by Reed Diamond, who used to be Detective Mike Kellerman on Homicide (I was a major Homicide freak). And somehow, all those actors together really, really worked for me. They made me care about them, and their relationships to each other, and their lives. Yeah, sure, Dan was back in time helping people and all, but I found it was the stuff back in the present, with him trying to keep things together with his wife and son, or not lose his job, or to keep the rift between him and his brother from getting wider, were my favorite parts of the show. They were really stingy with handing out info on the whole story of what the whole time travel thing was about, but they were giving it to us slowly, and there was a good little conspiracy thing starting to happen...

And then, when the time came for NBC to hand out renewals for their new shows, Journeyman was NOT on that list. It's not an official cancellation...but it might as well be. It means the same thing...that's probably the end.

There were three unaired episodes at this point, and NBC was not going to bother showing them. But, in what I see as a first good sign, fans demanded to see them...and NBC said "okay" and showed them after all. So I got to see all thirteen produced episodes...and, of course, watch the last one with a cloud of melancholy hanging over me. Another of "my" shows, gone. This usually happens with Fox shows...I didn't see it coming from NBC, man.

Now, I know a number of people who watched this show. A couple of them were really saddened, like me, by the news. Others had started watching the show, but it just didn't hold their interest, and they stopped. So it's not a show for everyone. It's definitely an acquired taste. But I really think it was quality stuff. And I think if more people would have tried it out, they would have grown to love it as I did. Or, at least maybe half of them would.

So, I'm back in "save" mode again, as I found enough people like me cared enough about it to start a campaign. And it's a creative one. The show takes place in San Francisco. So someone (taking the idea from the "Save Jericho" campaign that send (literally) tons of peanuts to CBS to make their point) decided that we should send boxes of Rice-A-Roni to NBC. You know...the San Francisco treat and all? From what I hear, nearly 2000 boxes have been sent to Jeff Zucker, president of NBC/Universal, so far (a good start). And the Save Journeyman site is taking donations, too, if you're like me and you don't want to actually go to the store and buy your own box and wrap it and mail it (I'm a fan...but I'm a lazy fan). They're buying and sending boxes for us. And ordering them off Amazon.com, no less. Did YOU know you could get Rice-A-Roni on Amazon.com? I didn't. And the cool part is that NBC, in turn, is donating those boxes to charity. So it's a win for everyone.

So here's what I'm thinking. If you watched, and liked, Journeyman...well, good for you. You're smart, and you have taste. If you want to see more of it, go to that link and give a little PayPal dough and get some Rice sent - or find out there what address to use if you want to send it yourself.

If you haven't watched Journeyman...well, maybe you ought to. You might not care for it. Or, you might think it's really really cool and original. How can you watch it? Glad you asked. All the episodes can be watched right on the web at NBC's site:

Journeyman at NBC

Or if you're part the iPod generation, you can go to the iTunes store and grab the pilot episode there....and if you like it, all thirteen of them. And then, if you find want more, jump on the Save Journeyman bandwagon and help us bring it back!

Or at the very least, just drop me a line and let me know what you thought of it. That won't cost you a dime.