'Journeyman' not worth trip

Struggling to explain the show he co-created, "Journeyman" executive producer Alex Graves said, "The approach is that it's a time-travel show made by people who don't believe in time travel."

OK. Then I don't believe in "Journeyman."

It's hard to believe in this new NBC series, which premieres Monday at 9 p.m. on Ch. 5, because it's a combination of confusion and boredom. Which is not a good mix for a TV series.

Kevin McKidd ("Rome") stars as Dan Vasser, a newspaper reporter/family man who suddenly, inexplicably finds himself traveling through time. He eventually figures out that he's supposed to do something that will affect some people and, thus, affect other people.

It's about that clear.

"Well, listen, it's time travel, so there's always a challenge to tell coherent stories," Falls said.

That inspires confidence.

Dan's sudden disappearances don't sit real well with his wife (Gretchen Egolf) — and she doesn't know that he's run into the love of his life (Moon Bloodgood), who's supposed to be dead.

The producers refer to "Journeyman" as a "procedural" — the same genre as the "CSIs" and the "Law & Orders." Dan has these missions he has to undertake and these puzzles to figure out ... although he doesn't have a clue about what's really going on.

Ho, hum.

Falls said that "the crux of this whole show" is the "moral problem that this guy has and his emotions about what's he going to choose — to have such a conflicting, kind of almost existential problem."

Whatever that's supposed to mean.

There do seem to be some rules to this time travel, including:

• Dan can only try to fix something once. "I felt like, well, then, if he can do that, then there's no stakes or drama," Falls said. "So, no, he gets one shot ... there's no do-overs.

• "He has to try very hard not to interrupt his own timeline," Falls said. "The idea is he does not want to run into himself because what we are going to do on this show is try to keep as much as possible the present life intact."

Except, of course, he does interrupt his own timeline in the first episode. "We have certain rules in the writers' room that we live by, yes, but there is certainly always going to be some wriggle room," Falls said.

• He can only time travel within his own lifetime.

• The time travelers (and Dan isn't the only one) "don't mess with history" overall — they are supposed to just deal with the one thing they're (sort of) aimed at.

• And, while most time-travel fiction supposes you can't change one thing without having ripple effects that change everything, that's not the case in "Journeyman."

"Yeah, I don't think it's been proven," Falls said.

Fair enough.

And don't look for any answers anytime soon about what the heck is going on.

"This show isn't about why he's traveling. We're going to answer that at the very end of the series, hopefully in a number of years," Falls said.

It's a better bet that "Journeyman" will end after a number (single digits?) of episodes — probably so suddenly that those questions will never be answered.

---

E-MAIL: pierce@desnews.com