Journeyman versus Quantum Leap

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Quantum Leap’s Sam Beckett has returned in the form of Dan Vasser in NBC’s new time travel show Journeyman, sort of. This is my top show to watch each week. The new series with its fascinating plot line and cast has a lot of the same qualities as the Emmy award winning Quantum Leap series, but clearly has its differences. If you loved Quantum Leap (QL), you’ll love Journeyman (JM). If you didn’t like Quantum Leap so much, you’ll love Journeyman.

When I casually bring up Journeyman with others, I get the same response every time: “It’s that new Quantum Leap show, right?” I wish I could yell from the rooftops for everyone to watch Journeyman and give it a chance, but I’ll do the next best thing and blog about it. Sure, you could Wikipedia Journeyman, but information on the show reads like stereo instructions.

For those Quantum Leap lovers, you’ll notice the big similarity: The main character “leaps” through time trying to fix/change the past for a positive purpose. Similar to QL, Dan has been told by a fellow time traveler that they must change something if they want to return home to the present. Dan never travels forward in time (beyond his own present time), like Sam, and (so far) Dan has only time traveled within his own time line (i.e. he hasn’t traveled back before his birth date- and I realize Sam has traveled once beyond his time line, but it was more of a fluke as he leaped into his distant relative). We don’t know (at this point) how Dan is able to time travel and who is manipulating his destinations. Beyond that, we don’t really know why he saves the people he does, but the people he does help/save (or someone connected to that person) goes onto save or help many more people down the line. This leads me to speculate that whomever is leaping him around knows the overall scheme of how things will be after the change is made; i.e. someone with immense power of some sort (God perhaps).

The main characters in both shows are a reluctant hero that clearly displays acts of good. Like Sam Beckett, Dan never seems to hesitate when “leaping” into action, whether it be tackling the bad guy or pulling someone away at the last minute before a bomb goes off. Sam and Dan are also a couple of tough hombres. While Sam studied in martial arts (unknown to him for quite some time due to his Swiss cheese memory), Dan seems to be more of a tough as nails street brawler; no professional training, but seems to never back down from a fight (even with himself). Dan may not be a super genius like Sam was, but Dan does display characteristics of cleverness and quick thinking.

Sam was accompanied by Al Calavicci, a colleague from the future whom takes the form of a hologram and feeds Sam information about where he is, who he is, and the probability of why he is there. Dan receives frequent visits by fellow time traveler and ex fiancée Livia Beale. Liv so far has given Dan the gist: change something for the good in order to return home. Dan mainly has to trust his instincts, Liv explains, as being drawn to his targets may be part of the JM ability package.

But where the similarities of QL and JM end are where the differences begin. I am sure the creators of JM had to realize that people would compare this show to QL, so they had to create their distinct differences.

First off, Dan’s traveling abilities are unknown while Sam’s time travel ability was all part of his experiment. Sam takes on someone else’s persona when he leaps (his physical body, but another person’s ‘aura’- either as someone he has to save or someone connected to the person he has to save). Dan travels as himself. Sam time travels within a blink of an eye from one place to another, but in present time a week or so has passed. Dan jumps around time with no time lapses, but Dan is always unconscious*** (see update below) when he travels backwards in time and is awake when he travels back to the present (also the amount of time Dan spends in the past directly effects the same amount of time he is gone in the present). Sam was constantly stuck in the past and only returned home once during his adventures and Sam only leaped when his mission was complete. Dan periodically leaps back to the present, but mostly for him to gather information on his current mission. Sam had to create and build a super computer (whom he named Ziggy) to feed him information about the past, while Dan has the Internet. Sam’s missions always took place in one period in time, which then had a lasting improvement on the future while Dan has to return to his target’s life in different time periods. Finally, the big underline difference that no one probably picked up on is that Sam seemed to travel back in time to “fix” something while Dan seems to travel back in time to “change” something. Sam’s motto was “put right, what once went wrong” while I feel Dan isn’t on a crusade to “fix” things, he’s more about changing things for the better. If you watched both shows as much as I did, you’d see that difference as well.

Sam and Dan are both good guys, but have very different lives and backgrounds. Sam is Superman to Dan’s Batman. Sam grew up on a farm, was a gifted a genius, and didn’t seem to have any skeleton’s in his closet (the all American boy). Dan is just an ordinary guy that works for a newspaper in the midst of mass layoffs. He’s a less than stellar brother, has a history of gambling addiction, and his time traveling ventures are taking a toll on his family life.

Journeyman is a little more compelling because we don’t fully understand what is happening to Dan and each week we get to journey with Dan on his quest to understand his situation while all the while saving a life or two. The drama between his wife, brother, and ex-fiancée are entertaining and the actors and actresses do an outstanding job to pull me into their lives. Kevin McKidd brings his former character from the HBO show Rome (a strong Roman warrior) to his character Dan; i.e. I’d trust Dan in a life or death situation if he had my back.

To reiterate, I was a big Quantum Leap fan and now I am a big fan of Journeyman. And while it has it’s similarities, I am glad Journeyman is not a copy cat clone of Quantum Leap, as it brings a different spin on time travel fiction to the table. Journeyman airs Monday nights at 10pm on NBC.

Update as of November 14th, 2007:  It seems that Dan does travel back in time awake (as seen from the last episode “Winterland”).  And fellow time traveller Livia is actually from the past originally (1948 to be exact).  So while Dan travels back, Livia travels forward (another big difference between Quantum Leap and Journeyman).

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