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NBC has just picked up this show for the fall. Kevin McKidd (Rome) and Moon Bloodgood (Day Break) has been cast as characters in the show. I hope this will become a success because NBC seriously is in need of some a hit series besides Heroes. NBC should put this after Heroes since there is already someone with time powers on that show!

I think I will be able to make a better decision on this show when there is a better description released.

Does he continually jump back and forward, like that Simpsons episode with the toaster, or stay in the past?

Kevin McKidd. Say no more, I'm in.

It's like Early Edition meets Quantum Leap. Only without Kyle Chandler's hair. Pass.

The NBC schedule for next season has been announced.

Journeyman WILL be shown after Heroes on Mondays. NBC is smart by putting this show after another Sci Fi show.

My thought process exactly. I love both those shows fiercely, so if the execution for this one is done well I think I could enjoy it. Here's hoping.

They had me at "Kevin McKidd". And Moon Bloodgood was...well, pretty at least on Daybreak. Have Ray Stevenson show up as a guest star sometime.

Love Kyle Chandler...anyone know the lead for this show? I've never heard of him...is he any good?

Kevin McKidd starred as Lucius Vorenus in Rome and he was excellent. He and Ray Stevenson's Titus Pullo were one of the best male friendships I had seen in years. He's the reason I will give this a chance even though I'm not much of a sci fi fan. Although, I did watch and love was Quantum Leap so I just might like this.

NBC has put up a short clip of the show on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z9Y8RxsvOc

There are other clips there but none officially posted by NBC so I'll only link this one. Also, it's easy to find small clips of Kevin McKidd from his various roles.

Trailer on NBC.com

I liked the preview, out of all the new shows NBC picked up this looks the most promising. And sure there's time travel, but it doesn't seem like a very heavy scifi show. Can't wait to see the pilot.

THAT'S who Kevin McKidd is? Ok, I'm a little more on board now. I'll be all the way a fanboy of this show if they bring Ray Stevenson in.

That preview was excellent. Thank you for sharing. It actually looks like the promo for a kick ass movie and not a series; although I do see how it might work as episodic television. It really does evoke memories of Quantum Leap, especially the episode where Sam has to decide whether or not to tell Al's wife that he's alive. I always wondered how that would have changed Al's participation in the whole project.


Wouldn't that be grand? It probably won't happen any time soon, though. He is on a CBS show called Babylon Fields that is looking to be a CBS pick-up for mid-season.

Reuniting Vorenus and Pullo on TV is absolute gold. That totally needs to happen.

OMG, that looks great. Can't wait. To bad they are putting it on Monday, I want this show to survive.

I only hope there is someone that he can't save, and therefore curses them.

And they can go back to Roman times and make sure a certain Roman did not die after his children finally forgave him.

I'm excited about this one and I think it has a chance following Heroes. Plus, at the NBC Upfront, Kevin Reilly said this was their best testing pilot in 5 years.

I'm completely in. Not just because of Kevin McKidd, but because the conflict described by McKidd in his mini interview at NBC.com sounds intriguing.

I've always a good time travel show (or bad one even) and even though I never watched Rome, I've heard enough about that program that I'm confident in the actors abilities so I'm provisionally in. I can't wait to see it.

And shouldn't somebody be leaking pilots about now?

The premise seems to have some elements of "The Time-Traveler's Wife", but it sounds like they're going to use the Quantum Leap/Back to the Future time-travel theory, where his actions when he jumps into the past can change things. The sci-fi part of my brain prefers the 12 Monkeys/Time Traveler's Wife laws of time travel, where time is linear and paradox is impossible, but the schmoopy romantic part of my brain wants the happy endings that you get with being able to alter the past.

I'm in. But it seems like the premise lends itself better to a limited-run event, like Daybreak, than a full, multi-year series.

Since we can't have Ray Stevenson or Polly Walker perhaps we could campaign to get James Purefoy in a recurring role?

Or maybe Indira Varma can show up as yet another woman from his past.

Good news for Kevin McKidd - an advertising bigshot thinks "Journeyman" will be a hit. Here's the article, from today's New York Times. The mention is toward the end. (cross posted on the "Rome" board)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/business...?ref=television

Or maybe Ciarán Hinds as an Elder Statesman that must be protected at all costs.

I think the entire cast of Rome should be involved. They should just re-name the show Rome II: sans porn cause we're NBC

Seriously though, as soon as I saw McKidd was in a pilot that got picked up, I started salivating.

Oh please let this do well, I want an opportunity to watch Kevin McKidd act every week. I once sat through the most godawful movie you can imagine, soldiers facing off against werewolves (yes, I know) on the SciFi channel (again, I know) in order to watch this guy do his stuff and the remarkable thing? That was the first time I had ever seen him in anything. When I say this movie was bad? Oh.God. was it ever bad, but he? Was great.

That preview gives me a lot of hope, it looks fantastic.

Hm...let me guess. Is that "Dog Soldiers" you are talking about? LOL
The flick was silly but the acting in general was surprisingly good- particulary taking on the account that this was a silly horror flick.
And these Scottish accents "sigh"



Hehe. Seriously they couldnt possibly find a better cast with the exception of "Deadwood" ( I dont watch "Sopranos" or "The Wire").

That's the very one, Arya (*waves* since I recognize you from the Rome forum), and you named precisely the reason that I ended up watching. The movie was silly, and not well written with a low budget to add the viewing challenge, but what caught me was that the acting, McKidd in particular, was good. My husband wandered in halfway through and asked what in the world I was doing and I explained to him etc. etc., bad movie but..."...the weird part is this Scottish guy is knocking this stuff out of the park, it's fascinating, it's pure crap but he's elevating it."

That's part of the reason I have a lot of hope for Journeyman regardless of similarities to Quantum Leap and Early Edition, McKidd has a lot of presence within a role and if he can take the awful to pretty damn near good, I'm pretty sure he could elevate tried-and-true to fresh and evokative. Here's hoping!

Ha! "Dog Soldiers!" I thought it was totally hilarious because it was so completely ridiculous, and the cast clearly had a ton of fun with it. The acting was definitely superior to the material, although I did appreciate the fact that there were no stupid American teenagers having sex, or naked women, in the movie.

I'd be interested in watching "Journeyman" anyway because I loved "Quantum Leap," and have also read The Time Traveller's Wife, which the premise resembles a small bit. Having Kevin as the lead, and also Reed Diamond, who was really great on Homicide, is a huge added bonus.

I think there will be a lot of Rome refugees on this board and the "Cane" board as well, and also for "Babylon Fields" if it ever gets picked up.

By the way, don't bother looking at the viewer comments on the NBC board associated with "Journeyman." There are mostly just a bunch of disgruntled "Black Donnellys" viewers who are just agitating for NBC to bring back that show, despite the fact that the "Journeyman" board isn't the appropriate place to express discontent with NBC's programming choices.

The acting on both "The Sopranos" and "The Wire" is also excellent across the board. I've got to hand it to HBO for its casting choices, and of course the superior writing, which is why I've tended to watch that network's shows more than others.

Oh yes. I have seen them.
I was pissed off when "Rome" ended but for one I'm not going to run around the boards of new HBO' shows moaning and bitching and posting the variety of "Bring back "Rome"!" and "You cancelled "Rome" for THIS?!" all over the place "rolling eyes".

Does anyone know what song NBC used in the trailer??

I can't seem to find it.

I am always leery of time traveling shows where someone goes back and changes the past because most attempts that I have seen at this genre usually are full of plot and logic holes that are so incongruous that I dismiss them out of hand.

The song I heard in the trailer (commercial) tonight was "Time after Time" by Cyndi Lauper.

There are few schools of thought with this:

1) You go back in time and kill Hitler and prevent The Holocaust because without him it doesn't happen.

2) You go back in time and kill Hitler and The Holocaust happens anyway, because Hitler didn't create the anti-semitic, nationalist movement in post-WWI Germany. Without him, someone else just steps in and it all happens the same way.

3) You go back in time and kill Hitler and The Holocaust happens anyway, because Hitler didn't create the anti-semitic, nationalist movement in post-WWI Germany. Without him, someone else just steps in and this someone isn't superstitious and doesn't make the mistakes Hitler made, so the world is actually worse, because Germany may not win WWII (because the US does make the bomb first) but still conquers most of Europe.

So there are ways to go that don't necessarily cause paradoxes. He saves his fiancee, they break up anyway so he still meets his wife, but later on she re-enters his life and we have drama because---in the interest of drama---she senses something and he confides in her about what has happened.

I saw this pilot and really liked it...by far my favorite of the NBC pilots. I liked it much better than either Chuck or Bionic Woman. McKidd is very appealing, and there are a lot of directions they could take it in. Count me in!

Looks like my Mondays are locked. I'm looking forward to Heroes and this show. I'm still on the fence about Chuck, so we'll see.

Count me in as one who really liked it. It may be my Lucius Vorenus love talking, but I thought it was pretty solid - there wasn't any paradox that jumped at me.

I hope it succeeds.

Y'know, I was surprised by the positive buzz this was receiving as I was quite underwhelmed by it. It almost felt like a time travel show that was a almost a bit ashamed to actually be a time travel show. It didn't appear to really build on the better elements of movies and shows that have done things well. It's also largely humourless.

Some criticisms then, nothing I'd personally class as a spoiler but I should tag:

It seemed quite slow in setting up its own time travel rules. So much so that it felt disjointed. Obviously it's not a question of how or why he travels, but I need to know what Dan is experiencing. They got to it eventually (with the ripple in the air), but it hampered other elements; specifically his adjustment.

Now the closest type of show to this in recent times is, I reckon, Day Break. That wasn't a great show, but it had loads of plot and was genre savvy. Indeed, its main character had clearly seen Groundhog Dog and quickly adapted to the circumstances he found himself in. That's the premise of the show: move on. Beyond a bit of confusion here, Dan's a step behind the audience for a while and that kills the pace.

There are also little things that were either odd or annoying. When Dan meets Livia in '97 she says he 'looks different'. Yeah, 10 years older different. He similarly entered a scene shortly after his younger self leaves and no one bats an eyelid, despite them making cosmetic changes to the ages of other cast members.



However, on the plus side of things (these really earn the tags) I thought the ending was well done and emotional, if clearly signposted. And the twist 3/4 through with is-she-not-in-fact-dead Livia was decidedly unexpected.

McKidd really carried it, once I'd adjusted to his accent anyway, in a performance that I felt really lifted the material he was given.

That's not to say there isn't potential there, but I do feel that, as a pilot anyway it was weak. I guess the best thing to say is that the setup is done now and they've got good foundations to build on.

So unfortunately he is not one of these British actors who like Hugh Laurie or Damien Lewis do a flawless American accent? Too bad they did not let him keep his own accent. Well maybe not the Scottish one but that English accent he used in "Rome" which was very nice though not "posh" so I dont think the audience would have any problems to accept it.

I have also seen the pilot and I thought his Scottish accent leaked through occasionally but I was listening for it.

I thought the American accent was a bit jarring but I think that of Hugh Laurie as well. Didn't stop me enjoying the episode.

I should say that I didn't think it was a bad accent by any stretch (I'm English I should say at this point) just that it took me a few scenes to get used to it, being familiar with McKidd very recently in Rome.

It would be interesting to hear from someone who is not familiar with McKidd as to how good or bad his accent is. I would guess that most people who first saw House were not aware that Hugh Laurie was British and didn't pay attention to any little slips he may have made in the beginning.

It just felt...enh. Very Touched By an Angel meets Quantum Leap for me.

I think a stronger setup for the mythology might've worked better than what we got.

I enjoyed it, I was quite suprised at the plot twist when he leaves the apartment, and as soon as I saw the toolbox I knew what he was doing. I really had no problems with the accent. Also, nice product placement with the iPhone.

I thought his accent was pretty good - it never occurred to me that he might be non-American until I read this thread, never having seen anything else he was in. I liked it a lot.

I hear you, GovMarley!!! The time travel thing? Eh. But the man with one of the most magnificent voices and the most magnetism since Richard Burton? Yes, I will watch him in anything.

And, please, please, please, DO reunite him with Titus Pullo. "Attend to the button!"

Indeed. It's usage was very cleverly interwoven into the story. I thought I saw it upside down once though.

I agree.

It took me a while to get in line with the time traveling aspect because how? It just happens to him--no rhyme or reason. Or the reason is going to be determined further down the line.

And as for the ending, I can't lie, I had tears in my eyes. I think very few could sell such strength like Kevin McKidd.



I think he does a very passable American accent. I try to listen to lapses, but I don't find any. Considering he has a strong Irish accent, I think he does remarkably well.

Actually, the actor is Scottish. Which makes it more difficult IMO. Somehow Irish and Aussie accents seem to adapt to American most easily.

I meant Scottish ( I don't know why I keep saying Irish), because I agree a Scottish brogue is way harder to tame than an Irish or British.