Chuck and Heroes are both over for the season, but Journeyman still has a couple of episodes left, even though it’s getting canceled after 13 episodes. Originally I had read that NBC would only be airing up to the 12th episode, but according to TV.com the 13th episode is supposed to be aired on December 19. I’m extremely sad to see this show go but I’m glad we’ll at least have the chance to see all of the filmed episodes, and perhaps we’ll get lucky (as with Birds of Prey in 2002) and the final episode will still manage to wrap a lot of things up.

Having said that, this week’s episode served only to escalate established conflicts and create new ones. The show is really unfolding like it was supposed to get a full season, and being about half way through, it’s just starting get really interesting. Last week, a man who Dan put behind bars when traveling to the past was released from jail in the present and attacked Dan in his home and held his wife hostage while Dan traveled back in time to talk to the man (Bennett) as a child. I was glad to see that the repercussions of this are addressed in this episode, as Dan’s wife is haunted by the incident with Bennett every time she sees her apron that he made her put on to make him lunch. I was worried about Katie getting too fed up with Dan’s time traveling– I thought the writers might make her leave him without developing the issues far enough– but this episode did a good job of making her more sympathetic and I found myself feeling bad for her. It made it more believable that she would take Dan’s mother’s advice to heart when she says that Katie doesn’t need Dan at all. I think the story is moving toward having Katie leave him, but if it happens, I’d buy it now in a way I wouldn’t have before.

It’s interesting that the last two episodes in a row have had Dan time traveling to save his own skin. The previous week, he had to talk to Bennett as a kid to prevent himself from being murdered in the future, and this week he had to save the newspaper so he wouldn’t get fired. That time travel is sure mysterious, isn’t it? It seems to give Dan whatever mission the writers need this week. Dan’s not in enough physical peril, so his mission will be to save himself. We haven’t dealt enough with the newspaper in this show, so this week, he has to save the newspaper. I’m not complaining– the information Dan got in the past gave him some great blackmail so he could force the owner to keep the place open, and I thought it was a real solid plot. I would, however, love to say it’s unbelievable and a little contrived, except that I still don’t know what the nature of time travel is in this show! And now that it’s been canceled, I’m afraid we’ll never know. If there’s someone manipulating it, then it makes perfect sense. Dan’s just had a rough couple of weeks and whoever is making him do this needs his life to be okay so he/she/it can keep using him to help people in the past. But if it’s something more like fate… well, that’s a little harder to swallow.

One of the more interesting elements in the series is Livia’s life in 1948 and I was happy to finally see a glimpse of it. She’s about to get married to a man back there now, which adds a new conflict into the mix. I liked how the film had a white-washed look to it, giving it a nice good-old-days period feel. One of the best scenes in the episode was when Livia expressed her frustration to Dan that she couldn’t tell her boyfriend about the time traveling, or even little things, like the fact that “TV isn’t just a fad.”

The Christmas party was good and tense, with Dan’s mother there, Dan time traveling back and forth, and the revelation that Jack’s girlfriend is pregnant and afraid her child might have a mental illness because she thinks Dan’s crazy. It’s always interesting to see people try to be happy during times they think they’re supposed to, like Christmas, when nothing is really right at all. One final side note: I’ve never heard any carolers, professional or otherwise, sing that long a version of “Carol of the Bells” in my life.

3.5 out of 4 points

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan