# Journeyman - 11/26 - Blowback **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 27, 2007, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890 "2007-11-27T06:00:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2007, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/21 "2007-11-27T21:25:09Z")
[QUOTE=cmyk] Oooh. Livia as an 80 year old woman in the present. iiiinteresting. [/QUOTE] Wait…why would she be 80? 😕 The main dude time travels as the same age he is in the “present,” so why would she be an old lady somewhere? ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2007, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/22 "2007-11-27T23:29:08Z")
[QUOTE=bouv] Wait…why would she be 80? 😕 The main dude time travels as the same age he is in the “present,” so why would she be an old lady somewhere? [/QUOTE] If you think about it some more I’m sure you can figure out how Livia could be 80. Here’s a hint: when Dan travels into the past, he has to avoid bumping into himself. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2007, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/23 "2007-11-27T23:59:38Z")
[QUOTE=Terminus Est] If you think about it some more I’m sure you can figure out how Livia could be 80. Here’s a hint: when Dan travels into the past, he has to avoid bumping into himself. [/QUOTE] I’m still not following. Unless you’re saying that somehow a young version of Livia travels through time, while somehow another version of her kept aging? ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/24 "2007-11-28T00:03:41Z")
Great show, as I’ve said in several other posts as well. I loved the duality in this past episode. In the present Adam (I think) was bad and demented and Dan and his family were victims. In the past, Adam was innocent and the victim of all the crap that was going on around him. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/25 "2007-11-28T00:09:18Z")
[QUOTE=bouv] I’m still not following. Unless you’re saying that somehow a young version of Livia travels through time, while somehow another version of her kept aging? [/QUOTE] Young Livia travels to the future, then goes home to 1948. She doesn’t immediately travel back to the future, but spends some time in the past. Maybe 1948 becomes 1949. Then she travels again; 1949 becomes 1950, 1951, 1952. Get the picture? ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/26 "2007-11-28T00:50:07Z")
[QUOTE=bouv] I’m still not following. Unless you’re saying that somehow a young version of Livia travels through time, while somehow another version of her kept aging? [/QUOTE] Like **Terminus Est** said, Livia’s “present” is in 1948. That’s when she lived before her first time traveling stints. She started jumping into her _future_. That’s when she met Dan. For some reason, we don’t really know yet, she was “allowed” to stay in Dan’s present (her future) to kick off a long term relationship with Dan. When her plane went down, she returned back to her time, and started time-jumping again wen Dan started. Her mission is following him (training?). When the travelers are gone, they’re gone in real time – sometimes longer that real time. So if they’re gone for a week, a week has passed when they return to their own time. Someday, assuming Livia lives as long, she will naturally be a very old woman in Dan’s time. Creepy. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/27 "2007-11-28T02:06:36Z")
Why haven’t I leaped, Al? ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/28 "2007-11-28T02:23:53Z")
[QUOTE=Terminus Est] Young Livia travels to the future, then goes home to 1948. She doesn’t immediately travel back to the future, but spends some time in the past. Maybe 1948 becomes 1949. Then she travels again; 1949 becomes 1950, 1951, 1952. Get the picture? [/QUOTE] Ahhh, I missed a couple eps (apparently the one we learn Livia is originally from the 1940’s,) so I was still thinking that Livia was from “our” time, and therefore for her to be old there would be a “future” version of herself going back. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/29 "2007-11-28T02:56:12Z")
[QUOTE=SaintCad] Why haven’t I leaped, Al? [/QUOTE] We’ll have to ask Ziggy. Another important difference, FWIW, between this show and QL, is that Sam always took on the persona of the person’s life he was stepping into. Also, Sam during the course of the show never got back to his normal life, and the present didn’t change according to what he did in the past. And Livia is much hotter than Al… (oh, boy.) ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/30 "2007-11-28T04:46:43Z")
[QUOTE=cmyk] and [in Quantum Leap] the present didn’t change according to what he did in the past. [/QUOTE] Yes it did. Remember the end of each Quantum Leap episode? Al always ends up telling Sam something like, “Good news, Sam! Now Ed doesn’t die in the fire. He becomes a doctor and helps poor kids in Africa” or something. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/31 "2007-11-28T04:54:39Z")
Right. :smack: I dunno why I wasn’t thinking of that. I guess I meant the changes were localized and more implied. Here, they are grander, and a few times in the series so far, have had negative consequences on Dan’s life personally. He’s even afraid of changing so much that his son isn’t ever born. He’s also leaving a trail in time, and people are starting to notice. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/32 "2007-11-28T05:03:25Z")
[QUOTE=cmyk] He’s also leaving a trail in time, and people are starting to notice. [/QUOTE] I didn’t see enough episodes to know, but I think that was a problem with another time-travel fantasy show: _Early Edition_. The main character gets tomorrow’s newspaper and if it reports a tragic accident or murder or something, he spends the episode rushing around trying to stop it. Even if he limited himself to metro Chicago (the show’s setting), wouldn’t demographers start to note the shocking drop in fatal accidents and murders? If he prevents one a day, he cuts the murder rate in Chicago by half (… wow, **600** a year?! That’s almost ten times as many as Montreal). ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/33 "2007-11-28T05:11:01Z")
[QUOTE=cmyk] Also, I think the FBI agent was sharper than his peers and started noticing these anachronisms himself. I don’t think he’s affiliated with whomever’s doing this to Dan/Livia. So he started abusing his resources to investigate into Dan’s life. Curiosity killed the cat. [/QUOTE] I got the imporession that he was interested in the idea that “someone” i.e himself, could become incredibly wealthy by forcing one of the time travellers to tell him, in the past, evry major sporting event winner, Yahoo, Google etc. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/34 "2007-11-28T05:12:10Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] I didn’t see enough episodes to know, but I think that was a problem with another time-travel fantasy show: _Early Edition_. The main character gets tomorrow’s newspaper and if it reports a tragic accident or murder or something, he spends the episode rushing around trying to stop it. Even if he limited himself to metro Chicago (the show’s setting), wouldn’t demographers start to note the shocking drop in fatal accidents and murders? If he prevents one a day, he cuts the murder rate in Chicago by half (… wow, **600** a year?! That’s almost ten times as many as Montreal). [/QUOTE] Are you saying it was a problem _EE_ had plot wise, and the writers never took it head on? If so, the opposite is true of _JM_. For example, they’ve worked photos of him running around in the airport in the 70s looking the same and wearing the same clothes in photos of him when he disappeared in an airport in the present. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/35 "2007-11-28T05:14:15Z")
[QUOTE=don’t ask] I got the imporession that he was interested in the idea that “someone” i.e himself, could become incredibly wealthy by forcing one of the time travellers to tell him, in the past, evry major sporting event winner, Yahoo, Google etc. [/QUOTE] Yepp. You’re right on that. I forgot he was interested in the greedy side of it. That would explain why he never really drafted a real file on Dan. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/36 "2007-11-28T05:24:50Z")
[QUOTE=cmyk] Are you saying it was a problem _EE_ had plot wise, and the writers never took it head on? If so, the opposite is true of _JM_. [/QUOTE] I phrased my post poorly. It’s good that somebody is noticing what is happening on _Journeyman_. It was a failing of _Early Edition_ that no comparable effect happened. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/37 "2007-11-28T05:41:54Z")
This is going to be a major disappointment for me if the show dies. It will be the first show I have ever enjoyed that hs been cancelled first season. Such are the hazards of downloading US TV, it isn’t on in Australia. I have been pretty confident about the story arc since I started watching. I loved _Quantum Leap_ but thought the idea of Dan having a contemporary life was a great improvement. I loved the fact that gradually other people found out about it and accepted it rather than the usual schtick of the hero having to keep everything secret with progressively less believable explanations. I’m not sure what is going on but am enjoying the way the story unrolls and I think this episode was the end of Act 1, things are intended to build from here, so here’s hoping that the series gets renewed. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/38 "2007-11-28T05:47:57Z")
[QUOTE=cmyk] Right. :smack: I dunno why I wasn’t thinking of that. I guess I meant the changes were localized and more implied. [/QUOTE] I dunno. He did cause Marilyn Monroe to stay alive long enough to make the Misfits, kept Jackie Kennedy from getting killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, and changed Ziggy’s personality from male to female. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/39 "2007-11-28T13:37:21Z")
1. “I gave it a shot - caught the first four episodes. That he always has to do the boy scout stuff and it always works out with saintly results is the kiss of death for me, when one negative task to “fix” history (i.e. kill a guy who’s just an ordinary guy, but would one day accidentally create a disaster) would’ve saved it. How did it end? After the perv’s traumatic childhood was fixed, did he grow up to work for Amnesty International or something?” One theory is that the premise is that some scientist(s), working in the future, have created time travel. Something goes awry that needs to be corrected. Maybe in the future they know what time threads came unravelled and are trying to correct those, so that the future becomes the future they had. Sort of undoing Homer stepping on the bug in the past. Of course you can argue you just go back and undo the original deed, but that makes for a short series. 1. FBI agent said something along the lines “they always make a mistake with the money”. Now, coming from an FBI guy, this could have been a generic statement, but I took it to mean that he was on an investigation, possibly also from the future, to track down time travellers like Livia and Dan. One would assume there might be others, particularly given this statement. Sort of a Time Cop to police breaches in some future anti-time travel policy. 2. If I were the writer, I might combine the two above, and posit that a) Time travel was created, and someone messed something up. b) FBI or similar went back and “killed Homer” only to return to a future with a larger disaster than originally occurred. Subsequently all time travel that involved changes was banned, but policing that policy creates it’s own time rifts. 3. If Dan had gone back and simply prevented Bennett from becoming a monster in the future, would he have forgotten subsequent events when he returned, for example he would have never had to save the two girls in the previous episode, so would it have had happened? One assumes the bullet wound would have disappeared, but maybe he is the thread that connects those things so he can’t undo future damage to himself? ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890/40 "2007-11-28T14:38:16Z")
On #4 above - that there is a paradox and a half - if he went back and actually helped Bennet (as a child) then the second two (known) children would never have happened - which would mean that his mission to help emily (if that were his mission) would never have happened, Bennet would never have been arrested, Bennet would never have shot him… ouch. anyway - I was hoping that one of the re-percussions of his having got Bennet arrested would have meant that all of the ‘real estate boom’ attributed to Bennet wouldn’t have. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journeyman-11-26-blowback/427890.md?page=3)