During his time travels to the past, he meets up with Livia (Moon Bloodgood), his former lover, who supposedly died when the airplane she was on, went down. Her body was never found. Livia explains that she has also been wandering through time. She never died, having time-traveled right before her airplane went down. Salient detail is that when Dan dated Livia, his brother Jack dated his current wife Katie! So, you can imagine this will also cause some friction when Katie learns that he sees Livia back in time. Livia first travels starts just after the second world war, 1948, which is the time she originates from. At some point she time travels to the 1980’s and for some reason she stops time traveling. Then, later she meets Dan and up until she disappears from that plane, when she jumps back home to her own time, she did not travel through time. She and Dan speculate that Dan was the target of her extended jump, and that her mission was to get Dan and Katie together (which was arguably a result of her supposed death). For unknown reasons, she now jumps to the same periods of time that Dan visits, and offers him advice and assistance on his missions. Since she is from 1948, Livia is able to time travel to the future, whereas Dan only seems to be able to time travel back into the past.

Katie has a tough time with him being gone all the time, looking for excuses to his brother Jack and others. For a long time Jack doesn’t believe what Dan says what he is experiencing. But slowly the pieces come together for him also and where Jack for a long time was someone who worked against his brother, he now supports Dan and is it easier for Katie because he now too knows about Dan’s time travel activities. Dan also comes in contact with Elliot Langley, who is a researcher at Lawrence Livermore Labs, before he was a member of the Thurn Tippett Group, a sort of a Think Tank. Langley has a history with Dan’s dad and for some reason Langley knows about Dan’s time travel activities. At one point they are done talking, they both turn away, but Langley gives Dan another look and doesn’t see him anymore and he isn’t even surprised. This knowledge he apparently gained during his time with the Thurn Tippett Group.

It is unclear to Dan how this works, who is responsible for him suddenly starting to time travel. Although Livia does this way longer, she also hasn’t got a clue, or at least that is what she keeps saying to Dan. But he jumps back in time to usually help people who are in need, but he has to find out himself why and who needs his help. As said earlier, Livia only seems to be there to help Dan, perhaps because he is a newbie in this. In the finale episode, back in time, we meet Evan Pattison (Don McManus), who also claims to be a time traveler. Although Dan at first is not convinced of this but it soon becomes clear that he too is a time traveler and like him and Livia, he does not know more about the how and why they travel through time.

On September 24th, 2007, Evan dies, on that same day, Dan experiences his first time jump! Coincidence? I guess not. After Jack has harassed Langley, he (Langley) decides to pay Dan another visit. He tells Dan that he indeed knows about Dan, that he is a time traveler. He also says that as few as possible people should now about his gift because time travel is something many would like to exploit. Langley also cannot directly give answers to Dan’s questions but it is obvious that Langley has a broader understanding of the whole situation and he also says to Dan that he might well be the only time traveler left. Meaning that Livia was from the past and he took over from Evan on that critical day, September 24^th, 2007.

Livia and Dan say goodbye and Livia has a feeling it will be long if and when they will ever see each other again. Evan hadn’t time travelled in a while and he was living in an institution because no one believed him when he said he was a time traveler. Evan deduced that the pills he got, suppressed his ability to time travel. When Dan tells Katie this, she gets excited and wants to try this. But after his talk with Langley, he tells Katie that he no longer sees this as a burden but more as a gift. She reluctantly agrees with his decision and tells him that she will always leave a light for him. In the final moment of the episode, Katie sees her husband disappear for the first time.

DVD release:

In 2013, studio MediumRare released the complete series of Journeyman on DVD in the UK. I didn’t expect it anymore when it was announced but I immediately pre-ordered it. There are no subtitles on it, which was disappointing. You expect it to be a barebones release but actually there are some impressive special features on it:

• FLASHING BACKWARDS - a comprehensive documentary about the making of "Journeyman" (75 mins)
• THE BACK NINE - featurette that explores with cast and writers what might have happened on the series had it not been cancelled (20 mins)
• PILOT COMMENTARY - with creator/executive producer, Kevin Falls, lead actor, Kevin McKidd and director/executive producer, Alex Graves
• Deleted Scenes & Still Gallery

I’ve watched the featurette “The Back Nine”, which means, the last 9 episodes of the first season after a 13-episode has been granted. This is a very interesting featurette where you see the creators and the cast talk about what could have been. Currently this show is hard to come by on DVD, you’ll have to check out EBAY or perhaps Amazon, but the price will be steep. I am happy I was able to purchase it 12 years ago and I will keep rewatching this every 5-7 years or so.

Final Word:

Of course it is always sad to finish an unfinished story, which is the case with Journeyman also. A real shame that this wasn’t give at least a full season, or better, a second season. It was a strong show with a strong cast, engaging stories, an interesting story-arc and also personal story-arcs. I for one would have loved to see more of this. For some reason nobody was watching this at that time, for the life of me, I don’t know why thought provoking TV shows almost always get to bite the dust.

Screencaps: Google Search & IMDb - apologies regarding the picture quality of the screencaps, where the best I could find.