'Journeyman': Top hat, white tie and time travel

OK, so no one wears a top hat on Journeyman -- actually, do you see those anywhere anymore? -- but Dan does wander around in a tux for much of the episode. Rowr! If Daniel Craig gets tired of the Bond thing, Kevin McKidd could fill his dinner jacket nicely. Now if only he could get a handle on this unstuck-in-time stuff...

At last! My spoilers have come along.

I can only be but so funny and/or snarky here, folks -- what we've got is a compelling show, gorgeously acted. Great for watching, kind of a pain to recap.

Katie is preparing for a massive charity event that she's chairing, and she's stressed out. It doesn't help that Dan keeps disappearing (even in the middle of plumbing) and he's seeing his possibly-not-dead ex in the past. Katie claims that Dan seeing Livia is way down on her list of things that worry her at the moment, but I'm thinking she's kidding herself.

This episode really emphasizes how abandoned Katie feels when Dan just disappears on her. She understands, on some level, that it's not his fault, but she still feels shut out and forsaken. Gretchen Egolf sells it, as always. Why had I never heard of her before? She's fantastic. 

Now Dan's time traveling when Katie needs him, and the cracks are starting to show. She's overwhelmed and needs support, and Dan just can't be there for her -- literally. He's back in '94, listening to the Spin Doctors. When Dan disappears as they're getting ready for her event, she just sort of breaks. Jack calls, and he's there to rescue her, but they play that prickly push-pull of ex-lovers forced into proximity with each other -- they still care about each other, and the danger of slipping back into the old relationship is always there, but they're both too gun-shy -- and, on Katie's part, committed to her marriage -- to actually go through with it. But you see their yearning and regret, their should we/shouldn't we tango, making it all the more impressive when they do the right thing and leave each other be.

Dan and Jack interacting is equally compelling. The scene of the two of them sparring in the bathroom at the event works beautifully. Jack is protective of Katie and distrustful of Dan, but he still wants to help his brother. Dan is equally suspicious of Jack, but what can he do? He keeps leaving. He wants Katie to trust him, wants to make everything ok, but he can't.

What's more, he can't talk to her about it. She wants to help, wants to be able to do something, but there's nothing she can do. When she hears that Livia is a fellow time traveler, and they keep meeting up, it becomes too much for her. You can see the panic overtaking her face even as she tries to keep it together. In the last scene, they're making out in the coat closet, but even then, Katie tells him it doesn't make things all right. And it doesn't. But it's still pretty darn hot to watch. (And yes, Katie does look stunning in her evening gown.)

Dan's time-travel mission is the least interesting part of the episode, actually -- he's tracking a nice young woman named Melissa, who has just broken up with her boyfriend and who is meeting someone new for a blind date. The Ex, Greg, has a hair-trigger temper and seems to be stalking Melissa. Dan and Greg engage in fisticuffs, and Melissa ends up meeting her blind date, William.

Melissa and William get together and start a software company that helps people do day-trading. Greg still may be stalking her -- in the present, Dan finds out Greg was accused of murdering Melissa -- but William's the one buying a gun. He later uses that to threaten Melissa when she won't give him a disk containing accounting data that proves some sort of financial skullduggery. Dan stops that murder, but ends up in the present with the gun (awkward!), and Melissa kills William. Next time he goes back, Dan drags Greg to the building in time to see William threatening her and Melissa shooting him (she had been convicted of his murder in the present). Dan plants the gun William had used earlier in William's hand, so Melissa could legitimately claim self-defense and have people buy it. Apparently, as Livia said, in the past, you can pretty much ignore the law.

Other good and/or important stuff:

• Dan contacts Elliot Langley, a tachyon researcher, in the present -- then gets a phone call from him in the past. Dun dun DUN!
• Langley tells Dan he knew his father long ago.
• Jack flirting with his own blind date, a comely doctor -- "You're like five pounds of trout on a two-pound line," he says. Hee! Being conspiracy-minded, I can't help but wonder if she has something to do with Dan's time travel, or if she'll end up helping him or opposing him.
• Livia starts to quiz Dan on how he ended up with Katie, and he asks why he has to answer her questions when she never answers his "'Cause you're a guy and you can never resist talking about yourself," she replies. Funny part is: She's right.
• Dan lays out his bad-boy street cred: "I'm a recovering gambling addict who travels through time; I've got some action."
• Hugh asking Dan what he knows about tachyons, then cutting him off. He's one of the more convincing editors on TV at the moment (although the only other editor I watch is on Smallville, so that's not as high a compliment as it should be.)
• Hugh's reaction when he guesses Dan is writing a book -- "Oh god, not a novel!"
• This exchange between Jack and Dan: "We used to get along better." "We were like brothers." What happened?" "I dunno, there was something a girl, I forget."

And finally, a question: Did the rights to "At Last" just expire or something? I'm hearing it everywhere these days. Not that I mind -- it's a great song -- but I have to wonder.

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