Due to the missing of the first two episodes, 101 A Love For a Lifetime and 102 Friendly Skies, these two reviews will be posted this week to get you guys up to speed.
From now on, I will be doing episode recaps and injecting some analysis of my own, although how often that will happen is yet to be seen.
But anyway, let’s go!
The episode starts out with the day of the Dan and Katie Vassar’s anniversary. Through his daily routine of leaving home for the day and going to work, he finds himself in a cab to travel somewhere and BAM! a white light flashes, and the adventure begins.
Every week Dan will be getting a certain person he must help in the past. The pilot features a man by the name of Neil Gaines, who Dan first encounters as a well-dressed man attempting to commit suicide via a San Francisco landmark, a tram car. Neil is surprised he was going to kill himself over a woman, but Dan tells him there’s still time “left on the clock,” and to move on from her.
It turns out Neil and his girlfriend Nicole are expecting a baby. The two are arguing about whether to keep it or not. Neil wants to keep it. When Nicole talks to Dan, he is able to convince her to keep the baby by offering his own story about his son Zack.
All of this time traveling is taking a toll on his family life. He has missed his son's piano events, and his disappearances are making his loved ones believe he is one drugs.
The time traveling can happen anywhere at anytime. Once Dan has a headache, he transports. During one of his travels, Dan is driving his Mustang. Needless to say, once he transports, his Mustang crashes.
It seems that when time passes when he is in the past, time passes without him in the present as well. His second time travel took him away for two days.
While we are led to believe that Dan is to save Neil from himself or doing something he will regret, it is actually Dan’s mission to save Nicole and the son. It is revealed that the son goes on to do a good deed later in his life.
Kevin McKidd plays Dan Vassar, the protagonist of the show. He leads a believable character and I believe I will feel satisfied each hour I follow his adventures whether it be in the past or the present.
Moon Bloodgood plays Livia Beale, the not-so-dead ex-fiancé of Dan Vassar. It was led to believe for 9 years that Livia died in a plane crash, even though her body was never found. Dan sees Livia twice in the past before he is confronted by the present Livia. While in the past, Livia confronts Dan as her present self, where she assures him that she is really alive and he is not talking to a ghost. It seems that she will be giving him direction throughout the series while he’s in the past
She also warns him to trust his instincts but don’t mess anything up. It seems Dan’s present self is able to encounter his past self, and Livia is able to do the same. How this angle is used will be better played out in the second episode.
Gretchen Egolf plays wife Katie, who is having a hard time grasping with where Dan goes and what he’s going through. She grows more and more frustrated as he attempts to explain where he has been. However, she seems satisfied after Dan’s scheme he developed in the past. Dan digs up her wedding ring from a toolbox at the end of the episode, telling her, “I will always come home.”
Reed Diamond plays Dan’s brother Jack, where the two look surprisingly alike. Definitely a good pick. I enjoyed the one episode that Reed Diamond appeared on the FX drama The Shield, and I think he plays a good part here as well. Jack and Dan have an interesting relationship. It seems that when Dan and Livia were together, Jack and Katie were together. It is unknown how the events leading up to Katie leaving Jack for Dan happens, but this will most definitely be explored throughout the series.
The show looks to be an interesting adventure and there are definitely mysteries that will be unraveled slowly as the series grows up. For now, I do believe I will enjoy these time-traveling episodes with our protagonist, Dan Vassar.
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