TV is the New Reading

Two new shows seem to be two sides of the same coin

In front of me are two NBC series premieres that, on the face of them, have little to do with each other, with one possible caveat: It’s as if “Raines” – the network’s defunct Jeff Goldblum vehicle from last spring – split into two halves and became “Journeyman,” Mondays at 9 p.m., and “Life,” Wednesdays at 9 p.m.

If I talk about “Journeyman” first it might too significantly downplay the mystical cop aspects in this column. But if I start with “Life,” I’ll have to gloss too quickly past the concept of subjunctive realities.

So in the spirit of “do it yourself,” you can read them in whichever order you prefer.

‘Journeyman’

By “subjunctive realities,” I’m referring to “what if?” realities, in which people are active participants in the construction of their own reality and, with the benefit of hindsight, can more ably influence their own destiny.

When Goldblum’s homicide detective investigated his crime scenes, he hallucinated the murder victims and interacted with them. As his investigations continued, his visions of the deceased would get clearer and more detailed until he knew everything about them and, as it turned out, their killers.

In “Journeyman,” San Francisco Chronicle reporter Dan Vassar (Kevin McKidd) has a – one presumes – rare and frankly unnerving ability to travel back in time and interact with all sorts of aspects of his past. Most significantly, he was able, in the pilot episode, to prove to his family that that was, in fact, what was happening to him.

See, Vassar had already been experimenting with reality once before as a drug addict, so when he started disappearing from his own timeline and reappearing from the past without any explanation or a clue, his friends and family assumed he was off on a bender somewhere. They went so far as to stage an intervention for him as his job and home life were thrown into chaos.

And while he was able to prove to his wife, anyway, that it was, in fact, happening – and to save a child’s life in the process – no one’s been able to say why it’s happening – to him or, more significantly, to his college sweetheart, Livia, played by Moon Bloodgood, who also would appear to be popping in and out of time and seems to have been doing so for awhile, now.

Of course, reality is as malleable for Vassar as it is for anyone else. Everyone is perfectly capable of deciding to reach out and be heroic influences in the lives of people in need.

It’s just that Vassar has a better idea how events he changes in the past will affect a future he’s already experienced. Will he confront his younger self about his drug addiction? Force him to make better decisions? Leave well enough alone? After all, he might have been in love with Livia in college, but he has a son with his present-day wife, Katie, played by Gretchen Egolf – a son who he loves and who loves him, and who would maybe never even exist if he never met and married Katie.

‘Life’

If Vassar represents Raines’ ... active imagination, then Det. Charlie Crews in “Life” represents his, er, lighthearted approach to a more whimsically experienced reality.

As one might expect, the mental stability of a detective who interacts with hallucinations (like Raines) is quickly called into scrutiny. In Crews’ case, he’s already undergone the scrutiny. That is, Crews — played magnificently by Damien Lewis — served 12 years in a maximum security prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

A cop in the big house, he was subjected to more than one might assume is a usual amount of violence. He got through it by turning inward, developing his mental and spiritual faculties, zoning out on Zen philosophy and forging new relationships with reality.

When he emerged from prison, the beneficiary of an Innocence project that proved that he wasn’t guilty and had been wrongly imprisoned, Crews’ settlement outfitted him with an impossible sum of cash and got him reinstated as a detective.

He got assigned as partner to Sarah Shahi’s Det. Dani Reese, a rehabilitated drug addict who is under a lot of pressure to get Crews kicked on some technicality. And while there are several she can attest to after their first case together, she’s disinclined, because in the end, she gets him, despite his unusual interview style and unconventional approach to policework.

I’m a sucker for holistic storytelling, where everything influences everything else. It’s easier to do in scripted dramas because frankly the production team has complete control over how x, ultimately, is going to influence y and so forth, but it’s still cool.

But while the fact that I enjoyed both of these shows might serve to seal their fate as surely as it seemed to for “Raines” last spring, I’m going to continue to like them for as long as they’re on the air.

After all ... sometimes one has to make one’s own reality.

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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