TV is the New Reading

Someone tell 'Traveler' that skateboarding is not a crime

I know it’s Ground Zero, but are New Yorkers still so easily spooked as to equate two idiots rollerblading through a museum with ... terrorism?

I mean, when Steve Martin did exactly the same thing in “L.A. Story,” it ended in giggling. When Jay and Tyler did it in the pilot episode of “Traveler” last week, not only was security alerted throughout the entire building – “They’ve got wheels! On their feet! Stop the madness!” – but because they were doing this disruptive rollerblading just before a huge honking bomb went off in the museum, the FBI – who had the security tapes and the men’s images released to the public within moments of the explosion – they’re somehow blamed for it.

Backing up a bit, this whole thing seems to be one delightful misunderstanding. Jay and Tyler are best buds who, together with their friend Will Traveler, set off on a road trip to see America, inspired by Jack Kerouac and probably lots of booze.

They get as far as New York. Will takes Jay and Tyler out for a night of partying and they wake up hungover and highly suggestible. Since Will is the one of them who wakes up the other two, and Will was the one who parked the car the day before (which vanished after the explosion) and Will had the crazy idea for them to skate through the museum, it seems clear that Will set the bomb and set them up to take the fall.

Here’s what I don’t understand: The security tapes can follow their progress all the way through the museum and out the front door. So why can’t the security tapes see that they had nothing to do with setting a bomb? And why can’t they identify the third man in the group – the one who seems to have been burned in the explosion (except everyone knows that it can’t possibly be Will).

It feels like if the officials were to spend an additional hour analyzing the tapes, they could figure out what really happened instead of launching a massive metropolitan manhunt for two rollerskating pinheads (and possibly overlooking the real culprits).

Suspicions

As the pilot episode continued, there was some suggestion that Jay and Tyler weren’t as innocent as they initially appeared. Both of their families harbor anti-government sentiments. Tyler carries an ATM card his father set up specifically in the event his accounts are frozen. And Jay “gives up the second bomb” to save Tyler – not “a” second bomb, but “the” second bomb, suggesting that there might in fact be one.

But since these two are fleeing from federal agents like chickens with their heads cut off – and they seem genuinely surprised to be suspects – it seems like if they were in on it, they weren’t in on it much.

Add the fact that they can’t find a photo of their friend Will anywhere – even after two years of living in the same house – and it seems clear they’re part of something that’s been brewing for a good long time.

The show is reasonably cool. I was wondering why it seemed so sketchy, plot-driven and adolescent until I discovered that show creator and executive producer Dave Digilio wrote the screenplay for “Eight Below” and that’s pretty much it. So thus far, he’s been responsible for proto-terrorist hijinks near Ground Zero and, well, sled dogs.

Does that mean it’s not worth it? Well, this was a pilot episode, where really there’s not a lot of opportunity to instill depth into these characters. Setting up a mystery like this, the audience needs to grab what clues they can from what the characters do rather than who they show themselves to be.

But it’s impossible to ignore how much male adolescent spy novel fantasy seems to permeate this storyline.

And in the end, it’s gotta be said out loud someplace: Skateboarding is not a crime.

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

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