Journeyman"The Legend of Dylan McCleen"
Original Air Date: October 22, 2007
Jeff L - TwoCents Staff Writer
The Vassers are out enjoying a street festival replete with magicians and jugglers. Dan Vasser (Kevin McKidd) gets that Quantum Leap feeling and takes off. Leaving his kid alone while his wife and his brother (her old boyfriend) the cop, look for him.
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Journeyman
ReplyDelete"The Legend of Dylan McCleen"
Original Air Date: October 22, 2007
Jeff L - TwoCents Staff Writer
The Vassers are out enjoying a street festival replete with magicians and jugglers. Dan Vasser (Kevin McKidd) gets that Quantum Leap feeling and takes off. Leaving his kid alone while his wife and his brother (her old boyfriend) the cop, look for him.
They won’t find him, since he’s in 1975 cutting down a guy called Dylan McCleen (not his real name) from a parachute stuck in a tree. McCleen pulls a gun, from his Special Forces bag, to kill Vasser, but he’s already Gone, Baby Gone Back to the Future. He goes home and his kid is fine, but his cop brother is pissed. Vasser tells him off. I guess he won’t bother trying to tell his brother what is really going on. Even though his wife didn’t take that much convincing before she believed him.
The Chronicle office, they want to make some cutbacks because the paper is losing money. Of course Vasser’s name comes up, since he hasn’t been hanging around the office too much lately. He’s busy googling Dylan McCleen who robbed an airplane and made off with $100,000 by parachuting out with the money back in 1975. Turns out, he’s never been found. Mid-google Vasser jumps again and this time he’s in a Chinese laundry. McCleen is there too, flashing a picture around asking if anyone has seen the guy in the picture. Vasser follows him out onto the street but McCleen is onto him and pulls a knife on him. Is Vasser a green beret? Special Forces? How did he find McCleen twice now. Livia (werewolf vampire girl) shows up and McCleen runs off, but not before admonishing Vasser.
Back in todayland, the SFPD is at the door flashing a photo of their own. They’re investigating the guy with the gun from last week’s episode. Vasser was the guy with the gun so there’s trouble brewing. Livia and Vasser enjoy some 1970s era hotdogs and she tells him that he should be carrying his own old money. He jumps back and his wife is pissed, she doesn’t think he robbed the liquor store last week. Which is what the cops think, but she knows he showed up at her black tie affair with a gun in his pocket. Their kid is bummed too since Vasser wasn’t home to help with his homework. They talk about Livia and she thinks Vasser is sleeping with her in the past. He’s not. He smooths things over and they embrace. Then he’s off again and he’s back in 1975.
Vasser spots the picture guy that McCleen was looking for and helps him push his car into a gas station. The man tells Vasser that a guy named Captain Rich was supposed to help him bring his family over from Cambodia. He says he’s been looking all over for him because he has the money to help his family. The man tells Vasser that Captain Rich helped him get out of Cambodia and gave him a necklace that looks like some kind of medal. McCleen/Captain Rich was supposed to help his family, but he got sent out of town for migratory work and they lost contact. Vasser doesn’t know where Mcleen is but he grabs the medal and takes off to find him.
Back at the Chronicle in todayland, Vasser tells his edior he’s onto the identity of the legendary Dylan McCleen, but his in his desk chair waiting for him is Langley the guy who called him in the present and in the past last week. Langley knew his father back at NASA. Vasser tells him he talked to him on the phone 15 years ago, but the man plays it off saying he might have been calling for his father and that Vasser has a very good memory. Vasser plays the I’m writing a book card and they talk time travel in the language of science fiction. Langley believes in time travel and wants to know more about Vasser’s protagonist. There’s some science talk and Langley warns Vasser that someone with the abilities Vasser is discussing would be very valuable to those looking to take advantage of his ability to manipulate the past.
Back home Vasser has to break the news to his kid that he can’t go the big baseball game with him, because he has to work. Then he Quantum Leaps right in front of the kid this time. Livia tells him she knows a photo journalist who covered the Vietnam War. The journalist? It’s Vasser’s dad.
Frank Vasser ran out on Dan when he was just a little kid so he doesn’t recognize him. He tells his dad he’s working on a story and he dad reluctantly agrees to help him. He knows an army ranger named Captain John Richie and gives Vasser a lead. Vasser tracks him down in a bar and McCleen/Richie thinks Vasser tracked the serial numbers on the money he made off with. Vasser says he’s a reporter and they talk about the Cambodian man. He helped Captain Richie when he was wounded and Rich helped the man escape Cambodia. Vasser shows him the medal and the two go to find the man at the restaurant where he told Vasser he was working on his last leap. The man tells Richie that his family is hiding out in Thailand and they plan to head over there to get them out. Richie has the money now so it shouldn’t be a problem. Vasser trades jackets with the captain and jumps back. His pockets are full of money. Great. As if he wasn’t under enough suspicion in the liquor store robbery.
Vasser calls the Cambodian man in present day and they talk about the Khmer Rouge. The man got his family out and he was one of the lucky ones. Captain Richie now runs a custom motorcycle shop and has a wife and kids. Vassers blows off the editors though telling them that Captain Richie wasn’t Dylan McCleen. He heads home and immediately shows his wife all the money he came back with. He tells her it’s Dylan McCleens money and agrees to tell her the whole story. His kid isn’t mad at him anymore, because he saw him leap and he thinks it’s cool magic that his dad is doing.
Another strong episode. 3.5 out of 5 stars.