I agree with "London " Media writer .
Boomtown was another favorite , cancelled . Now Journeyman . Maybe I'll stop watching tv all together.

Bring it back !!!!!! It's a great show .I'm sick of all the "Reality Shows"."Journeyman " & " Firefly "
were the two best shows on TV , and both were cancelled !!!! What a shame , How discouraging.

London Calling!

Hey, what is it with you American studio people? Is this what it’s come to? You produce some of the finest TV shows in the Western hemisphere and, seemingly, because some nameless NBC chaps got hung up about the ratings, another great show gets canned (I say 'chaps' because, let’s face it, most of your big US TV networks are run by blokes who think they have the inside track on audience trends!). What is this preoccupation your TV people have with ratings? This ongoing obsession appears to get in the way of supporting quality drama and, as a consequence, denies us, the discerning viewer, the right to continue watching the very shows you make for us and indeed the shows we’ve shown loyalty and dedication to from the off!

Wake Up Call people! We don’t all sit and veg in front of our TVs all day, eating fried food and ignoring the telephone ‘cos we don’t wanna the latest trailer trash family washing their dirty laundry on Oprah! Some of us, this writer and his wife included, are in that band of selective, light TV viewers who knows and appreciates quality TV when they see it.

Come on America…have you not learned? We’ve trodden this well-worn path before. Your modern television history is littered with the ratings equivalent of hair-trigger trouble. Boomtown, and Thief are just two examples of quality shows that have bitten the dust before they even broke into a run. You giveth, then you taketh away! As we know, Jericho narrowly avoided this fate, in most part through the dogged support of the viewers who loved it. However, it still had to be dragged kicking and screaming into a yet-to-be-screened second season! And now, after following the excellent Kevin McKidd - whom I might add is one of Scotland’s finest acting sons - and of course your own superb Gretchen Egolf & Co.- they’re to be confined to TV history because…not enough of us watched the show! Whatever happened to the upscale, opinion-forming, intelligent audience that advertisers oh-so crave?

No, let me guess: Pre launch date, someone at the studio came up with a magical ratings figure, plucked outta the air and doubtless delivered in a whizz-bang presentation to the studio heads; all backed up with mind boggling scientific-sounding audience research that no-one would really admit to comprehending! “Yes, Mr. NBC, we expect Journeyman to deliver X-million ratings in its first season….” Or, perhaps the advertisers and their respective agencies (who, let’s face it, aren’t really in the target demographic themselves) didn’t support the show eh?

What happened about providing Journeyman with a decent time slot? Did anyone take note of time-shift viewing trends on DVRs? What happened to good ol’ fashioned above-the-line promotion? A few months back in New York, ya couldn’t move for bumping into a billboard or bus-side for Dexter…no wonder it’s proved such a hit!

Us Brits send you the highly talented Hugh Laurie (House), Eddie Izzard (The Riches) and Joely Richardson (Nip/Tuck), Ashley Jensen (Ugly Betty) to help launch your award-winning TV shows and this is how you reward us? Surely, the talented Mr. McKidd et al should be elevated to the pantheons of TV greatness by helping to create seriously watchable, inspiring and down right appointment-to-view TV? But no, because the show failed to hit its desired ratings figure, the honchos at NBC will pull the plug before Journeyman has even earned its stripes. Well guys, next time you manage to get the weekly ratings predictions bang on, please will you also let me have your guesses for that week’s lotto numbers? No, strike that, give Kev another chance and he’ll do it for me, through his gift of time-travel of course!

There are some of us that, after a hard day’s work, like to put the kids to bed, brew a nice cup of tea (sorry America but I can’t help mischievously playing to your romantic stereotypes of us mad, tea guzzlin’ Anglo Saxons!) and escape for an hour into another world that, just for a short time, provides an antidote to the stress of all that life can offer. Journeyman was that show. It delivered just the right ingredients of intelligent, thought-provoking and escapist entertainment. NBC made this show for us, the audience who loved it. Then, they took away.

Well, for the ghosts of Boomtown, Thief and now, it seems, Journeyman and all the cast, crew, writers, directors and producers that once believed in the potential of these once-great shows, I salute you. But lo, let’s also hold a candle for the viewers who supported these TV gems and, without prior knowledge or indeed consultation, are left to grieve the death of television as we know it.

The ratings are dead! Long live the ratings!

Journeyman…RIP.

Chris Kelly
London
United Kingdom

Journeyman is the best show not named Lost or Heroes, and, at this point in time, very likely is the best of the three. Part of that is because there is a ton more potential and the unanswered questions thatv are out there are a little more mentally scaleable. while not predictable.

Think of Journeyman as the real life story that Quantum Leap was originally based on (it's not, but just work with me), until it spun into a strong Sci-Fi story of its own. Sam Beckett of Q.L. went to the past to change things that went wrong. He looked the part of someone in the past and we never saw Sam in his own time. J.M. is Dan Vasser a regular guy - with wife and kids - suddenly transporting in time. There are a lot of twists and turns, but suffice it to say that he has no idea why he's jumping back in time - for only short periods - and then back to the present. Except that he learns that he is supposed to change something back in time for whatever reason.

While incorporating one of the mainstays of Sci-fi, time travel, J.M. is a story that takes place in the past and the present. We see the present day repercussions of adding or subtracting things in the recent history (usually somewhere from the 70's through the early 2000's). The journeyman affects his own present day life -- on occassion there are tangible, and even dangerous consequences.

The are layer after layer of storylines within each story -- the one hour conflict, the overarching why & how, as to his time travel, the frequent references to his father (who abandoned his kids when are journeyman was four), and even a former girlfriend who is also a time traveller and frequently helps him on the missions in the past.

Journeyman doesn't ask for, and doesn't pander to, Sci-Fi/time travel fans. But it remains painstakingly consistent in working within, while trying to stretch, the paradoxes that are incumbent to travelling back in time. Especially the warped sense of travelling back within ones own time and often dealing with issues and conflicts that directly affect the Dan's past and present.

The last episode of the season airs Decmber 19. While it is rumored to be in ratings trouble, this is a show that - with the right promotional schedule and the network-confidence to allow more time for the audience to build and the overarching storylines to develop - would be a series for the books. I guess time will tell...

Journeyman has become one of my favorite shows!! I have a lot of shows I watch, but only 3 or 4 that I look forward to seeing. . Journeyman, The Closer, Medium and Burn Notice are the others. I cannot believe NBC would can Journeyman while keeping and giving Deal or No Deal a two hour show. You can TIVO Deal and get the whole jest of the show in 15 minutes by scanning through to see how much money the guys end up with. Singing Bee, Choirs, Loser, and especially The Apprentice ??? keep these and toss Journeyman?? I know, money is the bottom line, so are you telling me Deal, Bee, Choirs, Loser and Apprentice make NBC more money?? Put a Neilson rating box in my home and the homes of my friends and really find out what the public is watching!!!