ADVERTISEMENTS

I'm still making it sound hokey -- but somehow it's not.  My friend sent me all 13 first-season episodes on DVD, and I ended up getting hooked and watching them all over the course of about 10 days.  It's really surprisingly good.  Surprising because the premise is stupid and the logic is completely ridiculous -- what's happening in the time travels makes no sense, the psychiatrist appears out of nowhere, and her multi-day journeys into the past end up taking no actual time in the present... yet other people see the psychiatrist, so he can't just be a figment of her imagination, and some details of the present (along with other characters' memories) do in fact change, so there's something going on... but it doesn't make any sense to try and puzzle it out because it's gobbledygook and makes Journeyman and Quantum Leap look like they were written by scientists.

But here's why it's awesome -- the characters seem real, the relationships seem real, the life problems seem authentic, and the solutions don't seem as easy as 90% of what ends up happening most of the time on TV.  The fact that it's a comedy-ish but played over an hour means that the characters have some space to breathe and things can unfold at a leisurely pace.  The supporting cast is all made reasonably three-dimensional and isn't just comic relief.  The characters are generally smart and making reasonable choices and written as semi-intelligent beings.  Not every episode, and not all the time.  There's some inconsistency episode to episode, sure.  But, overall, I really liked.

The creators of the show would probably find this opinion baffling, but the time-travel gimmick, for me, is by far the weakest element of the show, and the scenes I'm tempted to fast-forward through.  I actually think the show is strongest when it's in the present, playing the character's real-life problems -- and that the characters and writing are strong enough that the show could live in that Brothers and Sisters kind of world without needing to resort to the gimmick, and deal with the illogical flashbacks and complications presented by the time travel.

But that's just my opinion.

The show's apparently now airing in the US on Soapnet, which is apparently a channel on cable, although I've never heard of it until now.

Interview with the creators on another blog here, and some more about it here.  It beats a lot of what's on US television, for sure.

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.