I was wholeheartedly and dreadfully disappointed when they took this show off the air. I even sent an email to UPN (because I didn't have the address of the office of the producers) but it was to no avail. I loved the premise of the show but especially the ensemble cast. The chemistry between all the players was wonderful and the cast was quite impressive, including Nick Searcy (film actor whose films include Castaway and Fried Green Tomatoes), Jonathan LaPaglia (formerly on NY Undercover), Norman Lloyd (best known for his role on St. Elsewhere), and Don Franklin (formerly on Sea Quest). Ah, but I guess it wasn't meant to be. This show is still sorely missed by at least one viewer (and probably more)!
10 Reviews
Great time-travel yarn
Tastiger9 July 1999
I just saw this tonight and this has to be one of the best TV pilots I've seen in years. If the series is this good, I'll be watching every week. The plot is an inventive blend of THE TERMINATOR, STARGATE and the old TIME TUNNEL, and moves like a lightning bolt. A great script and a great cast (I kept wondering why Alan Scarfe looked so familiar, till I recalled he starred in the TV series based on Jules Verne's MYSTERIOUS ISLAND). Anybody who nods off during this one has no soul!
After seeing one episode, I was hooked. I love it!
carmit4726 September 2002
I came across this series while on vacation and immediately fell in love with it! 3 of my siblings also love it. It is an original idea (not time travel, but how they go about it) and was very well done. It is funny and creative. When I returned to Canada, me and my siblings were very upset to find out that the show is not on here.
Seven days rocks
nox154k28 December 1999
This is a fantastic show with many great plots
anaa10820 July 2001
I really enjoy this show. I've been watching it for 1 and a half seasons now and I keep expecting it to repeat itself, but it hasn't! Each episode is unique and interesting, yet not like any other episode. In addition to changing the various catastrophes Parker goes back to avoid (nuclear annihilation, assassination, terrorist bombings, leaks of biological warfare, etc.), the writers actually vary something about the going-back process. Once it was multiple backsteps when Frank tried to get it all perfect; once it was a trip into an alternate universe when a test backstep coincides with a power surge (and this had characters in very different roles, if you were familiar with them before); once it was a voodoo practitioner summoning the white god "Shakazulu" and getting Frank through an odd series of coincidences--and he really does help her friend. It's clever but not in an in-your-face kind of way.
There is ongoing tension in the old animosity-hiding-intense-attraction department between Olga and Frank, and this gets resolved very satisfactorily. Sometimes she declares her love for him, so we get to see them "together", but usually he has to backstep, so it's all back to normal and he's the only one who remembers what was and what could have been. This is true of all the relationships on the show. So the balance never gets destroyed, but we get the satisfaction of seeing what's been suggested for so long.
Anyway, I highly recommend this show. I started watching it because Wednesdays are usually dead before 9:00 (I could not get into Dark Angel), but now I actually go out of my way to catch it. The main character is not the typical leading man but I like that, less formulaic. The ensemble acting and writing are really very good. And there's plenty of explosions and car chases to go around.
There is ongoing tension in the old animosity-hiding-intense-attraction department between Olga and Frank, and this gets resolved very satisfactorily. Sometimes she declares her love for him, so we get to see them "together", but usually he has to backstep, so it's all back to normal and he's the only one who remembers what was and what could have been. This is true of all the relationships on the show. So the balance never gets destroyed, but we get the satisfaction of seeing what's been suggested for so long.
Anyway, I highly recommend this show. I started watching it because Wednesdays are usually dead before 9:00 (I could not get into Dark Angel), but now I actually go out of my way to catch it. The main character is not the typical leading man but I like that, less formulaic. The ensemble acting and writing are really very good. And there's plenty of explosions and car chases to go around.
Dealing w/ Issues
cjrylands14 October 2003
Okay, I'll admit that this is not the best-produced show ever on television, but I wouldn't call it a train wreck either.
First, for those of you who think they don't deal w/ the "There should be 2 Parkers/Spheres" issue, let me tell you they do. It's discussed somewhat in the Pilot and you get snippets of it throughout the rest of the series (there's even one where the Sphere manages to go back by itself w/out Parker). Now, I don't remember the explanation exactly, but it's something about how the Sphere travels through time. Because it uses some kind of gravity displacement mechanism to time travel (no one ever said the show was scientifically accurate :-) ), it results in the Sphere and its contents (including Frank) to be displace their counterparts in the alternate timeline. In the Pilot, for instance, Frank is taken out of a mental institution to work on the project. When he shows up in the alternate timeline, he is reported as "missing" from that institution.
This also helps answer the question of why they can't just keep Back Stepping forever. If the Sphere displaces its counterpart from 7 days ago, there's only one Sphere. The Sphere itself takes 7 days to regenerate its energy source after a Back Step, thus it can't keep going over and over and over.
These may not seem like a satisfactory explanations to some of you, but they are at least explanations. And give the writers credit for one thing: they don't beat you over the head with them (obviously, since most of you objectors didn't even see them).
So like I said, it may not be the greatest show ever, but it is pretty interesting. And I think TNN put it in a good time slot: 1 AM Eastern. That late at night, it becomes pretty easy to believe anything. :-)
First, for those of you who think they don't deal w/ the "There should be 2 Parkers/Spheres" issue, let me tell you they do. It's discussed somewhat in the Pilot and you get snippets of it throughout the rest of the series (there's even one where the Sphere manages to go back by itself w/out Parker). Now, I don't remember the explanation exactly, but it's something about how the Sphere travels through time. Because it uses some kind of gravity displacement mechanism to time travel (no one ever said the show was scientifically accurate :-) ), it results in the Sphere and its contents (including Frank) to be displace their counterparts in the alternate timeline. In the Pilot, for instance, Frank is taken out of a mental institution to work on the project. When he shows up in the alternate timeline, he is reported as "missing" from that institution.
This also helps answer the question of why they can't just keep Back Stepping forever. If the Sphere displaces its counterpart from 7 days ago, there's only one Sphere. The Sphere itself takes 7 days to regenerate its energy source after a Back Step, thus it can't keep going over and over and over.
These may not seem like a satisfactory explanations to some of you, but they are at least explanations. And give the writers credit for one thing: they don't beat you over the head with them (obviously, since most of you objectors didn't even see them).
So like I said, it may not be the greatest show ever, but it is pretty interesting. And I think TNN put it in a good time slot: 1 AM Eastern. That late at night, it becomes pretty easy to believe anything. :-)
A guilty pleasure ...
ganda1f13 October 2003
This is the show that, despite everything that is wrong with it, I still consistently enjoy.
Don't get me wrong, the writing is cheesy and the actors cringe their way through their lines. The production values vary, but have a tendency to look computer generated and / or cheap whenever anything interesting happens on screen.
But somehow ... I find myself watching, and enjoying, this addled mess. It may not provide the same sophisticated satisfaction that the West Wing or The Shield may provide, but this is fine cheese-fest television entertainment.
Don't get me wrong, the writing is cheesy and the actors cringe their way through their lines. The production values vary, but have a tendency to look computer generated and / or cheap whenever anything interesting happens on screen.
But somehow ... I find myself watching, and enjoying, this addled mess. It may not provide the same sophisticated satisfaction that the West Wing or The Shield may provide, but this is fine cheese-fest television entertainment.
Fascinating, like a train wreck
jeffq31 May 2003
This has got to be one of the worst-written sci-fi series ever made. And yet you can't help watching it, like a train wreck happening right in front of you. Its concept is clever and the episode ideas are frequently intriguing, but it suffers from poor execution and from literally being a vehicle for its star. I find myself watching it just to see how they screw up great themes.
EXECUTION: The series characters are more like caricatures. The security chief of this super-secret US project is barely competent and frequently childish. (More caricatures below.) The show is filled with unexplained "conundrums". For instance, what happens to the seven-days-ago Parker when the current one "backsteps"? I've seen perhaps 20 episodes, and I don't recall any attempt to explain this. The explanations they do give really make you appreciate Star Trek writers' efforts to make sense (or at least to be self-consistent in their nonsense). And many episodes require absurd events in order to reach their inevitable resolutions. The Secret Service accidentally leaves behind the man with the President's nuclear "football". Parker impresses Vancouver citizens and police with his *American* NSA badge. (The X-Files-like location overlay says Vancouver is in "British, Columbia", as if it were an area called "British" in the state of "Columbia", rather than the Canadian province "British Columbia".) And that same episode gets the "Battlestar Galactica" award for copying the movie "Run, Lola, Run", right down to the techno songs!
STAR POWER: LaPaglia out-Shatners Shatner. This billion-dollar project permanently sidelines its original "pilot" because Frank has to do *all* the backsteps. Dr. Olga Vukavitch constantly bounces between cold-shouldering Parker's advances and demonstrating unreasonable and unprofessional jealousy. (Justina Veil must have cringed her way through the series with the erratic and silly behavior her storylines required.) Every woman Parker encounters is madly attracted to him. And Parker *always* solves the problems; no other character is permitted to make a meaningful contribution. (One exception: when Donovan quits Backstep and Parker retroactively tries to convince him that's he's important. But it was hard to pay attention to the Donovan character in this episode -- I kept seeing actor Don Franklin instead, trying to make something of the pitiful bone the writers tossed him, probably to keep *him* from quitting.)
In all, it's fascinating but painful to watch this show flush away the good ideas with such poor writing and directing. I wish Mystery Science Theater 3000 had gotten their hands on this show. They would have made it hysterical instead of pathetic.
EXECUTION: The series characters are more like caricatures. The security chief of this super-secret US project is barely competent and frequently childish. (More caricatures below.) The show is filled with unexplained "conundrums". For instance, what happens to the seven-days-ago Parker when the current one "backsteps"? I've seen perhaps 20 episodes, and I don't recall any attempt to explain this. The explanations they do give really make you appreciate Star Trek writers' efforts to make sense (or at least to be self-consistent in their nonsense). And many episodes require absurd events in order to reach their inevitable resolutions. The Secret Service accidentally leaves behind the man with the President's nuclear "football". Parker impresses Vancouver citizens and police with his *American* NSA badge. (The X-Files-like location overlay says Vancouver is in "British, Columbia", as if it were an area called "British" in the state of "Columbia", rather than the Canadian province "British Columbia".) And that same episode gets the "Battlestar Galactica" award for copying the movie "Run, Lola, Run", right down to the techno songs!
STAR POWER: LaPaglia out-Shatners Shatner. This billion-dollar project permanently sidelines its original "pilot" because Frank has to do *all* the backsteps. Dr. Olga Vukavitch constantly bounces between cold-shouldering Parker's advances and demonstrating unreasonable and unprofessional jealousy. (Justina Veil must have cringed her way through the series with the erratic and silly behavior her storylines required.) Every woman Parker encounters is madly attracted to him. And Parker *always* solves the problems; no other character is permitted to make a meaningful contribution. (One exception: when Donovan quits Backstep and Parker retroactively tries to convince him that's he's important. But it was hard to pay attention to the Donovan character in this episode -- I kept seeing actor Don Franklin instead, trying to make something of the pitiful bone the writers tossed him, probably to keep *him* from quitting.)
In all, it's fascinating but painful to watch this show flush away the good ideas with such poor writing and directing. I wish Mystery Science Theater 3000 had gotten their hands on this show. They would have made it hysterical instead of pathetic.
the producers of the series thinks we're stupid
p_dit1 September 2000
There are a couple of things that I find annoying about this series. Firstly, the time travel bit. Whenever Parker (LaPaglia) travels back through time (called a backstep) and ends up seven days in the past, won't there then be two Parkers, one Parker from the original time line, and the other Parker from the future? But every time I watch the series, invariably Parker travels back through time and then calls up the centre with the codename conundrum. But where is the original Parker who was lounging around the centre at that time (well, I suppose he might not have been at the centre at that time but he still had to be somewhere)? I mean how do you explain this? I thought about it (yeah, I know I should get a life) and I thought maybe whenever Parker travels through time, he'll end up landing (along with the sphere) on the original Parker (Parker from the past), killing, or better still, annihilating him altogether. But this won't work either since there are episodes where the sphere ends up in space and there was no indication that the original Parker went to space during the time. And since the professor whatshisname, the one in the wheelchair, has actually mentioned that you can't actually predict where the sphere will end up, that basically means the theory can't be used because if it were true, that means you would be able to predict where the sphere will end up (basically, it'll end up wherever Parker was seven days ago). The thing is, this issue is never dealt with at all in the series. And it annoys me like hell. And then there's that concept where you could only travel seven days to the past. Can't Parker travel back seven days, hop on to the sphere again (and he can choose between the sphere he came with or the sphere from the past--- this is the same problem with that multiple Parker issue), and travel back another seven days. Then there would be no seven day limit at all. Oh yeah and there's another thing I don't understand. What is the criteria necessary for a backstep to be authorized? There is one episode where a marriage ceremony involving royalties from different countries was sabotaged (blown up) and people (including the bride and groom if I'm not mistaken) were killed. A backstep was issued to prevent the sabotage. Personally I do not think such an event warrants a backstep. The thing is, the criteria for backstep was never established accurately. I believe that the conflicts that could arise out of deciding whether or not to backstep would increase the appeal of the show. Well, that's basically my view of the series, which I admit is rather on the negative. I can't really think of good stuff to talk about the show, I suppose because I just can't get over the negative points. I mean, it could have been a decent show only if the writers had stopped to think about these obvious things. Therefore I have vowed not to watch the series anymore because it only results in grief and bewilderment to myself and I feel it has zero entertainment value.
I liked it for a while
len-2627 February 2002
This show was mildly entertaining. There were some obvious plot problems, as another writer already pointed out. However, this was not a science show; it was merely entertainment.
I got sick of it after the fourth time that the villains were those evil drug dealers.
I got sick of it after the fourth time that the villains were those evil drug dealers.
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