Time travel made mundane

What would you do if you could travel through time? This question has occupied imaginations as diverse as H.G. Wells, Ray Bradbury and Audrey Niffenegger, author of the recent bestseller "The Time Traveler's Wife." Would you seek to prevent great tragedy -- warn of 9/11, assassinate Hitler? Would you try to repair damage done in your own life by one bad decision, one chance remark? Or would you just buy a few dozen Starbucks franchises or stock in that little upstart called Microsoft?

On NBC's "Journeyman," time traveler Dan Vasser (Kevin McKidd of "Rome") is mostly determined to get his cellphone to work. Understandable; he's new to the reality-shifting biz, and cellphones are the modern-day security blankets. Having spent most of his adult life as a metro reporter at a San Francisco daily, he's a bit baffled when, one evening, he gets into a cab and suddenly finds himself eight years previous, still in San Fran and close enough to his personal stamping grounds that he sees his former fiancée (dead in present time). Then boom, back to the present, where he is now late for his anniversary dinner.

And so it goes, one minute the present, next a blinding headache, wobbly visuals and, wham, down the rabbit hole, where Spy magazine is still on the stands and cellphones don't work (sometimes because they haven't been invented). Which means there is no way for Dan to pick up messages or contact his wife, Katie (Gretchen Egolf), or his editor (Brian Howe) when he goes missing for a few days. Dan also has a brother, Jack (Reed Diamond), who is, conveniently enough, a police officer. They all, of course, suspect he's on drugs (apparently, there has been trouble in the past), a suspicion only confirmed when he tries to tell them the truth.

Time-traveling journalist played by British native McKidd -- it certainly looked good on paper. Alas, like some seductive Internet suitor, "Journeyman" seems perfect until he actually shows up, weedy and uncertain, at your door. In an effort to keep things grounded in "real life," as opposed to groovy sci-fi counterculture, writer-producer Kevin Falls ("Shark," "The West Wing") relies on an earnestness that grows irritating. Obviously, non-consensual time travel would be a bit unnerving at first, but Dan refuses to have any fun at all.