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.