Pilot: Part 1

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.

Its very cool example when parker and olgas ex husband are fighting and its almost real that the studio build the sphere to the serie, and they use fuel froma UFO space craft from 1954 and rhe rosenfelt technologie.

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.

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 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.