“The Hanged Man”

“Hanged Man” was a phenomenal episode, dramatic, soulsearching, and wonderfully performed at least emotionally.   It showcases both a good storyline via Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder in that the tiniest of indiscretions can change things enough to have significant changes in the time travelers lifetime.  It however does fall short in the transitions of getting from scene to scene.

In addition we are also given just a bit more information on Dan and Livia and another intersting if fruitless conversation with Langley.  So all in all without answering too many questions, we still get an exciting show.

We began this week in a rare moment of intimacy for Dan and Katie which involve Dan taking snapshots of his undressing wife.  He slips the camera in his pocket and before they can take their journey together, Dan flashes back in time, leaving Katie to take a solo journey of her own.

Dan ends up in an RV perilously hanging off the edge of a cliff.  He quickly helps the driver and her teenage son get off before the RV falls over and Dan flashes back to the future.  Unfortunately in the scuffle, Dan’s camera falls to the ground.

When he gets back to the future he quickly realizes that leaving even the tiniest bit of advanced technology can cause major rifts in a timeline.  Everything seems to be completely still in sync, until Katie calls down their “daughter” Caroline to say goodnight to Dan.

Yes, it seems that for reasons they explain a bit later, the new rift caused the Vassars to have a girl instead of a boy.  In a great performance by both Vassars it is a highly charged incident.  Caroline the innocent, Katie Vassar who has not idea what Dan is talking about when he talks about Zach and their “old life”.  As far as she knows this is her life and Carloine is her duaghter leaving Dan alone in this world, remembering Zach.

Unfortunately the journey of the week though set up to cause this rift, just isn’t very compelling beneath the surface. The characters are rather bland and there seems to be  an overwhelming sense of just being there because they have to be.

One glaring example is that Dan discovers the camera and then lets this one woman secruity captain take it away from him.  He has it in his hands…what causes his son to disappear and he’s worried about…what?  He knows that that is a part of a mission.  Why doesn’t he just destroy it right then and there, or take it and run.  It seemed kind of forced that he gives the camera back at this point.

Of course it doesn’t matter due to the heartfelt performances.  You can feel Dan’s desire to reclaim his son, but also his guilt at having to destroy the innocent Carolne.

The tidbits we get this episode are very intriguing.  It seems that both Dan and Livia were born under a rare celestial occurance.   This might indicate who can travel and who can’t.

Also Dan tries to talk to Langley again and shows him the picture he found of himself as a young boy and a younger Langley at NASA.  But Langley refuses to even acknowledge that he knows Dan.  What exactly is Langley anyways?  Well we’ll never learn now, but interesting nonetheless.

Of course Dan gets Zach back by the end and everything seems smooth, andt that’s what’s important and hopefully Dan TRULY gets not to mess with things in the past although it is true that it wasn’t exactly his fault this time.  I honestly love this episode for the performances but if I had to be unbiased, it is dragged down by the shoehorned journey.

B-

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