The Fantastic Journey. Episode 1. "Vortex" Flawed, but fun.
The pilot for TFJ follows a group of travelers who are ship-wrecked on an island somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle, and find themselves moving between time zones. There's lots to like, but there are some huge problems to deal with, as well.
First, the flaws: The two biggest problems are bland cast-members and dis-jointed storytelling.
The story opens with lots and lots of people on a small boat. When the storm hits the first one is killed off. The group wakes up on a beach. And two more are rapidly killed off. Since we didn't get to know any of these 'redshirts', and none of the survivors are visibly bothered by the demise of the trio, the viewer is left to wonder: why bother including them, at all?
By the time we get to the middle-third of the pilot, we have a group of seven. Some of them are painfully dull. It's hard to root for the rescue of a character that you absolutely don't care about! But duff characters are only half the problem...
The storytelling suffers towards the end of the movie. The first third is the tightest, most coherent. In the middle-third, we get short scenes of Gary Collins that have nothing to do with the story, and merely serve to distract.
By the final third, things are all over the place as the script takes gigantic leaps in an effort to ditch half the remaining cast and set up a new core group for the series to follow! The fact that this final third is out-and-out sci-fi hokum is jarring, too, because the first two-thirds used sci-fi as support for the story being told. Here, suddenly, it IS the story.
However...
All is not lost.
Despite the two flaws featured above, there are many things to enjoy here. And enjoy a lot.
One: The premise. It's cool. Travelers lost on an island of different time zones? Yes, please! Count me in.
Two: The characters. Yes, half of the bunch are bland and boring, but - at least - two are really good. They jump out of the screen, partly because the performers - Jared Martin and Ike Eisenmann are so watchable and partly because both are interesting characters. And, it must be said, the relationship between them captures the imagination. Varian, the man from the future, and Scott, the young son of the main character, connect and have many key scenes. They like each other. And we like them.
Three: The baddie. Ian McShane's character is interesting. His motivations are perfectly in keeping with the premise. It works.
Four: The ending. The final minutes (and a few scenes before that) are obviously added long after the pilot was filmed. Yet, as jarring as this all is: there is a burning curiosity to find out what happens next. Plus, the fact that two of the three characters abruptly written out were awful gives the viewer hope that maybe episode 2 might be more fun.
Five: The pace. With all the zipping about, and the fact that a couple of scenes end very abruptly (as if edited down) means that the movie is never boring. It moves rapidly. Sure, it's a somewhat morbid fascination (watching things done badly) but it does hold the interest.
Overall: Flawed, but fun. I enjoyed it. And will happily move on to the next episode.
6/10
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The Fantastic Journey. Episode 1. "Vortex"
