Watching the show, Nowhere Man again is really frustrating I mean it's just like ep 6, The Spider Webb, predictable. You know Tom's going to end up in the same place, scenario, situation as all the eps before and you just can't help wondering why he falls into those traps and pitfalls that are just ready and waiting for him. Was it written like that, did they deliberately make his character so 'predictable' at times, all the time? Why does he miss the obvious 'clues' or set ups/traps that are right before his eyes. He has such dreamy blue eyes! To digress! Did anyone actually think, this show is really going nowhere, man! Ha.
Hey I know it's only a TV show and those pitfalls are needed or viewers will switch off and the ratings will bomb, but sometimes, just once, you wish they'd do things differently and no disrespect to anyone associated with the show and Bruce Greenwood made it what it is. Will love the guy in anything he comes in, cos yeah I think he's a brilliant actor and an even greater guy in person! Love him plenty! But I got a little annoyed with what they had written for him, script-wise, in some of the eps. Especially looking back at them now and re-watching. As I said can watch him a million times over in the same show and each time will get something different out of it and him!
Then was it just me or the glasses smashing and the trays falling in almost all the eps! What was that, some kinda clue, warning for everyone to take their places and their cue in the episode, not whilst filming is what I mean. Not to mention all the bad guys or those involved in chasing after him, luring him, etc, they all drink water. "It's in the water dude!" ha. Seriously though. maybe someone somewhere has written this before, but I wasn't blogging when watching this first time round and of course, there's a little thing such as the Internet not being around. So we only had papers and magazines to rely on and they're not going to give anything away!
Watching ep 6 especially had this whole feeling or sense of deja vu, not only in terms of, yeah he's going to find some clue, then he'll follow it up and in the end, it'll get him nowhere. It was like the entire ep was meant to be like the entire show, just one big stage and everyone was just play acting. Like they're just making one big movie in 25 eps. Even the bus at the end, "Evergreen Stage" Lines!! Stage! Acting, studio, act!
Ep 5 Paradise At Your Doorstep, though and Eagle Flight Centre, wasn't that meant to be from the ep 1.3 The Incredible Derek with the psychic boy, Derek, who wasn't really psychic or blind. Shouting at the scene, he's not really blind Tom!! How'd he see your hand when he took hold of your fingers! Then that other ploy where he wanted to see the negatives, 'it's okay I'm blind.' Yeah aren't you. Then there was the water and spilling the glass over in that ep too. Didn't hear anything break in the diner though! (Also in ep 5 we had the photoshop called 'Corey's' completely unrelated to this show, but that was Bruce's character name in the Pilot film Destination America which wasn't picked up! Everyone called him Cinqo.)
Though in ep 4 Something About her, Karin (Carrie-Anne Moss) did break a cup and she fell in the water taking him with her. No one actually drank any. Would he really have forgotten about his wife and spent the night with Dee in ep 5, so easily. Which took me a back to the conversation he had with Alyson (Megan Gallagher) in the Pilot when she tells him she was easy! Linking that with Nancy in ep 6 saying she didn't know if Nancy could be trusted. I thought the same. The way she turned on him so easily when he followed her. Maybe she was just a plant all along. He did say they were only married two and a half years. If she really loved him and was on the level, wouldn't she have given him some clue, some indication of why she went along with them. Then there was that scene with the shrink, Bellamy. She was so at ease with him too (sorry to use the word ease a lot! ha) like she was a part of the whole conspiracy.
I must admit in ep 6 I thought Tom would've let the ending of the script on the floor and not picked it up. Yes he was predictable, but then he read Nancy's script ending. Was this the same ending in the script smarmy Max gave him. Never trust a producer/writer. They will have your heads spinning with their twisting plots and predictions.
IN ep 7, The computer screen smashing twice, well just the sound and Scott with his 'close but no cigar line.' So what did he find in that file that he couldn't tell Tom about. That what, it's not real, none of it is real and he's going on a wild goosechase, or they were using him for some covert operation?
Ep 8 The Alpha Spike, the alias of Jack Griffin was there an in-joke here, a secret one, Jack Gage was Bruce's name in Legman and Seth Griffin was his name in St Elsewhere. ha. I know, let's combine the two! ha. Here was the pot plant falling, now who dropped that in the headmaster's office. Then the cigar smoking man at the end. So no glass shattering in ep 9 You Really Got A Hold On Me, but we did get some water glasses and even Tom drinking water, as well as the customary cigar at the end. But Gus (Dean Stockwell) smoking one would've been more in character, especially since it would've been in character with Al in Quantum Leap. Not to mention Tina and how he was always in love with Tina!! So why did Tom call them up and turn in Gus, it wasn't to save him and that gun shot in the end, was that really Gus exiting stage left??
Then there was rather a bit of a turn around in this ep, Father, when Tom found his father, now we had Tom coming down with something and he was the one doing the smashing of things, the glass, the Christmas decorations and how he heard the glass smashing still in the doc's office. Of course what made his father's cigar smoking different was using the cutter instead of the pencil. But we had to get one other cigar in it. Can you believe the photo was behind the sofa, no, neither can I. though I did say that his father looked younger than his mother when we first see him.
Ooh here we go again, more love interest, don't ya just hate it when they have a woman in the show and you know why and what's going to happen, as if you wrote the script yourself. Wait, if I wrote the script I'd have to put myself in every scene! ha. So we get a reference to steel, glass and concrete in ep 10 An Enemy Within and that was just from Tom, including the shop owner breaking something early on. This one was a bit of a shattering ep, or sacrilege, I mean to get Tom to give it all up, his life his past. His past is his life, it's what makes him who he is. Come to think about it, if he wasn't in dire straits he wouldn't be where he was so Emily, ya didn't think of that, did ya?!
He can't give up, it's not in him and he needs answers and more importantly the truth. He can't pretend he has no life, had no life and give it all up and give in. In some way's what's probably why he used his real name here, forgetting the fact it was a hick back own. He did use his own name most of the time anyway.
It's Not Such A Wonderful Life. So if this was such an elaborate ploy, why leave the tape behind. Yes I thought that, not another hoax, but they had Tom falling for it everytime, the lies, the big happy family, cos deep down they know it's what's he wants and that they can convince him it's real too. Would he really have turned over the negatives anyway, that's the first thing I thought when the woman mentioned how she was needing his testimony and then the clinker, or sinker, was wanting the negatives to authenticate and prove beyond a reasonable doubt the photo was real.
So how did he figure it out and why is he never one step ahead of them, especially since they always find him and he's meant to be on the run and what better time to dupe him then at Christmas. It's always about trust, he has trust issues and yet they always find him. Including the file, with all the photos, of course they'd have it, they're everywhere. Tom belongs nowhere. I tell you I'm having serious trust issues behind Alyson too, she's always in the thick of it, lies and then deserts him. When she mentioned they've had the photo before him, three years earlier and they were married two and a half years, it seems there was more to their 'marriage' and Alyson than meets the eye. Was her cooking turkey the clincher??
Then there was the over turning table with the glass smashing and the bottles too and Alyson just drops the, well throws, the perfume bottle down. That'd do it and the smashing in the kitchen, or was that just the turkey baster!! ha. Also when he was asked if he wanted any water in the interrogation at the beginning. Especially since there was no mention of cigars that'd been too easy. NO angels got wings this ep and Clarance where were you when needed. As the title suggested It's Not A Wonderful Life!
SO he gets these tidbits of information and doesn't know what to do with them, so many questions and no answers. Ep 13 Contact had the same predictability again, he'd take the file cos in the end he can't resist it. This one did have a future Dark Angel ep feel about it. You know with chimera and the motorbike messenger job he had, just to find some info in the place. But how does he get his leads and end up in the wrong place at the wrong time all the time. This time the glass shattering effect was through Tom's eye.
Ep14 Heart of Darkness was run of the mill, army recruits fighting for another man's vision of a truer America and what it should be. Though Tom does seem to get into a lot of jams and has to talk his way out by telling them who he is and they don't want to kill him, if they value their own lives. Only cigar in this one smoked by Quinn, but plenty of water. Do you see the aurora borealis? Ha. Yeah, where the sun don't shine. Or as I would've had Tom saying in true Prisoner fashion, "I am not a number, I am a free man." Seeing as he was Number 6! Freedom being relative. I thought that anyway.
Ep 15 Forever Jung and the old folks' home was the forerunner to Dark Angel, spot a young Zoe McClellan making an appearance as an assassin at the end. Yes, Dark Angel, genetically modified soldiers, here in much the same way, we had genetically enhanced old people being used as assassins. Women of course cos they can get away with more, especially if the target is male. Yet no glass shattering, only some water when Tom meets with the younger Pauline. But he did manage to find out that either Alyson was enhanced in the same way, just think Tom, you may be married to an older woman, or she had the implant and was made to do what she did. I on the other hand always preferred the notion that Alyson was all bad to begin with and just seduced him for getting what the Organization wants.
1.16 Shine A Light On You, finally got a cup falling when Tom sees Helen, or rather the other way round, we get the cigar with Bud, so no obvious giveaway as to who he is. Then there was some glass shattering at the end. Plus the Barbershop sign which seemed a continuation from the previous ep where he was told he needs to cut a haircut. Suppose their purposes behind the UFO sightings made for a novel and different idea. But Tom's just not anywhere near finding out what's going on and getting his life back. He has these near pangs of revelations when he's on the right track, gets close but things go awry and he's back to square one. A little like Helen here who seemed to come out of her traumatic state of believing in UFOs, and lucidity when she saw her father, but after losing him, she goes back into that same shell again, which Tom finds difficult to believe.
Ep 18 Hidden Agenda so it appears the glasses breaking and falling started way back when he was in Nicaragua, does this mean they were after him from the outset and not just the photo, especially since it seems they're always around or something happens when the china crashes. Even now. Then his contact brought the entire table down with him. As for all of this not happening, that's what I thought too. That all of this was just some elaborate game, act and wasn't true. Why would anyone want to do this and why choose Tom for this big ploy?
Hidden Agenda being right, what was their hidden agenda behind all of this.
Ep 19 Doppelganger had lots of glass shattering effects and not a broken glass in sight. I don't know maybe it's me but this show was getting a little predictable for me at this stage, watching it first time and second time round. No offence to Bruce, who was perfect as always! Rather everytime something happens, he meets someone or they find him, it always boils down to the negatives and wanting their hands on them and he comes so close to losing them. Like his newfound ally, who found them in his motel room and took them cos Tom predictably put them in a silly place and then took them out to check if they were still there without drawing the blinds. They always have him 'trusting' people so naively and that just doesn't go with his character of photo journalist. He can't be that gullible. Like this one with the negatives once again coming down to having them and needing them to save his skin.
Of course what was missing was his doppelganger and luckily enough I liked how we didn't get to see his face and him having to do a double role on screen. Now that would've been predictable. Glad he got fed up with the palm pilot, but that PD, Jane (Mia Korf) was shifty wasn't she. If she had been on the real Tom's side, then fake Tom wouldn't have let her go, especially since they killed Claire (Jamie Rose) and then took her body. SO they knew nothing about negative numbers until Tom told them, but it was obvious that wasn't the real Tom at the pier, they had him do a swagger and walk differently to the real Tom. Not to mention the strawberry birthmark, that's all we needed for the distinction. Which explains why Jane asked him to repeat himself when he mentioned it.
Thinking real Tom called fake Tom and told him to turn up at the pier. Maybe it's what he says in
the intro that his diary/journal is to record events and they're not real. But they have to be. Are they?? I've doubted that for quite some time and his line here of going through the looking glass which was getting much more elaborate in some ways. So I' also thinking did they need the whole story from Tom in ep 18 Hidden Agenda cos they needed the double to know everything, but then he didn't seem to know anything at all.
Ep 20 Through A Lens Darkly was one of those 'out there' eps where he gets an old flame out of nowhere. Yes we've seen it all before and through everything they put him through they still don't get their negatives. We get the customary glass shattering, camera lens breaking and he even smashes his own camera, but at the end of the day, he didn't really need Laura's words of wisdom to pull him through. He already had the noble pursuit for the truth within him, which is why he did what he did and never gave up on being a photographer. Just like he's not giving up on his search for the truth even now. Predictability in this ep, that Laura would get blown up somehow, somewhere. Just happened to be there.
So ep 21 The Dark Side of the Moon turns out to be a karma ep, if you can call it that. Cos everyone got what they deserved except the gang of course. Bu then anyone Tom has run into or come into contact with ends up dead. Yeah guessed the radio broadcasts were just a commentary on Tom, his life, what's left of it and his quest for the truth. Hence the cigar at the end. First we had shattering glass etc, now it was the clocks and those chimes everywhere. That darn negative is still intact ha!
There's that clock again and how he'll cease to be and to breathe, he'll turn into a pumpkin at midnight. Or as good as considering they used electro chemical therapy on him. So the Agenda is mind control and once again it's all politically motivated. Guess this started out good but somewhere some plots were lost along the way. Going from a photo to this. So if that photo isn't relevant why the need for the negatives, I mean it doesn't prove anything, or have anything to do with mind control does it? Are they instilling that everything that's happened to him was all in his mind and was all controlled by them. An experiment, if so all they had to do was control his mind, make him forget everything and he wouldn't remember the negatives or the photos.
Guess by the time we reached the end of this series, we'd have questioned our own sanity. Real, fake, going round in circles. How Tome ended up where he did, hospital, coma, probable road accident. Ep 23 Zero Minus Ten another one where his actions were predictable, as Larry said, finding the negative was exactly what they wanted him to do, he risked it, took the chance and once again Larry paid the price, or did he even this time? Though glad I was right and Alyson was behind it after all. She was too predictable too. The wife who betrayed him, but didn't really love him. Well she wasn't a wife at all, like I said they got married before all of this supposedly started.
So if he worked at the newspaper office, why didn't they know that and search his locker. They seem to know most everything else. Hmm guess that wasn't predictable enough for them. But how do they, did they end up finding him everywhere he went and he ended up in their clutches.
Had the glass shattering sound effects here, no cigars, but Tom reeling or getting the earth shattering revelation about Alyson which he should've believed all along. She wouldn't have done all this if she did love him, as for saying she loves him as much as life itself, well that'd be her life then, not his.
He finally prints the negative and finds what he was missing; the real reason for everything that happened to him. The secret radio frequency and Heritage House. Meeting Robman (Nicholas Surovy) and finding out about the mind control experiments, which he knew about anyway. Creating perfect assassins. So what's the info he's going to find in the safety deposit box about him. Covert secret organization, conspiracies and everything, kind of in the X- Files territory.
Going back to episode 7 A Rough Whimper of Insanity I want to know what was in his file and what Scott said it contained in there, that it was all what...? Still it seemed kinda easy for him to get to where he is and find out what was really in the photo, that it was altered and the disappearance of the senator, why?
Ep 25 Gemini no cigars I should say for guessing or working out what was really going on, but if you managed it that was great. Yeah I did, should've realized it was all about doubles when there was that double of Tom floating around. The title to this episode was also a big clue and the voice on the phone telling Barton to destroy the Gemini files, well that sounded just like Bruce even if he was kept in the shadows. Government conspiracies, showing how they can manipulate freedom, people and eliminate was the mainstay of this show and all that water drinking. Boy would've needed it by the end of this. It appears the truth was not all it turned out to be and for all of Tom's pursuits in learning it, it just led him round in circles. He really didn't want to end up where he did and learn what he did. He was Gemini and he thought every bit in the same way as Tom did. Did Tom Veil even exist as a person. Wait, if Tom was Gemini and also the other double, then that means there were three of him.
Going back to the ep where found his file and said there's nothing in there, that's what he meant. The file would've only contained info about Tom: the Tom that they made up and brain washed/mind controlled into existence. So they had him chasing ghosts and all the while they were conducting their own experiments.
Had to say that in the beginning though, why did he he just take everything out of the file, now he wouldn't be stupid enough to actually drop it right into their hands from the fire escape.
So how satisfied were you with the show and the ending and did you feel cheated, or where you right there working everything out and what was really going on. These were just my rantings (of a mad woman!! ha) but I've found if you read too much into the show or try to work things out logically, you'll just end up getting more confused. Think it's just a show you watch for the sake of it and leave the pitfalls of making actual sense of it in the background and to those who actually came up with it. Truth is, logic will take you round in circles. Maybe if the series wasn't cancelled, then we'd have taken it slower and gotten some revelations which were logical or made sense. But we enjoyed the ride along with Tom!
I noticed the North By Northwest references and when Tom finds himself at the crossroads in the Pilot ep. My sis even mentioned it. Also to The Prisoner, The Fugitive and The Manchurian Candidate.
The title of the show could've been taken from The Beatles song Nowhere Man? But alas that was based on a novel about something completely different. Some appropriate lyrics though.
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