YEAR OF THE BUNNY ZONK

Over at TV.com, this mistake was pointed out from last week's episode of 'Journeyman', "The Year Of The Rabbit":

Goof: When Dan leaps to 1994 it's announced as the year of the rabbit, but in the Chinese Zodiac 1994 is the year of the dog.

Here's what actually happened: Dan walked into that Cafe Luna (where all the hip timesters meet) and saw his future wife, Katie Barron, doing a report on Channel 9 News. In her closing, she said that 1939 was the Year of the Rabbit, which was the year in which the topic of her report - some small company - first started. The owner of that company hoped that the next year of the rabbit wouldn't be its last.

That's when Dan looks at the paper and sees that it's November 8, 1994.

Even if Katie Barron was referring to the coming year, How could such a simple mistake not be noticed when it was still in the script development stage? It took less than a minute for me to find at least three pages that gave me the details I was looking for when it came to the Chinese Zodiac. (One thing's cool - I found out that my sister and her son - who share the same birthday - also share the Year of the Monkey.) They got the 1939 one right, so obviously he did the research. Why then did he screw up when it came to 1995?

Probably because "The Year Of The Pig" didn't have the same oomph as "Rabbit".

So now we have to go in and fix the temporal glitch.

I'm not about to suggest that in Toobworld, the Chinese Zodiac is different from the one used by us in the Trueniverse. Then I'd have to go through the whole thing and realign all of the years, and for what? Someday another show will come along and point out the correct Chinese Year and throw it all off again.

Instead, it's time to wield Occam's Razor.

Katie was just as screwed up as the author of the episode. She made a mistake. She should have said "Year Of The Pig" if she was referring to next year, "Year Of The Dog" if she was referring to that current year.

But maybe the store's owner was simply referring to the store having to close within the next couple of years, and therefore maybe it was a reference to 1999, the next Year of the Rabbit.

Simple.

But then, why the urgency in doing a TV news report - even if it's a puff piece - at that point in time? No, it has to be that Katie Barron has to take the fall for the script-writer's screw-up. She made a mistake on the air with her closing.

What happens within the Toobworld reality has no bearing on the episode title which is there for our benefit watching at home. If the author chose "Year Of The Rabbit" as the title because it does sound cooler than "Year Of The Dog" and wanted them to align, then he should have changed the show's "leap" to 1987.

BCnU!
Toby OB
(Born in a Year of the Sheep/Ram)